BEARS ON THE ROAD

We got to Guilin and were picked up at the airport by the taxi the hostel arranged for us. This is the first time my parents arranged this and it is nice. Usually we battle our way wherever we have to go on local transport, but this many weeks into our trip my mom says she is getting too old for all that. The exterior of the hostel was a bit unpromising with the gambling house on the bottom floor and the crumbling stairs. It was so late we just grabbed our key and went to bed. In the morning after looking around a bit the hostel proved to be pretty nice. The rooms have air conditioning, there is a pool table, it is clean and we found where they were hiding the western style toilets. I HATE squat potties, or as my dad calls them, “cat toilets”. After breakfast we took some buses out to the Reed Flute Cave. I never found out why it is called that. Perhaps it is because of all the vendors outside selling noisy plastic whistles. It should probably be called Over Excited Rainbow Cave. Th

The next morning after our arrival in Chengdu was our panda tour. The guide told us to look at the first enclosure until she called us. In half of the enclosure were 3 young pandas happily pulling and stuffing their faces with bamboo. After we took millions of pictures and watched them a while, we were intrigued by another large clump of people, so we headed over and saw a larger panda doing some weird routine. He would climb into his cave halfway, with his rear sticking out, climb in fully, stay there a couple seconds, climb out, walk around a corner, come back, stand up, and start over. This became less of a mystery as we rounded the bend, where we saw that he was going in and out of his air- conditioned room between bites of bamboo from his feeding area! Our guide called us and so we headed to the next exhibit. This exhibit turned out to be home ground, and if you’ve read any of my New Zealand blogs, you know what I’m talking about. We turned the corner and saw the unmistakable re

After our plane flight, we took a bus to the Terracotta Warriors. WARNING: For all those who are considering a Qin Dynasty burial, terracotta warriors, in addition to not lasting for long, can NOT, I repeat can NOT protect you from the ever-flowing mass of invading tourists. Pit 2 was mainly terracotta shards and crumbled dust, but we did see some whole pieces, such as a wagon wheel and a head. Pit 3 had mostly complete parts, like torsos, arms, legs, heads, and even horse heads, appendages, and 1 horse behind. There was one cavern filled with headless bodies. However, Pit 1 has complete bodies of warriors, each with their own face. Invisible chariots are pulled by horses, and, despite the missing arrows and spears, the severity in their faces make it seem like they are going to attack at any moment. One room was filled with soldiers, many of whom had lost their heads, I assume discussing battle strategy. The horses behind them make my nickname, ‘’The Headless Horsemens’ Convention

We took a bullet train from Beijing. It was very clean and comfortable and the ride was really smooth. I didn’t even know we were going so fast until my mom pointed out the monitors that showed our speed – 198 miles per hour! We took the wrong exit from the subway, but immediately walked into a STARBUCKS!!! I got a vanilla frappuccino and some vanilla macaroons! The workers were so friendly and my parents were really happy to get some coffee. My mom brought some via packets, but they ran out a long time ago and she now knows why tea comes in lined packets and sealed canisters! All the tea she brought from home is in Ziploc bags and it just colors the water now and tastes like nothing. Our hotel had a wonderful view of Pudong and part of the Bund. We headed out to see the sights and do a walking tour. There was a tower named after Big Ben and a lot of other cool buildings. We went into the 5 star hotel that the people in charge of destroying all of China’s old relics stayed in while

We arrived in Beijing, China at 2pm and, getting some Yuan, caught a taxi to our hotel. Apparently the driver didn’t want us in his cab because we’d only have to pay 10 Yuan. So he gave us a mini tour around Beijing efficiently raising our fare to 26 Yuan. After all that, he drove us to a street near our hotel and told us we’d have to get out and walk the rest of the way. We walked to hotel and stowed our stuff. Then we went to look for some food, because we hadn’t eaten real food for days and my stomach sounded like a car engine starting. We wandered around Tiananmen Square for some time until, after looking at several gasoline smelling Chinese places and a MacDonald’s with only hamburgers, we found a KFC. Now you may think, “A Kentucky Fried Chicken? You’re a vegetarian!”. However, I took down a 7-Up, a huge box of fries, a chocolate sundae, and a roll. Next we found the Chinese Classics Theater and bought tickets for the 8pm show. After the prelude was “The Drunken Princess”, in

Back on the train again. Two things made this part of the trip was super cool for two reasons. One, there were herds of camels all over the place. (See terrible picture from moving train.) Two, when we got to the Chinese border they had to lift our train up, take the wheels off and put a new set of wheels on. This is because Russia and Mongolia use different tracks than the rest of the world. wild camel   changing train wheels  Thank you again to Dr. Crossthwait, Uncle Daryl, Grandma, Aunt Nancy and Uncle David, Aunt Natalie and everyone else who has sent comments and been following along. Sorry for the long time between posts but it was not possible to access our blogs in Mainland China.

