Yeah, yeah...THE GREAT WALL!!!

It's been about a hundred years since I've updated, which signifies two things...1) China has had me EXTREMELY busy over the last couple weeks and 2) I haven't been up to much other than the typical studying, eating, sleeping, etc. However, this weekend I did something atypical. I went on an 11K hike across the Great Wall. FINALLY!!! I've been in China for almost 2 months and hadn't yet actually climbed Beijing's part of the Great Wall. Seeing as we would be hiking (=climbing a million trillion stairs), my Alliance adviser wanted to wait until the weather got a little cooler to make the climbing easier. About half way thru last week, the weather in Beijing got dramatically colder. The mid-70s temperatures that we had been enjoying turned to low-mid-50s temperature. So our adviser decided that we should go climb the Wall. We climbed onto a bus at 10:00 Saturday morning and headed off to our destination. We were going to climb an older, more authentic, and less touristic portion of the wall...from Jinshanling to Simatai...a little over 11 kilometers total...so we traveled 2 and a half hours away from the city to do so. A little after noon, we excitedly arrived at Jinshinlang and were welcomed by several shirpas. (Note: Shirpas are peasants/farmers who live near the Great Wall and "help" tourists climb portions of the Wall in hopes that at the end of the climb the tourists will be willing to buy a book, shirt, or some other small trinket in return for the help. Although this notion originally greatly annoyed me, my adviser, Bing, explained that this is part of these people's livelihoods. If the weather is bad, they have bad harvests and rely upon selling things to tourist for income. After hearing such, I was much more inclined to help.) We climbed up a couple of sets of stairs and saw the grandiose of the Great Wall. It was breathtaking...SOOO huge and beautiful!!!!! Jinshanling and Simatai were both unrefurbished (I can't think of the correct English word...too long in China) parts of the Great Wall; so climbing was hard with a lot of loose gravel/rock and unlevel stairs and such. It was hard work, and several times I quietly wondered to myself what exactly I was doing. Nevertheless, I continued to climb. And after almost 4 hours of excruciatingly painful and difficult climbing, I saw the end of our 11K hike. And I smiled on the outside and on the inside at the feat I had just accomplished. And there was a perfect ending to our incredible day...a zipline across a gorgeous lake to the bottom of the mountain range!!!

My legs are still aching, and I can't take the stairs without being reminded of my hard 11K hike. But it was satisfying and beautifully natural and well worth it. It's funny how every time I began to get a little down, I open my eyes and find God in a new place in China...in the faces of laughing children, in the warm breeze on my cheek as I walk to class, and most recently in the natural scenic beauty surrounding the Great Wall. I smile as I think back on the abundance of God's fingerprints I've seen. It amazes me that people are still able to doubt Him with the Divine Maker's evidence all around. May we constantly, every minute of every single day, be reminded of the greatness and love of our Father, of His eternal promises, and His CONSTANT presence in our lives. We serve a GREAT GOD indeed!!!

Love you and miss you all WAY more than I'd really like to admit!!! ; )

