Today was hands-down the best day of the trip so far! Hopefully I will think of memories from today when I think of China.
My day began when I woke up at 5AM to write two blog posts-- one for yesterday's activities and one for a laser tattoo removal scholarship. By the way, I would really appreciate if you could take a look at the laser tattoo removal scholarship post and like/comment/follow the link if you have the chance.
I had a nice breakfast again and finally had the chance to talk to some of the students from the school in Ohio. They are very nice and complimented us on our playing. They said that basically their entire first-violin section didn't come on the trip because it consisted of many graduating seniors as well as top super performers who were unable to come. I didn't hear them last night, but I was told that they are super impressive. They are an 18-member strings only group.
Before leaving we explored the hotel a bit, and because I have not yet posted any pics of it, here is one.. No match for the second hotel I am at right now...
Upstairs view of hotel restaurant
Waiting for the bus
Riding the bus with Helena!
Driving to the City
We departed for the Forbidden City at around 9AM. It is located across from Tian'anmen Square, the location we visited on Day 2. The Forbidden City is 960x760 meters with 8475 rooms and 90 courtyards. It was CROWDED. Apparently 20-30K travel through the city each day.. And even more during holidays. It finally opened to the public in 1925. The palace itself was originally open for the public as well until it became restricted due to the sheet number of daily visitors.
Today was one of the hotter days of the trip. We were all required to wear our blue orchestra shirts, so we were dying of the heat!
Walking to the site. The surrounding water was intended for good feng shui (I think I spelled that wrong and I don't have google to do a quick-check, so sorry for now).
Helena, the harpist. Walkin
Me, Tay, and Helena in front of the South entrance of the City
Audrey, Kara, & Jessica
Morgan, Bella, Sabrina, Allison, & Danica
In one of many similar looking courtyards
In the square garden
Returning to the bus
Lunch at the dumpling house. The dumplings were mediocre, but the other dishes were tasty.
After lunch we went to the train station, which was large and almost like an airport.. With high security and all.
Selfie with the train station guards who were armed with military-grade guns :0.
At the train center. There were lots and lots of people. Again, several people took video footage and photos of us.
Selfie on the train.
I used the squatter toilet for the first time at the train station. It wasn't bad, but I feel like I need to wash the bottom of my shoes from the stall if you know what I mean..
The train ride was picturesque. It was nice seeing the greenery contrasted with compacted crowded bunch of tall apartment buildings and government buildings and roads in Beijing. We passed by some pretty mountains. The train ride was 3 hrs long. We traveled half the distance spanning from Beijing to Shanghai.
Playing card games and mafia with Matt, Helena, Taylin, Taryn, Yen, Adrian, and Annie
Arrived at our destination!!!! Suzhou!!
Suzhou is gorgeous! At least in parts of it. Helena and I love it, and Helena and Taylin said it reminded them of a Japanese city they visited. It's so clean and lush in parts. It was a Saturday evening when we rode our bus to the hotel, and everyone was out and about-- children, mothers, fathers, elders.. They were colorful, fashionable and clean. Many were riding 2-person mopeds and bicycles. Women were wearing bright-colored dresses and high heels. The streets were in general quite clean. And the buildings were new/under construction in several sections. The waterways and plant life made the city my favorite. My pictures don't do it justice.
Xuzhou is much smaller than Beijing with a population of 8.6 million rather than 27 million. It still is quite populous however. All these cities consist of stores, govt buildings, and high rise apartment structures.
I like Xuzhou more than Beijing so far. There is more active bug life, however, so I must be more careful when outside. I loved how everyone was outside yesterday afternoon.. Walking around, biking, flooding the streets with color.. We passed by our concert venue which is AMAZING looking. It was designed to model a Myrtle flower and it was right by the water line. (Xuzhou is by the water and came about really due to transportation of goods and such.)
On the bus ride, McLane pointed out a quite elderly lady on the side of a busy road who was picking up minuscule pieces of trash!!! We hoped it wasn't voluntary.
I very much enjoyed the bus ride and observing the city of Xuzhou and it's people. If I return to China, I would like to visit here again and take a moped through the streets on a Saturday afternoon/evening.
We stopped for lunch at a nice restaurant in Xuzhou. Dinner was interesting. I couldn't stop laughing. There were about 10 workers staring at our table and observing our strange American eating habits. Helena felt self-conscious and couldn't swallow due to the flourescent lighting. She was making me crack up because she couldn't find her sunglasses. I gave her mine.. But died when Taylin pointed out that Helena was hanging her RayBans on her shirt collar!!! I was trying to use the back of my chopsticks to get some rice, but I failed and dropped some in a different dish. Lone behold, a quick 1 minute later, a lady comes out with an embarrassingly large soup ladle and puts it in the rice dish for me. They must have thought we were so strange! They were pointing and giggling a bit at people. Very curious people. I think it may be less common for people in Xuzhou rather than Beijing to encounter foreigners.
Dinner was very spicy. I spent what seemed like half an hour trying to cool down my tongue. I ran out of water and other drinks so I drank a lot of tofu soup broth. The meal was unique and the dishes looked artsy.
I tried out my Chinese.. And failed. I attempted to ask "Where is the bathroom?", but the restaurant worker did not understand me. He brought the translator over. I was bummed. I am keeping on practicing.
The night life in Xuzhou is nice. The city was bustling. Helena and I walked by a karaoke bar and got super excited.
We then stopped at the hotel which is definitely my favorite. It is HUGE and gorgeous. The hotel room is spacious and modern looking. We have our own balconies. The pool is large.. There's a spa, a gym, and multiple multiple parts.
When we first arrived, there were insane fireworks going off in the parking lot. I got some video footage. The Chinese invented fireworks and they definitely beat us in the sheer awesomeness of their fireworks.
I got my luggage back and they took a chunk out of my wheel during transit so now when I roll my luggage it is very noisy. I feel my suitcase is falling apart.
I tried asking where the bathroom was again in the front lobby but the lady working there replied, offended in perfect English.. "What did you say?" It was awkward and I tried to explain I was practicing my Mandarin.
I had so much energy when we got to the hotel. When we first had to find our rooms.. Which are in the farthest possible section of the hotel... Anna accidentally took us to the 4th floor not the 3rd. We got off and I was getting annoyed cause there were no windows and I heard the fireworks, but there was a door by the elevator and curious, Anna wanted to see if it opened and it did! To an amazing large roof top.. With a wonderful full view of the waterline and the many fireworks and lights in the city and across the ways. We could see the concert venue.. A glittering flower along the water. The view was breathtaking. I got crazy footage of fireworks from the roof. I'll post some when I upload to YouTube later.
The majestic view
We brought our luggage to our room afterwards and before we could set our stuff down in our room fully, I rushed over to the only other orchestra people I heard in our section, Shawn and McLane and we went back up to the roof. McLane was super excited to take pics because the view was crazy. Some people from the other high school noticed us on the balcony and decided to come down. After we went back to the room, Mar, Annie, and Kellie met up and we went back up there to find some Ohio kids there. One snapped a pic of us all.
Here is our room. I couldn't get very decent photos
After the roof we walked around to the lobby and the second floor of the lobby. We visited the pool which is gorgeous.. As well as the gym. Anna and I checked out the "haunted floor" and Anna freaked!!!!!!!! I wasn't bothered. She didn't want to get out of the elevator lol.
After looking at the pool I wanted to go in. There were already costa kids swimming there, so I ran up and got changed and came down and had a refreshing swim.
Then I ran into friends playing cards and took some of them up to the haunted floor, which wasn't very haunted.
Then I re-entered the pool and came back to the room at 11PM for room check.
风水
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