China Day 14: Great Wall!! (長城)

Given that this was my first time in China, seeing the Great Wall was kind of necessarily on the bucket list. I always knew that the Great Wall was supposed to be impressive, but I suppose with all of the hype I had heard about it beforehand; how it is often mentioned in media, movies, and whatnot; how all of my friends have seen and visited it already, I was just a little dulled and not particularly excited.

But even after all of that, lemme tell you, the Great Wall was indeed very impressive. And I have photos to prove it!

However, first we went to a Ming Emperor Tomb because traffic was so bad. The tomb was cool too!

Emperor's Tomb!

Guardian Lion on the Spirit Road

Chinese version of the unicorn! See the horn? :)

There were two of each animal- one sitting and one standing. They were said to alternate sitting and standing with day and night :P 

Serious scholar :P

The Emperor's casket...with his two empresses (not one, but two!)

View from the top!~

The Great Wall!! :D

People on the Great Wall :)

Badaling! (Thank you glare....)

Just to prove I was there. :)

And it goes on....

And on....

And on.... (Love the view~)

You get the point. It keeps going. Also, it was a gorgeous day! <3

And sometimes it was so steep I felt like I was going to die. :(

I climbed all the way up there!! :D

EASC360 family photo! :)

I'm getting really lazy about this blog. Apologies for the gross delays in updates, but I'm feeling burned out from life in general. :(

China Day 15: Herro Xi'an!

We blew through the Terracotta Warriors in about four hours. Also, given that it was some kind of holiday the day we went, the place was ridiculously packed. So many Chinese people. I don't even.

Regardless, I saw the Terracotta Warriors in real life!! :D Amazing, given that I had read about them for EALC145g this past semester. :) Textbook readings come to life are the best!

Cool horse statue at the entrance~

Our tour guide said these were made of lead. DON'T BUY. :P

Terracotta Warriors!! :)

Also, see all those people on the right hand side? Yeah. It was crowded. 

I liked the horses. :)

Different pit~

In the museum! Bronze chariots~ 

Another bronze chariot!

The Emperor didn't just have soldiers! 

He had an animals keeper too! I'd like to see the Rare Birds and Animals Pit! :P

Xi'an was about to have this huge Annual Horticultural Expo.  This was its mascot. It was supposed to be a big deal for the city. 

Small children torturing said mascot in the airport

Again, the importance of this expo to Xi'an cannot be understated. 

We were in Xi'an for a grand total of about five hours, if that. Then it was on the bus to Yan'an, which was a five hour bus ride. Fun stuff! :P However, on the way we stopped for lunch at this really good dumpling restaurant...and I love dumplings!! 

Colorful dumplings!! :D

Mushroom I believe! Funny shapes :)

Duck dumplings...SHAPED LIKE DUCKS.

Swimming in soy sauce~

Veggie dumplings shaped like veggies! 

Sizzling dumpling soup~ :)

Needless to say, I suffered from a massive food coma on the bus ride. So many dumplings. But so good. 

China Day 16: Yan'an is not exciting

I took the liberty of skipping over uneventful days or days during which I didn't really take any pictures. I'm sure nobody's interested in how long I worked on my assignment or the type of ramen noodles I ate as I stayed holed up in my room all day doing said assignment.

Anyway, we visited Yan'an, which is exciting only because it's where the Communist Party ended up after the Long March and how it was sort of the "home base city" of the CCP for quite a while, representing their origins and whatnot. It's also interesting because this city is not that exciting compared to Shanghai and Beijing, so it's almost like the CCP "abandoned" it afterwards. That's up for debate. Anyway, photos!

The famous pagoda of Yan'an

This was a hotel (?) modeled after the cave homes for which Yan'an is famous .

Revolutionary History Museum of Yan'an 

Proud Mao statue

Mao overlooking his city!

CCP leaders

LOL KMT flag

End of the Long March

Gift shop commercializing the image of Mao. Irony? Oh China. 

They are so cute when they extol Communist achievements

Former residences of legit CCP leaders

Inside the cave homes

Engrish attack!

Mao Zedong's cave residence

Zhe De's cave residence

This flute player randomly got on our bus and played the flute for us...haha

Village in Yan'an. 

Again, contrast the city with the villages

Random night market in Yan'an

Pagoda at night!

Pretty much there was not much to do in Yan'an. The city center was a large mall that wasn't fully finished being constructed and was deceptive because we spent a ridiculous amount of time looking for a coffee shop that ended up not existing...yet. When we went out at night there were fireworks, probably for Dragonboat Festival day (端午節), and that was pretty much the most exciting thing that happened!

And, by the way, the hotel there kind of lies. That is all. Haha.