Dancing in the eternal beauty of the One True God,

Kendall

The Journey Westward: Day 8 & 9

Day 8 (October 3rd, 2008)---Today was a great day! All of China is on one time zone. So the sun rises really early and sets really early in Beijing but rises late and sets late in Urumqi. Hence, the people in Xinjiang start the day very late. Breakfast usually isn't any earlier than 8:30 and most people don't have to be at work until about 10. On the rest of the trip, we had been expected to wake early and began our day early, but now we could finally sleep in...YAY!!! We got up at 9 and set off to my most anticipated spot on the whole entire trip, Heavenly Lake. I had heard prior to our trip that Heavenly Lake was one of the most beautiful natural spots in all of China. However, I was a little worried it would be a complete let down after being so disappointed by the Flaming Mountain. But as we drove closer and closer to Heavenly Lake, I realized that it was even more beautiful than I had anticipated it would be. We pulled into the parking lot and saw waterfalls all around with moutains and pine trees. We boarded a bus to take us up the mountain to the lake, and then upon arriving, took a 15-20 minute hike to the lake. This place is undoubtedly one of God's many blessings to mankind; His presence was so evident. I can not even put into words the beauty of it all. It was quite possibly the most serene and perfect place I have ever been in my whole life. After spending a couple hours at the Heavenly Lake, we headed to a traditional Kazak yurt and ate some traditional Kazak snacks. Our last destination of the day was Red Mountain Park. However, the previous week of the trip as well as the whole day at the Heavenly Lake had really exhausted me. So while half of our group went to hang out at the Red Mountain Park, the other half of the group, me included, headed back to our hotel to rest and chill out for the rest of the evening. My roommate and I grabbed some Pizza Hut and watched "Mega Snake" and then it was off to bed.

Day 9 (October 4th, 2008)---Today was the last day in Urumqi and the last day of our Westward Journey. We woke up at 10 and headed to yet another museum. But unlike the Shaanxi Museum in Xi'an, this museum was BORING!!! The best part of the entire museum was the mummies, and even those weren't so spectacular. We finished at the museum and made our way to the famous Bazaar of Urumqi. The Bazaar was a huge marketplace with numerous shops all over the streets and shops in multi-storey buildings. I think it is the biggest bazaar in all of Xinjiang. We spent a couple hours there eating dried fruit, buying pashminas, and listening to Uyghur music. It was a very enjoyable ending to our time in Xinjiang and our trip as a whole. From the Bazaar, we went for a traditional Uyghur dinner at a Muslim restaurant and then were off to the airport to make our way back to Beijing. Honestly, I was quite ready to get back to Beijing. After being gone for 9 days, I missed all my local hang outs and the Beijing language and food. I was so glad to be heading back to my home city in China. We got to the airport, and a couple of my classmates found out that Chinese airlines don't allow you to check alcohol. Since Xinjiang is so well-known for it, a couple classmates had bought Xinjiang wine to bring back to Beijing. So instead of checking their wine with the airlines, we opened the bottles and all toasted the end of our trip with a glass of wine; such a story book ending to an absolutely amazing trip. Hours later, we arrived back in Beijing, and I found that I had a small grin on my face as I looked out onto my loved city of Beijing and thought back on the many fabulous memories I will forever carry with me.....



And this was my Journey Westward.

The Journey Westward: Day 5, 6 & 7

Day 5 (September 30th, 2008: Nathan's BIRTHDAY!!!)---After trying to entertain ourselves someway, anyway the night before, we left the hotel on to do the only thing Jiayuguan had to offer; the one thing that makes the city famous...Jiayuguan Fort, the beginning of the Great Wall in the West. We all hopped on a bus and pulled up to the entrance an hour later. I didn't quite know what to expect at the Fort. Much to my surprise, Jiayuguan Fort was absolutely B-E-A-UTIFUL!!! The Fort is surrounded by snow-capped moutains and lakes and the sun was out and it was all simply gorgeous! We spent the better part of the morning walking around the Fort and taking pictures. The Fort has a bunch of guards that walked around in ancient wardrobe and imitated the old Great Wall soldiers. You could also shoot arrows from the top of the tower at dolls of Mongolian people. (The Chinese had/have a deep disgust for the Mongolian people.) That was pretty much all Jiayuguan had to offer us. We returned to the main city center, ate lunch, and then headed to a portion of the Great Wall that we could actually climb. (Jiayuguan Fort isn't part of what people would traditionally call the Great Wall. It's more a set of buildings and towers to keep watch from. But you can't actually climb or explore the Great Wall from it. So we had to bus to another part of the Great Wall to climb.) And so we set out to climb the Great Wall...the equivalent of 17 stories of stairs....SO MUCH CLIMBING!!! But I had the greatest sense of accomplishment when we finally reached the top. The view was pretty (as pretty as a desert view can be), and it was fun to have actually climbed the Great Wall after being here for a month and not doing so. We spent an hour or so at the Wall and then jumped back on the bus for...more traveling..more specifically a 5 hour bus ride to Dunhuang. We arrived in Dunhuang that night and checked into our 2-star Chinese hotel. Please take a minute and try to imagine what a 2-star Chinese hotel would look like...yeah, it was about that bad! In Chinese hotels, you must insert a key into a slot on the wall in order to make the electricity work. In the hotels prior to this one, the key we had used was also the door key to our room. So my roommate, Katie, and I walked into our room, and Katie shoved our door key into the power slot to turn on the electricity. However when the electricity didn't come on, we realized there was a problem. Katie had put the wrong key in the power slot. The door and power keys were 2 separate keys. We had to go find a hotel worker to come and help us. The dialect spoken in Dunhuang was so different from Beijing dialect that we couldn't understand anything she said to us. Then the worker had to go find an electrician, who proceeded to remove the socket from the wall sending sparks thru the air and nearly electricuting himself. After the key/power fiasco, we cleaned up and headed into Dunhuang's city center. Dunhuang has one of the most famous nite market's in Western China where you can buy food, clothes, trinkets, etc, almost anything. We did that and then headed back to hotel for bed.

