Wall of Greatness

My, my, how fast the weather has changed in this city. By far, Fall has been absolutely gorgeous. Unfortunately, in one day, the temperature dropped 20 F, and the wind chill only makes it feel colder.

To take advantage of the perfect hiking weather, Bing took us on the 11K Great Wall hike. I was definitely not prepared, physically, or mentally, for this task. First off, I thought that it would be a pretty flat hike with some up and down stairs trekking, was I wrong! If this hike were in the States, it would most definitely have been closed down. There were parts so steep and broken, without the right shoes, one would definitely have fallen off the wall to their death. We left around 10 A.M. and didn't get back until 8 P.M. last night. I'm just extremely proud to even accomplished that hike, considering I haven't worked out since I broke my collar bone! (Which reminds me, SNOWBOARDING this year! I'm extremely excited, as well as the fact that Mike will be coming with me this year! Thanks Mom and Dad!)

After we finished our hike, what better way to end the day than to Zipline off the Great Wall into the sunset!

Well, this is our last week before mid-term break. I've decided to stay in Beijing, since I think it's probably a smart idea to save money, seeing that the economy I have to return to isn't one warm towards opening paid job opportunities to me. Also, I really haven't seen everything Beijing has to offer yet. Perhaps a trip back to Fragrant Mountains would be a good idea, hopefully with the turn of leaf colors.

Well, I'm burnt. Just typed a 500 character Chinese essay, and have to meet with my language partner in 20 minutes. Until next time.

All the way from the city with the wall of greatness.

Brief Update

Hello again, it's been exactly 10 days since I've last post, and I realize I'm not doing too well with this blog. However, there really hasn't been much that has happened since my last post. I got my first Chinese test back- Yay for the 94.5%! I actually just had another test today. The only time crunch I feel is writing the 400 character essay in less than an hour. Today's topic was about vegetarians, how interesting, right?

Anyhow, over the weekend we went to Summer Palace, which was actually quite beautiful considering its the dead of fall. I actually figure that Beijing is much more beautiful in the Autumn time. Apparently, it is the best season in Beijing, but does not last long. I will take pictures of my campus, which is absolutely gorgeous this time of year. Remind me!

This weekend should be pretty eventful. My language partner and Eric's language partner are taking a few of us Alliance kids to the "Fragrant Mountains" to go hiking. Once again, this is a beautiful scenic spot near Beijing which relies on the beauty of fall. Don't worry, I'll be sure to snap a few shots. On Sunday, I'm going to watch Eric's language partner play some college basketball. We'll see how eventful a Chinese college basketball game is. She said that her team is short, perhaps I can pretend to play although I don't see why they'd want me to, hah.

All this talk about sports is really making me miss hockey, and my Smith hockey team. As much as I can't wait to play with them again, I can't bear the fact of leaving China. I have truly fallen in love with this city. Perhaps it's because the urban structuring is constantly changing. Honestly, I think I've seen 4 places, near my school, get demolished and rebuilt in the past few weeks. Each of which took less that a week to rebuild. China doesn't play around!

Another hype: Twilight. So, Mike and I went to the big XiDan bookstore earlier this week and saw, yes, my loved Twilight. I was ready to buy a copy for Laura and Mike picked up his own copy. Point of the story being, they both love it so far, so Weien and I are so happy we've converted two more! Stephenie Meyer would be so proud.

I think that's about it for this post.

Post Silk- Road

October 7, 2008
Hello my fellow readers,

I write to you sick from my bed as I have contracted a very familiar story of food poisoning. Two bags of bad dumplings and I'm out for a day. Anyways, I know you have missed my crazy stories and I have missed your crazy comments. However, I am back now tapping away at my keyboard to reminisce about my last week journeying to the West.

As a disclaimer, I shall warn you that all of these next "diary" entries are all off of the top of my head with the aid of pictures. I know I will forget little anecdotes, but this is not my fault. Ok, maybe it is, since I did forget to bring a pen along with me for this trip. Not much use just bringing a notebook. Anyway, let's commence. (These won't be in complete sentences, you'll just get the gist.) I'll put up one picture per day, just so it entices you to read it, and I'll try to choose one that sums up the day! Bah!

September 26, 2008
I already forgot... I know we headed on a bus mid-afternoon for the train station. Ate some KFC at the station, then headed on to our "hard-sleepers", which actually were not bad at all. I got a cabin with a random Chinese couple, Eric K, Weien, and Mike. Alliance Beijingers were scattered all down the car, but we were able to come together and play some cards and just chat with Bing about our random Capstone project ideas which we all rummaged together and e-mailed before we left. 13 hours later, we ended up in Xi'an.



September 27, 2008
Good morning Xi'an, still on the train. We checked into our hotel, which was pretty Ritzy..well at least for China. Had some breakfast, then we headed out to Xi'an's city wall. It was definitely a rainy day as I was wearing my rain jacket...in which I found my chocolate bar from Alaska and was munching on for the rest of the day. Chocolate doesn't go bad okay! Unfortunately, for me, this day I was "pickpocketed" so I lost around 300 RMB, my cellphone, and my dorm key. Not so bad for a pickpocketting, but I was just so glad that I took out the rest of my money that morning. Not wasting much time looking for this thief, we all went to get some lunch in the city. Ate some Chinese styled hamburgers: Rou Jia Mo. Headed to Shangxi National Museum where we spent 3 hours that day because the Shanghai kids were delayed to Xi'an. We tried to be cordial, but by the end of our trip, still weren't much on speaking terms with all of them. Got dinner, walked around the area by our hotel, sleep.


