Once upon a time, one of my brothers went to China to teach English and film at a university in Weifong. His plan was to only stay a year...until he met the PERFECT girl for him. Their story is quite cute and it really is crazy how similar these two are. So, she came home with him after his first year, and we all fell in love! Cheng is so delightful and we wanted these two to get married. So my brother went back for a second year of teaching, but this time to a more prestigious university in Qingdao. They announced they were getting married, and my parents wanted to go over for the celebration. Paying my own way, I tagged along to that wonderful country.
We got on the 14 hour flight, and we were already the minority of the group. The plane had such a Chinese feel from the music, people, how the flight attendants were dressed, the movie options, the food choices, and I was excited! We landed in Beijing, and we were met by Cheng running to greet us! I can not express how lost we would've been without Cheng communicating, translating, buying, and basically doing everything for these helpless foreigners:) Ha! We checked into our hotel, and went exploring in the alleys nearby. I kept saying how grateful I was that we weren't staying in the super westernized part of Beijing. I felt like I was getting the real deal experience! I think that first night I was pretty culture shocked with all the stares, smells, food, and SO MANY PEOPLE! But, luckily that wore off pretty fast:) We went to the Forbidden City, Red Square, the Beijing Orchestra, and lots of exploring in that history rich town! We had tons of yummy and "try only once" type of foods:) Ha! Then it was on to Weifang to meet Cheng's parents, and have that wedding! We met lots of people, were fed until we were going to burst, had a wonderful bike ride, and this is where I really learned to love the Chinese people and culture! Next was Qingdao where I stayed at Mason and Cheng's apartment, met their German friend Marcel, stayed up late telling stories, went to the beach, saw the university Mason teaches at, had a drunk Russian yelling outside my window all night, went on a beautiful hike, and where we had to say goodbye to Mason and Cheng only for a few weeks until they would come to the US for their wedding celebration here. We had to go through customs 3 times, resulting in some missed flights, so by the end of the trip it was good to be back:) I'll let the pictures tell the rest of our trip:
--DISCLAIMER--
The trip was clear back in June, and I was having a "I really am not getting along with this computer" type of night. So my order of things won't be really accurate, and I promise I have more pictures, I took videos, and that I wrote every detail of everything in my journal:) Maybe I'll update this post when I get back from Russia...
---UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE---
My phone like died when I got back from Russia, so not only are my China pictures gone, my Russia pictures are too...luckily I at least got these pictures (stay positive Annie) :)
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| Our hotel in Beijing. |
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| We went to the Beijing orchestra. I was surprised at how different the instruments were than the ones in American orchestras. |
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| At the opera house. |
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| One of our exotic walks:) |
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| Before we took the "chairlift" up to the starting point of The Great Wall. |
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| IT WAS SO HOT! Luckily we had our Chinese fans to help cool off! Plus these watch towers were neat and refreshing. |
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| BEAUTIFUL scenery. Not sure why I thought it was smart to hike straight up in a dress:) Plus we rode a slide down which was SO FUN but a little tricky in this attire:) |
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| An example of the funny English translations we saw all over the place. |
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| SCARIEST bike ride of my life! No one follows any traffic laws, and we had to cross 10 lanes of traffic. |
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| Beautiful Wetlands that our 4 hour bike ride took us to! |
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| Beautiful hike next Mason and Cheng's apartment in Quingdao. We explored a cemetery that was really unique and quite different from cemeterys in the US, but we felt disrespectful taking pictures. |
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| Natural wells. People were just filling buckets since no one can drink the water in China, unless it's filtered. |
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| TONS of people across this really long railing playing intense games. |
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| So many people carry their life on these little bike/cart things. |
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| This cute older couple was trying to take a selfie:) |
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| We went to this really neat local park and there were all these couples dancing! |
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| One of the alleys by our hotel in Beijing...early in the morning, so very few people. The night before it was chaos with cars and bikes and people going every which way in that tiny area!!! |
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| More alley:) |
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| This person made a raft out of some type of weed. It is common to see people using whatever they can find to make common things. |
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| Cutest little couple! They made the sweetest speeches...Mason in Mandarin and Cheng in English, then the other translated! In China the brides wear a red dress, not a white one. |
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| Love these people! |
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| Cheng's cousin who started crying at how pretty and tall I was haha! |
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| We decorated the venue for the wedding, and we had the fanciest meal...not sure what we ate but I know some of it was cow stomach and sea urchins. |
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| The Chinese character for "double happiness" is used for good luck on the wedding day. This sign was everyhwere for the couple! This is Cheng's parents apartment. |
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| Cheng's parents Yongewei Zhang and Lixin Wang...some of the sweetest people I've ever met! We became good friends even with the language barrier. |
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| These type of scultpures were EVRYWHERE in China. |
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| Red Square |
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| People really were NOT afraid to stare, take pictures of, or take selfies with the foreigner with blue eyes!!! |
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| Forbidden City |
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| Doors to the Forbidden City...touching these knobs gave good luck:) |
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| Trying to casually pose by these monks:) |
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| THIS PLACE IS HUGE! |
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| I don't even know what this is...taking this picture I honestly felt like I was going to suffocate in all these people pushing each other in such a tight place!!! |
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| Qingdao beach! Nice cool evening, so not too crowded. |