Day 6 (October 1st, 2008)---We had come to Dunhuang for 2 specific reasons: 1) to see the desert, which began literally right on the city's borders and 2) to visit the Mogao Caves. And so we set off in a bus early this morning to take the short drive to the desert. It was absolutely ridiculous when we got there. Out of nowhere the desert just began. So crazy to be driving down a paved road one minute and then walking thru the deserts seconds later with sand dunes in the background. We all took some time to just walk around taking pictures and such. The part of the desert that we visited had a well-known oasis called the Crescent Lake. We headed that way and took more pictures of ourselves but quickly became bored with our photoshoot. Next on the agenda, sand boarding. For those of you who have visited a desert, you may have had a chance to partake in this. Basically, you climb up a sand dune a couple hundred meters, then get on a wooden board and "sled" down the dune. The majority of the people in my program chose to do so and rather enjoyed it. I, however, was feeling the effects of eating random street food the nite before and decided it not the best idea to throw myself on a speeding board down a sandy mountain. Plus, I was trying to get everyone to hurry up when sand boarding, because I couldn't wait for the next event...riding camels in the desert...YAY!!! My classmates finally finished sand boarding, and we off to meet our camels. The camel rides were in groups of 5 people and led by a local camel "expert." We got on our camels, mine was named Shaneequa because she walked with a certain sassiness and attitude much like myself, and headed up the dunes. The camels were slow, and the desert scenery began to repeat itself; sand dune after sand dune after sand dune. Nonetheless, I had a blast. I HEART riding camels!!! We got to the top of the dune we were climbing and had the opportunity to get down and walk around. A couple of my guy friends decided they wanted to roll down the dune in a huge plastic ball. You know what I'm talking about. Those big bubble looking balls that you climb inside and roll in. But they discovered that the promised "ride" down the dune was only like 6 feet; hardly far enough to pay money to do. Instead we got back on our camels and got ready to head down the dune. I climbed back on Shaneequa and turned around to talk to my classmate that was behind me when his camel started making some crazy noises and then spit all over me. SO GROSS!!! I had heard people say that camels spit, but I suppose I had invisioned something different. Let me tell you, camels spit, and it is loud and slimy and dirty...simply YUCK!!! I was left riding down the dune feeling miserable while everyone attempted to not laugh at the fact that I had been spit on. I think my classmates are picking up the fact that I rather like order and cleanliness. The fact that I, not another classmate who would have probably cared less, would have to spend the rest of the day in a shirt with camel spit struck them as particularly funny. Our camel ride ended along with our time at the desert, and we headed into town to eat. After lunch, we headed to our second demonstration...the Mogao Caves. These caves are the largest collection of Buddhist grottoes in the whole world. Despite what many of my classmates would say, it was really interesting to hear the history behind the grottoes and see the beauty of each. The first cave we walked into was home to the 2nd or 3rd largest indoor Buddha in the world. I believe the Buddha statue was 35 meters tall. It was absolutely spectacular. Buddha's hand was 3 times as big as my entire body. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the caves for obvious reasons, but I encourage you to Google or Yahoo or somehow look at some of the beautiful grottoes found at the Mogao Caves. Each cave contained different art, and I found each to be uniquely beautiful. Our time at the Mogao Caves was cut somewhat short by the fact that we had to catch yet another train. This was our last train, and I couldn't have been more excited. However, I was less than excited to find out that we wouldn't be able to shower until about 8pm the following nite...not good news for Miss Kendall Kash. As earlier stated, I can not properly start my day until a shower and a cup of coffee. But I had no other choice than continue on this crazy China journey. We got to the train station and boarded the train for our 13 hour train ride...BIG FUN...