September 28, 2008
Teracotta soldier day. Boring as I have seen them before. Mom, Dad: the little photo shop where Chris and I were photoshopped into a soldier is still there. Went to a mosque in the Muslim district, took some quick photos so afterward we could head to the night market, where we ate some chuan'r (meatstick!) and some other goodies. After dinner on the street, we went to the largest water fountain spectacle in China. Bellagio, eat your heart out. If you ever get the chance, you should check out this crazy water fountain, it's beyond belief. After being wowed by water, both Alliance groups headed to the train station to, yet again, ride it for a long time: 19 hours. Joy. Headed to Jia Yu Guan.


September 29, 2008
Was in the train since 9 p.m. last night, and rode the train until 4 p.m. today. What a kill of a day. Checked into our hotel...and there we rested.

For the lack of a photo, I'll put one from yesterday of the crazy fountain.


September 30, 2008
A visit to a stretch of the great wall....where we took lots of photos, did some archery off the wall. I actually hit the fake Mongolian in the chest, thank you very much, fell down a flight of stairs, took some more photos, tanned, then left. Off we went to yet another stretch of the great wall. Here we climbed, and I panted, climbed, felt faint, climed, and finally made it to the top. Sort of. I was so dehydrated being in the middle of a desert, little to no water (that's how I do). Drink up kids, water is good for you, blah. There are tons of photos of me just sitting every other step. I am definitely not looking forward to our 10K Great Wall hike later this fall. Either that, or not looking forward to drinking so much water. After such a crazy day, guess what they made us do...yes, board a bus for 5 hours headed for Dun Huang.


October 1, 2008
Happy October. Dun Huang was definitely one of my more favorite stops along this trip. This morning, we went to the sand dunes! I have never actually been to the dunes before...which is interesting because I live so close to a desert! A lot of us bought orange booties to wrap up our feet so sand wouldn't get in, but I later defeated the purpose by going ATVing without them. Here we saw the "Crescent Lake" which is pretty much a small oasis in the middle of the desert, but this was not the most fun part. A lot of the Alliance kids went sledding down the mountain, but the few smart ones, a.k.a, myself went tubing! It was much faster, cost ~3 USD, but was so much fun! While everyone else went to go ride camels, yes those stinky, spitting animals, Mike and I went ATVing, which was a blast. This wasn't your average Hawaiian caravan adventure. This is going top speed down a 70 foot sand dune, screaming at the top of your lungs only to get stranded in the middle of nowhere while the ATV assistant goes and helps someone else type of ATVing. It was definitely a rush and completely worth 100RMB for 2 people (14 USD).

After lunch we went to the Mogao Ku Caves which is a world renowned repository of Buddhist art. Here we saw one of the world's largest statues of Buddha. I thought we spent a pretty long time here, but it definitely was eventful and quite tantilizing for the mind.

Guess what we did this night, just guess. Yes, we boarded another train. 13 hours to Turpan!


October 2, 2008
We arrived around 8:30 a.m. in Turpan. All I could say is it was dry and hot! We went to Jiaohe ruins where we got to ride on donkey-pulled carts. Later we went to Huoyan (Flaming) Mountains. Where I actually expended the energy to walk towards the mountain and touch it. Yes, I touched flaming mountain. My Smith flip flops were not too happy about the trek, yet they did not fail me. On my way back, I started to get a really bad upset stomach...sort of like what I have now as I type this. The feeling died down only to get worse when we went to visit a traditional Uighur home. While sampling this family's dried fruit and walking around their vineyard, I almost pass out with intestinal pain. Thank goodness I was able to stop at a rest stop before we made our long bus ride, yes another one, to Urumqi.

Urumqi was definitely my favorite city, and if Alliance had a program there, I would be there in a second. In the middle of the desert, random buildings appear from no where....That is a spot on accurate description of Urumqi. Well, at least to me that's how it felt, and I can say anything I want because chances are, you haven't been there :P


October 3, 2008
Mike's birthday! Lala and I woke him up at midnight to give him our ridiculous presents, while Tony sang along to our birthday song. Went to bed, but awoke only to yet again sit on a bus for two hours towards Heavenly Lake. It was well worth the long bus ride though. The scenery was breathtaking, which made up for the fact we didn't have lunch, but instead had a picnic of Oreos, Snicker bars, and some weird preserved hot dog grossness. Fortunately enough for the Alliance folk, I organized Bing and the tour guide to get some birthday cakes for Mike's b-day so we were able to feast on those, while sitting in a Kazakh yurt. I don't think he'll ever get a birthday in a yurt again. We headed back towards Urumqi and stopped off at some random park "Hongshan Park", which wasn't what we expected it to be. Traversed to some random, sketchy alley, and had dinner there. Luke and Jansen bought Mike some wine, so that was their beverage of choice for the 3 dollar dinner we had. I also had the best Jian Bing (hand-pulled pancake) I have ever eaten in my life on this little sketchy road. Headed back to Urumqi where we planned on going KTVing and clubbing, but I think the events earlier that day sucked all the energy from us. Hit the sack!


October 4, 2008
Last day! Some museum in the morning, then Xinjiang's International Bazaar Market in the afternoon. I actually spent money on something other than food that day. I bought 2 pashmina scarves for 100RMB. Beautiful I might say. Flew from Urumqi 8 p.m. that night to Beijing, got back at 2 in the morning, and died on my bed by 3 a.m.



I think that's about all I can squeeze from my mind at this moment. Remember, I am dying of stomach pains, but thankfully using my brain so much to recollect all of this has helped take my mind off of the punches my tummy is feeling from the inside.

Also, I had about 100 Bubble Teas on this trip, I just didn't remember when I had them...so I thought I would just let you know at the end of this post. Perhaps I gained back all my weight from this, but I actually don't think so. I think I should start my own diet called Cassie's Bubble Tea diet, and make a load of cash. What you think?

All the way from the land where my Chinese English name is Cathanfar.
Yeah, I really couldn't tell you why either.