We got to Mongolia at 6AM and had a long, wet walk to the International Ticket Office to get our tickets to Beijing. My mom 7 I watched “Flight Plan” in Mongolian while my dad bought the tickets. After we got that taken care of, we walked to our hotel, but got side-tracked by a military procession. We saw all of the soldiers, the head of the armed services and possibly the president. There was a big force of warriors on horseback and tanks and missiles! It was awesome! There was a giant statue of Chinggis Khan (that is how they spell it in English here) seated on a throne in the front of their parliament building. We got to our hotel and went on an exploration for lunch at 2PM. We found a cool tour on the 12th and booked it; we were also able to eat their pizza. After that we went shopping. I loved the camel calendars and all of the cashmere. It was so soft! I couldn’t figure out what cashmere I wanted. They also had felted crafts and camel wool. I got a flag and we went to the Stat

We got up extremely early and caught the first bus to Listvyanka, a town on Lake Baikal. The lake was immense and was a deep, rich blue. It was beautiful. We waited for the nerpa show, which was awesome. The nerpas sang, danced, kissed each other and played soccer and basketball. One painted a picture and they each rescued two Barbie dolls. They were so cute! We were going to take a boat ride, but it was too cold. We got the next bus back to Irkutsk and headed for the train station to catch our train to Mongolia. The first pizza we ate in Irkutsk was at a place called Picasso. They have an abstract idea of pizza. It was like soggy white bread with ketchup and mayonnaise with rubbery cheese. On our way to the train station we saw a red and green delivery vehicle with a Papa John’s logo (in Russian) on the side. “Nonsense,” we said. But it was true, there around the corner was a Papa John’s, and we were saved!   

Our home for 88 hours! Life on a train is not very comfortable. The ladders are useless, the beds are leathery and lumpy, and random people burst into your compartment in the middle of the night. Your legs fall asleep from doing nothing, and when people open the doors at the end of the cars, you can smell people smoking. Ugh! The dining car was 6 cars away. We went there a lot because it had air conditioning. We were boiling in our compartment and couldn’t play cards together. We could not shower, so we were disgusting when we got off. To stay busy I sketched and doodled. Sometimes I listened to my Ipod but I had to use it sparingly so as not to run down the battery. We played cards a lot. I lost all of the pinochle games but won several games of rummy. I also read the Kindle and was wishing that we had more than one. I am reading “Emma” by Jane Austen. It is more challenging than what I usually read because there many words and phrases with which I am unfamiliar. Often I stared o

We have arrived in Irkutsk! I was FINALLY able to post my pictures for Tallinn & St. Petersburg so click on this link to go to my actual blog and see the edited posts: http://www.bearsontheroad.blogspot.com/ Allie! Thanks for sending me a comment! Hope your summer is really amazing. Miss you, Zada

Moscow- When we got off the train we found a café where I got a chocolate donut. First we went to the hostel which was called Godzilla’s to drop off our bags. The first thing we did was visit the Kremlin. It is a collection of cathedrals in the center of Moscow. There were amazing paintings on the ceilings and doors, with fabulous icons and designs everywhere. There were 6 churches, and we also saw the world’s largest bell, with an 11 ton piece broken off of it. The churches had golden domes with the cross of the Russian Orthodox Church on them. Next we went to Red Square to see St. Basil’s church, which is actually 10 churches connected to each other. The outside was spectacular and the inside had glorious paintings. The 10 domes were fabulous, each one had a different decorative scheme, checkered, swirled, latticed. All were vibrantly colored. There I also learned that on my birthday Russian troops defeated a Tartar army and one of the churches in St. Basil’s is dedicate