Day 7 (October 2nd, 2008)---Our train arrived a little after 7am, and I found myself in another new Chinese province. This time we were in Xinjiang; China's westernmost province and home to the Chinese Muslim minority population, the Uyghurs. Our first stop in Xinjiang was the city of Turpan. Turpan is a very important stop on the Silk Road. The ancient city of Gaochang, which is about an hour outside of the city, was the oldest city on the Silk Road about 2000 years old. In the 1300s, Gaochang was abandoned and is now a famous ruins. We arrived at Gaochang and took donkey carts to the actual site of the ruins. We spent the better part of the morning exploring the ruins and listening to our guide retell the importance of the ancient city. After Gaochang, we went to a traditional Uyghur home. Xinjiang is well-known for its vineyards, raisins, dates, and wine. At the Uyghur home, we had the opportunity to taste many different kinds of raisins and dates. Then we went to the vineyard behind the house and picked grapes. It was super yummy eating grapes straight from the vine and roaming around the vineyard to find the perfect bunch of grapes. And then we were off again to our next destination...the Flaming Mountain. The Flaming Mountain is the hottest place in all of China. During the summer, the Flaming Mountain is so hot that it can melt the soles a person's shoe, almost 80 degrees Celsius. The Flaming Mountain was hands down the most boring part of the entire trip to me. It looked exactly like every other mountain to me. I wasn't exactly sure why we were going out of our way to look at something I've seen numerous times before. The Flaming Mountain finished our time in Turpan. We headed to the capital of Xinjiang, Urumqi, via bus, and 2 hours later we arrived. Xinjiang was the biggest and most modern city of our entire trip. It was so pretty and lively and fun!!! After arriving in Urumqi, we showered, dinnered, and then my roommate and I watched some terrible Chinese movies until we fell asleep.

The Journey Westward: Day 3 & 4

Day 3 (Sunday, September 28th, 2008)---After a good night's rest in a bed with a real mattress (my dorm mattress is practically a piece of plywood), I excitedly awoke and got ready for the day. As some of you may know, Xi'an is most famous for its collection of Terra Cotta soldiers. And today, we were going to see them...YAY!!! (If you don't know what the Terra Cotta soldiers, please, please Google them. There is actually quite an interesting story behind them). My classmates and I met for a "Western" breakfast and then quickly boarded the bus off on journey to the soldiers. We arrived at the Terra Cotta soldier museum and spent an hour or 2 looking at boring stuff that was found with the soldiers, like an umbrella stand and ancient shoes. Then it was onto the big show...THE SOLDIERS!!! It was absolutely breath-taking. We stepped into a huge room, and there before us were thousands of Terra Cotta soldiers...how astonishing! If you ever have the chance to go and see them, you should. I can't quite put into words how beautiful it all is at first. We spent a couple hours looking at the different Terra Cotta soldiers in the different rooms. There are actually 3 different rooms in which the soldiers are housed, instead of them all being in one room. This is because the soldiers have been left exactly where they were excavated. We left the Terra Cotta museum and headed back into Xi'an to go to the Great Mosque.

