China {Beijing}

In China they celebrate "May Holiday" which we think is some sort of Memorial Day. Either way.. our school gave us a ten day vacation for it, so no complaints here. (:

We have been planning and looking forward to this ten day vacation ever since we got back from our month long trip! We thought it would never come, but it came and went real quick. 

Our first stop, where we spent the first half of our trip was in Beijing! 

You really just can't justify going to China without visiting Beijing. We spent five days there and I'm sure there was so much more we could have spent time seeing.

Day .5: This was traveling day. We decided to take a bullet train and turn our thirteen hour train ride into four. Best decision of the trip. Bullet trains are so nice. It's basically an airplane on the ground. No surprise, but we literally almost missed our train and were quite the scene sprinting through the train station with our suitcases dragging behind. Luckily, we made it within seconds and were on our way. The four hour ride flew by and next thing we knew we were at The Leo Hostel, where we were staying in a 14 bed dorm. Always an adventure. Haha.

OH. Did I mention that this trip was just me and the girls? SO glad we did that. I love those girls so much.

Day 1: First we went to the Temple Of Heaven! It was awesome! At this point in China, we've decided everything (as far as temples and landmarks go) all look the same. But this didn't. It was super pretty and a fun place to be!

Then.. it started raining, so what better thing to do than shopping? We found the Pearl Market and spent 8 hours taking it all in, memorizing all five floors, comparing prices, eating some good food, bargaining our lungs out and spending a whole lot of money. It was fantastic.

Day 2: We went to Tienanmen Square and The Forbidden City! In Tienanmen Square, we didn't even realize that that's where we already were and ended up buying a ticket we didn't need.. Lol. But The Forbidden City was huge and gorgeous. We also went on a little hike up to a look out point where we  could look down and see the entire thing. It was really cool! 

Then.. that night we went to the Wangfujing Night Market! This is where they have all the nasty things to eat, that you probably shouldn't try. We decided to be brave and tried scorpion and starfish! Ew. 

Day 3: We did the majority of our shopping this day, again at the Pearl Market. That place is madness. Everyone wants you to buy from them, and they all sell the same stuff, so it's just a big battle. It's pretty hilarious. But we got some great stuff, and made some good friends with the salesmen. (:

Day 4: We went to The Great Wall!! My first wonder of the world was pretty wonderful. We went to the Mutianyu part of the wall, which was practically empty! It was so awesome. It was just great not being stuck in a huge crowd, and instead being able to just explore and see every view we wanted to! We even got to toboggan slide down the wall which was pretty epic. (: That night we played pool and hung out with some people we met from the UK. Hostels are awesome. We've met the coolest people from ALL over the world.

Day 5: Another part of our group of teachers came to Beijing so we showed them around the shopping and were on our way to the train station! We took a 15 hour train ride to Shanghai! Luckily, we had sleepers, which means that we had beds instead of seats! So it really wasn't all that bad. We met some cute Chinese people who helped us with ALL of our bags and slept through the night! 

We loved Beijing!

Up next: Shanghai!