Ow.

Just thought the world should know.

Oops, the plan to keep updated on my trip just pretty much fell flat...again. We'll see what'll happen with it. >_>;

Stop5: dinner: first time at Panda Express--it's really mediocre. Father didn't want to walk a couple of blocks for burgers again, even if it's In-n-Out. Went to Walmart for breakfast tomorrow since it's not included--Strawberries, slightly raw bananas, and V8. At least there's free internet. Back in hotel room now. Will be departing at 7am tomorrow for more bus ride to Sedona, AZ

Stop2: our bus of 45 plus another greyhound stopped at Burger King for lunch. We get 35min. There's a section reserved for bus drivers. Whoever put up the promotion poster for their Twilight event obviously didn't like the series much--the overlay is flipped backwards. This is our second break since our last pickup stop in Fremont. Most of the tour is composed of old Taiwanese people, average around 55 maybe. Mother and I each stole a crown.

After stopping at three more stops since San Mateo for other tour people, we've departed for Needles, AZ, for our first night's stay. Tour guide KHsu currently telling us not to use bus toilet ('steaming cake') unless necessary to keep bus from stinking 'like cake' (with accompanying obligatory horror stories). I'm surprised I could understand Mandarin as well as I did without close captioning. The gramps behind me repeats everything KHsu says.

Wireless—at last!

Since Mother went to Shin zhen with friends and Venus had piano lessons today, I went exploring by myself. Well, not so much exploring but...well. It doesn't really matter. Went to Sha Tin New Town Plaza...walked about until my feet couldn't stand those shoes anymore, then came back, finding my dad checking email (!!!!)

Apparently he found some fool with a unsecured wireless network. Faint signal, but here I am :D

Still need to buy a bag or two and more clothes; haven't found what I really really want yet.

Local time: 19:02

Palace, Politics, Chinese Medicine, and running through the sights.

Um, well. I don't really want to relive the whole thing just yet. There's a lot of bleh today. At any case, tomorrow morning we leave Beijing to fly to Nanjing.

Oh, and last night I took a bath. With bath salts.

Oh, and Mother and I spotted a dead, white, long-haired cat in the middle of the road.

Climbing and Descending rocks

Uh, so the main things today were the Great Wall and the Ming Dynasty Thirteen Tombs. GW consisted of steep, worn down steps with a huge number of people, so climbing and descending was like getting stuck in traffic. It started raining after we got to the 3rd tower, so we waited the rain out and went back down. It's really unlike the tan, wide, flat GW that I saw in photographs.

The other thing: rather pathetic.

Also went to visit a jade processing plant, a piyou, and saw some...not very good acrobatics show.

(is very tired from th late dinner and the full day of walking)

Oh, Father woke at 3am this morning, woke mother, and tried to hurry me out of bed at 5:30, an hour before morning call and 150 minutes before we meet in the lobby for rest of the group (and they were 20 minutes late)

Argh, I cannot stand the local guide's rubbish and the rest of the group's lack of punctuality. Just. ARGH.

Greetings from Beijing

It's...21:31 Beijing time and I feel like pulled an all-nighter, which, considering it's really 6:30 PST and that I only got an hour of sleep before going to the airport, is not so surprising.

Weather in Beijing: muggy. Not nearly as hot and stuffy as Guangzhou and HK yet, though, so I am really not complaining.

First impression of Beijing: not much; it feels like another developing Chinese city. Except people speak Mandarin instead.

Unexpected surprises: being on the same flight as Brenner and Bauld. Apparently they came to participate in a kung-fu tournament. Eh, exchanged a few words...but wasn't sure if they were on the same flight, so didn't seek them out on the plane. Only before and after.

Language problems: Forced to speak Mandarin to airport people because I had to go against the traffic flow to find Mother, who was waiting for me. Had to speak broken Mandarin (as I really don't want to guess how certain words are pronounced in additional to my already horrible accent) and get tongue-tied. The whole experience was rather....ew.

Plane: UA is crap, as usual. Have they reduced the space between seats again, or have I grown both vertically and horizontally (more of this type) again? Anyway, everything about them were far from satisfactory. Slept for two or three hours; drew and played sudoku for most of the remaining hours. I drew a lot. And I love using the blue pencils :D　Oh, and the kid that sat behind me (Pauline, age ~3?) kept kicking my seat. Left big toe (the one with the funny bone bump) started hurting again. Wah.

Shopping: not much today. Father bought some gimmick-making books of some sort, and Mother bought a color-illustrated 本草鋼目. [will look up name later?]

Nothing really happened today...and I am dead tired. Eh, I have some comments about the "three-person" hotel rooms here and the substandard 4/5 starredness. Well, I should at least be grateful for the free wireless in the hotel. I noticed that blogger changed their language to simplified Chinese, no doubt according to the IP. Blah.

Great Wall and some other Beijing sights tomorrow.

Signing out at 22:49.