The Great Mosque is one of the oldest and most well known mosques in all of China. It was built during the Tang Dynasty (600s-700s AD) and is today one of the 3 main mosques that Chinese Muslims make pilgrimages to. The Great Mosque was beautiful. It was, at first, difficult to remember that the place was indeed a Muslim mosque seeing as how all the construction is done in a very Chinese style. It looked more like a Buddhist temple to me than a Muslim mosque. The Great Mosque was a series of buildings set around a central garden. It is probably the most peaceful and quiet place I've found in China yet. We walked around, looked at the buildings, and watched several Muslims reciting their prayers. However, that was about all the Great Mosque had to offer us; so after several minutes we decided we'd seen it all and headed into the streets of Xi'an for some bartering and eating. Bartering/bargaining is an absolute way of life in China. Other than in Western style shopping malls, bargaining isn't only encouraged but is a necessity (as I briefly explained in regards to the Silk Market). Chinese vendors set the prices of their items at about 4-5 times, sometimes as much as 10 times, more than what the product is actually worth, hoping that some unknowing tourist will stumble into their store/upon their kiosk and actually pay that price. But bargaining is tiring. Yelling at Chinese vendors while they throw fits and yell back can really take it out of a person. A couple hours of bargaining was enough for all of us, and we reconvened to head to the Big Goose Pagoda.

The Big Goose Pagoda...what a name!!! I can't remember the Chinese name, but the English name is a terrible translation of the actually Chinese characters. Anyway, we all went to the Big Goose Pagoda to see the largest water show in all of China. It was SOOO cool!!! Seriously, Disney and the Bellagio have a lot to learn from China. The water show was done in sync with several classic masterpieces. Not only was their water and music but also lights and fireworks. Xi'an's water show was so pretty, so fancy. I didn't expect this out of China. Our time at the Big Goose Pagoda was cut short by the fact that we needed to go catch a train to make our way to Jiayuguan...yes, another train ride...the bane of my existence. And so off we went to get on another China train for a 20 hour train ride...yes, 20 hours.

Day 4 (September 29th, 2008)---The majority of today was spent on a train, traveling from Xi'an to Jiayuguan. I nearly pulled my hair out. Just try to imagine living in a small box with 5 other people for 20 hours with nothing to do and loud Chinese chatterring all around. I have one word...TERRIBLE!!! When we finally arrived, Jiayuguan looked like the promised land to me. I had never seen such a beautiful city (although a couple hours after the train ride when I had recouped I realized Jiayuguan was a terribly boring and dirty city. It ended up being my least favorite city on the whole trip). We checked into our 4-star hotel, which I would say is the equivalent of maybe a 2-star hotel in the States, and then we ate. After showering and dinner, we all decided that we had to get out and could no longer sit around after the long train ride. So we headed into the city to find some fun. However, we quickly discovered that Jiayuguan didn't really have much to offer. The population of Jiayuguan is 150,000, super small by Chinese standards. So there wasn't much night life, and after an hour or 2 of wondering we wound up back at our hotel for some sleep.

The Journey Westward: Day 1 & 2

My trip was really long, and each day was absolutely packed with activities, sights, and feedings. Therefore, I've decided to try to break up the trip into a couple different sections/posts, so you can just kinda skim over what you find interesting and ignore the rest....enjoy your reading...

