ni hao!!

that's hello from China :) We arrived 6 days ago and it has been a whirlwind since then. friends have been asking for my impressions of china...so here are a few random observations, most or all of which come from a brief stay in the larger cities (Beijing and Xi'an). [read: take with ginormous grain of salt].

1. People here are intense!! Whether it's getting to the airline ticket counter first, hitting the gas pedal when the light turns green, seeing their domestic tourist attractions with a tour group of 50 (complete with matching tour group uniform), or playing computer games in a packed, smoky internet cafe with 500 of your closest friends...NOTHING is lacksadaisical.

2. This place is BOOMING. I'm in an internet cafe in Xi'an at the moment. On our way here after dinner, Emily and I passed no fewer than 5 brand-new shopping malls filled with designer stores, electronics emporiums, restaurants, and -- sigh-- starbucks. Developers have set up tents outside (complete with glossy brochures and slick blueprints) beckoning local businesses to join in the shopping mall mania.

3. There is a Wal-mart here. There is a Wal-mart greeter at the front door.

4. While I'm here, I will eat eastern food, adopt eastern customs, admire eastern traditions--but I will walk 3 miles to find a western-style toilet.

On our first day, Em and I hit the tourist trail and went to the Forbidden City (approx. 5 bizillion people apparently had the same idea. it was PACKED but incredible). The paint on the exterior walls was still wet from all of the restoration work that went into preparations for the SUmmer Games.

We then rented bicycles with a few others from our group and drove through one of the oldest hotungs [neighborhoods] in Beijing. About 1/4 of Beijing's residents still live in these small modest houses that border narrow alleys with communal yards. After a homemade lunch at the house of our guide's aunt, we wandered down to a lakeside expat haven. We smelled starbucks and flocked like moths to a flame (in fairness, it had been 6 latte-less weeks!).

We took the local city bus home, and I ended up next to this little girl. She began smiling, then sticking her tongue out...then making funny faces...then all-out performances, each one outdoing the last. Her mother shook her head in mock disapproval while giggling all the same. Someday, this girl will have her own late-night talk show, and I will say I knew her when!Then, we got tickets to the "Legend of Kung Fu." Despite the piles of tourist buses and cheesy souvenirs, we had a GREAT time. I snapped this pic before being chastised by the ushers (oops). Apparently they'd prefer you buy the DVD on sale in the lobby for 100 yuan...The following day it was off to the summer palace (my favorite so far!) where the royal families used to go to escape from it all. Acres of bridges, lakes, palaces, [and yes- souvenir shops] make you feel like you've wandered into a little oasis far from the intensity of downtown Beijing.

We escaped just before a downpour and jumped into a cab. We had no idea what was in store. We ended up getting 40 minutes of Chinese instruction (and conversation) with our taxi driver (Sun) using only the "phrases" chapter of our Rough Guides China book. He was an intense instructor (surprise!) who wanted to make sure that we had the pronunciation just right. At times, I really wanted him to focus on the road a tad more (this picture was taken while moving, in traffic, in the rain):

Here's a clip of Sun and Em in action...

The following day, we headed for the Great Wall - we hiked 6 miles on a nearly tourist-free section that is about 4 hours from Beijing. Some of the bricks were a little treacherous (this section hasn't been renovated much), but the weather was perfect and we had a great group-bonding day! More on that later, this is becoming a novel! xox