Gardens, Mountains and Food

We had such a great day today! You wouldn't believe how perfect it was. We started out with a 40 minute drive outside of the city to the Botanical Gardens - not as good as Longwood in Philly but still gorgeous. It is in the mountains, clean air, just perfect. We walked through the rose garden and even saw some traditional Chinese musicians playing under some of the willow trees.

Me and my day pack in front of the rose garden.


Then we hopped back onto the bus to go another 20 minutes or so into the mountains. We went to this small village (reminded me of Mexico, actually) and walked through another temple. I also climbed a mountain! The temple above was at the base of the mountain.




If my math is correct, it was 1500 feet! WHAT AN INSANE EXPERIENCE. I cannot remember ever feeling that tired. I suppose it wasn't smart to climb a mountain in 90 degree weather (I ended up getting heat stroke) but I made it to the top!



There were two paths to take - one was mostly stairs and not very pretty but shorter. The second was a mix of stairs and stone path that wound around the mountain - longer but prettier. We opted for that path. There were 5 of us total who climbed to the top.



I was so exhausted, gagging and dry heaving halfway up but the view from the top was AWESOME.



We saw the entire city and it went on for miles!



This rock says how high we are in Chinese. Like I said, if my math is right - it's about 1500 feet!




As if that wasn't good enough, there was a ski lift - yes, a SKI LIFT, that we could take to get back down to the bottom. I was so tired, I didn't even think about how high we were and how scary the ski lift would be. It was so terrifying but exhilarating at the same time. If you can imagine a slow motion zip line down a mountain overlooking temples and lush greenery. It was SO COOL!!!



At the bottom of the mountain was this soothing peaceful waterfall, the perfect tranquil end to the rigorous climb. Then we went to lunch - nothing too special other than they finally gave me tofu. I spoke with Larry and the reason we didn't have any before is because it is considered cheaper food in China - meat is for the rich. And the Chinese thought we would look down upon eating tofu so they wanted to feed us a variety of meats. But they were very accommodating when we ask them for tofu. Not all of my teammates were that respectful of the new addition but many tried it for the first time and thought it was great!

Because our day trip did not take as long as anticipated, our leaders brought us downtown Beijing to this "mall" to practice our bartering. HA! At lunch we learned how to distinguish real pearls from fake ones, so when we went to the mall many of the girls bought real freshwater pearls for $7 USD. I'm not making this up. Ellen bought 4 pairs of real pearls for about $30 USD.

Then we went to dinner at the place called The Little Sheep. It's a special place that tourists don't usually go to because many don't know how cool it is, but it's a restaurant where each person gets his/her own burner and soup base and you cook whatever you want!



You are served a plethora of raw meats and veggies and you cook it in this broth (spices, pepper, nuts - mine is pictured below and it was SPICY!!!) and you just eat it! It was SO AWESOME!! By far the coolest place I have eaten in my entire life.



This is Ellen's soup - I got a little creative and made it look like a yin-yang!!


After dinner, around 8, we came back to the hotel. We're all exhausted - especially those of us who climbed today. Wow my legs are going to be sore tomorrow morning. But overall it was such a great day! I had so much fun and it was such a great adventure!!