Day 1 (Friday, September 26th, 2008)---We, all 19 students in my program along with our program director Bing, left campus at 3:30 pm and headed to the train station. After battling Friday afternoon, holiday traffic in Bejing for an hour (it took like an hour to travel 17 kilometers...ridiculous), we finally arrived at the Beijing West train station, the largest train station in all of China. I nervously followed the rest of my classmates as we weaved our way thru the maze of Chinese people to our sitting area. I had never been on a train, and now I was about to get onto a China train for a 13-hour train ride. I calmed my nerves and made my way onto the train. I can't be positive, because I couldn't see my face. But I'm pretty sure my jaw hit the floor when I walked onto the train. I couldn't believe how teeny tiny the space we were supposed to live on for the next 13 hours was. There were 3 bunks stacked on top of each other with 3 more bunks stacked identically about an arm's length away. The entire car consisted of these "rooms," which were about the size of a closet...no jokes...I'm talking small here. And that train ride was a foreshadowing for all the rest of the traveling we would do over the next 9 days. Small unsanitary places and lots and lots of people. I was 150% outside of my comfort zone. A) I love cleanliness and organization...this train lacked both. For exampled, the "toilets" were squatters, aka holes in the bottom of the floor which one is expected to squat over and use while a train is barrelling down a track and taking turns on its side...just picture that. B) I hate eating or sleeping in front of people...I was expected to sleep out in the open pretty much next to people I had only known 2 weeks and share meals on a bumpy, shaky train which left food all over my body in potentially embarrassing places, such as my hair, ear, shoulder, foot, you name it. C) I am unable to properly function without a shower first thing in the morning...it is no surprise that trains don't have showers on them so you can just guess how that worked for me. Now I may sound like an absolute Negative Nancy but don't think I am. I loved the trip, and I'm sure coping with these uncomfortable aspects was somehow good for me. That's just an overall glimpse of China train travel that I thought you should know. And that was the entire first day/13 hours of our trip.

Day 2 (Saturday, September 27th, 2008)---We arrived in Xi'an at about 7 am and were, luckily, allowed to check into our hotel. We were all quite excited, because Bing, our director, had told us that we would be enjoying a Western breakfast. Breakfast in China is less than spectacular...cold noodles, pickled cucumbers, eggs...so upon hearing the phrase "Western breakfast" we all found ourselves in high spirits. Yet after arriving at our hotel, we discoverd "Western breakfast" in China means toast and peanut butter. I was thinking pancakes, bacon, and coffee and instead found Chinese breakfast plus toast and peanut butter. After breakfast we showered and hung out around the hotel for a little bit before heading out into the city. Xi'an was the first capital of China ever, and it was the largest city in the world for more than 1000 years. It holds an important part of Chinese history, and we were going to go see a bit of it. We went to the city wall, which has been up for a couple hundred years (I don't remember exactly how long). And then we went to a famous street that sells calligraphy and jade and such. It would all have been a pleasant experience except for the fact that it was absolutley pouring...not the best first impression, Xi'an. Raining when I arrived...that's not gonna get you any brownie points. After freezing in the rain for awhile we headed to one of the most famous museums in China, the Shaanxi National Museum. There we looked at old pottery, tools, and clothing. Although many of my fellow classmates would disagree, I find it quite fascinating and interesting. A 13-hour train ride, freezing rain, and museums can really take it out of you. So after 5 hours of museum-ing (not entirely sure if that is a word or not), we headed back to our hotel for dinner and sleep...ahhh, sweet sleep. And there you have it Day 1 & 2 of my Western journey.

Oh no, my computer is gonna die any minute, and I can't find my power cord. So I better skidaddle. I'll have the rest of the trip up along with the site to my pictures soon.

LOVE YOU!!!

Kendall

Oh Beijing, how I missed you!

So...I'm finally back from my 10 day trek thru all, not literally all but what felt like all, of Western China. It was an absolutely thrilling, tiring, beautiful, long trip. I have so many stories to tell and pictures to show, but for right now I just wanted to let everyone know I had returned safely back to the capital, back to my home away from home. I'll post a more detailed report of my trip later today along with a site you can visit to see the pics I've captured of China thus far. I miss you all terribly!!! May the hand of God guide you as you walk thru life today.

Revelling in this opportunity,

Kendall