Well my time in China has almost come to an end. Kirsten and I are currently sitting in our hostel in Xi’an counting down the seconds until we go to the airport. We’re so ready to go to Nepal!
For those of you who don’t know, I haven’t been able to blog any earlier than this because I use a Google blog account, and Google and China are not on the best of terms. It’s the same reason why I haven’t been able to get on Facebook unfortunately, but soon all that will be over and I’ll be free to go on Google and Facebook and even look up time travel stories if I want. I’m so excited!
But just because I haven’t been able to get on my blog doesn’t mean I’ll let my friends from home go without hearing details from my trip! So I wrote five other blogs on Pages and I’ll upload all of those after this one. So if you’re the kind of person who wants to hear details about the trip, then read those. But if you just want to get a general idea of how my time in China has been then just stick to this one!
Anyway, Disneyland and China. Very different places, right? Well yes. They certainly are very different, but when I think back at my 10 days here in China I can’t help but think of it as an extremely long day at Disneyland. Let me explain.
1. When you first get to Disneyland, there’s a surge of excitement that can only be explained by the high anticipation of having a great day full of adventures.
On our first full day in China, we walked literally all day, from the time we woke up to the time we collapsed onto our beds and fell asleep. We just had so much energy and felt so empowered to be exploring a new city all by ourselves, we wanted to see as much as we could! The sky was blue, the people were friendly, and we were just so excited to finally be on this trip that we had been planning for months.
2. At Disneyland, there are thousands of people, often forcing you to wait in lines but ultimately they’re just as excited as you to be there.
I don’t think I need to mention how many people live in China. What you may not know, however, is that this week that we’ve been here is the #1 week for tourism in the country, because it’s a weeklong holiday celebrating the establishment of Communism in 1949. And not only is it the biggest week for travel and tourism, but Beijing is the destination of choice, which makes sense because that’s where most of the historical sites are.
This being the case, we were not alone on this trip. You probably think we’re crazy for willingly coming here at this time when we knew that it’d be like this, but my sister and brother-in-law are currently living and working in China, which means that this was the week that they had off from work.
But even though there were literally thousands of people everywhere we went, they were all very friendly and I never felt unsafe. The introvert in me would occasionally threaten a breakdown, but I powered through and was just always grateful when I was able to climb into my very own bed. Even if at times it was in a room as small as this one!
Like Disneyland though, it seems as though everyone we saw was genuinely happy to be there, in this case exploring the historical sites of their country. To be honest this was really hard and confusing for me to observe when we were at Tianenmen Square. Everyone was excited to be there, chipper even, and it brought to mind conversations I’ve had about information being limited and in some cases even fabricated by the government about things that have happened in the country. But I’m in no position to judge, I don’t have all the facts about the situation and I don’t know what was going on in the minds of the local tourists.
Anyway, onto a much lighter subject:
3. Disneyland is full of adorable children
And it’s exactly the same here in China. I think that just the sheer number of people leads to there being a lot of kids, but I swear we saw HUNDREDS (maybe even thousands) of the cutest kids imaginable. One funny thing about toddlers here is that they don’t wear diapers, instead they just don’t have bottoms to their pants. So all over China we saw tiny little butt cheeks, just plodding along and occasionally stopping for a squat. Here's an example of the pants:
4. People at Disneyland will often ask you to take pictures.
Which they do here as well, but instead of giving you their camera to take a picture of them, what they really want is a picture of YOU on their camera! This really took us off guard at first, but eventually we embraced it and just tried to get pictures of our fans on our cameras as well. Sometimes though they wouldn’t ask if they could take our picture, I would just be scanning the scenery and see a camera pointed directly at me. I didn’t prefer that method.
5. Disneyland is full of thrilling rides
And we definitely had some here in China as well! Besides how much fun I would have on the buses and the subway (my small town inexperience with these still makes it exciting), I LOVED the gondola rides we took up to the Great Wall and the sleeper train we took rom Beijing to Xi’an.
The gondola and ski lift rides were fun for many reasons, but mostly because of the beautiful fall colors on the hills below us and the anticipation of being on the Great Wall. The sleeper train was fun because it was just our group of four in a tiny little room with nothing to do or see except read and talk, and when we woke up we were in a completely different place!
6. Disneyland is full of amazing human accomplishments.
I’m talking about the fireworks show, the creative worlds, the rides, and just their ability to create such a well run who day in and day out.
Well China’s just like that except hundreds of years old! The three biggest highlights for me were both days we went to the Great Wall, the Olympic Center, and seeing the Terra-cotta Warriors. I just couldn’t believe that people were capable of making these phenomenal things, especially in the time periods that they were built. I mean, the Great Wall is huge. HUGE! And so intimidating, it’s just a major “Back Off” to all the other countries that might want to attack. I’ll stop writing about it though, you can just go check out one of my Great Wall blogs if you want more details :).
7. Disneyland has people in Mickey Mouse costumes walking around and taking pictures with kids.
And so does China. It’s strange, but in touristy areas there are seriously Mickey and Minnie Mouses walking around and taking pictures.
8. Finally, Disneyland is a completely different place at night.
We have a theory that China tries to make the night life really great and exciting because the smog in the day is just so horrible that sane people won’t really want to go out and about. All that is to say that China’s great at night! We especially loved an area in Beijing called “Hou Hai” that was really close to our hostel. It’s also called the “Lake District” because it’s around a lake, and there are tons of fun restaurants and shops all lit up. This was one of my favorite places!
So that’s how China is similar to Disneyland. Obviously there are also huge differences, such as the comparisons of price and smell! Everything in China has been amazingly cheap, but the streets really smell awful. Versus Disneyland, where everything’s overpriced but at least you can take in a deep breath without worrying about gagging.
Anyway, that was our time in China. It was so great to be independent and traveling with a small group, but I’m ready for something new! The smog and the smells are really starting to get to me, so it’s a major relief to know that the day after we arrive in Nepal we’ll be leaving for the Himalayas :). Even though I’m sure that Kathmandu will be very overwhelming at points, I’m grateful to have a week’s break from cities.
So now starts the main reason for our trip! Our focus is going to have to shift from being tourists to being servants, and to be honest I’m really excited about that shift. We’re going to meet new people and see new things we’ve never even been able to imagine before. It’s so weird to be just hours away from beginning an experience that I’m sure I’ll remember for the rest of my life!
Prayers especially for this next week would be GREATLY appreciated, we’ll be in the wilderness (essentially) for the first part of our trip and I really don’t know what to expect. So pray for safety and the Lord’s provision, but even more importantly pray for God to be known to all the people we meet!
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