Andrea Hearts Traveling

The boys from Luxembourg recommend to stop in Shaxi Instead of going directly to Dali and I am so glad I took their advice!

(To get to Shaxi I had to take a bus from Lijian to Jianchuan and then a local bus to Shaxi)

The whole point to come to Lijiang was to hike the tiger leaping gorge which is supposed to be one of the most amazing hikes in china. After the big bummer of foggy emeishan I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted to hike and see nothing but when I got here the weather was very different and it looked like it was going to be beautiful.

5:30am taxi ride to the airport is no fun!

I think it’s ok to say that the biggest attraction in Chengdu are the pandas!!! So on my last day I woke up super duper early and by 6:30am I was at the bus stop across from my hostel to catch the early bus to the Panda breading and research center.

I did a lot of research about the center and learned that pandas are only active really early in the morning during their feeding time so one must get there right when they open. Just like the koalas in Australia, the pandas in China love to sleep and because they don’t get many nutrients from the bamboo they are really low in energy.

I was one of the first people in and headed towards the back of the park where most of the pandas are. While I was walking I hear somebody shout “Andrea”, I turned around and it was a couple from NYC that I met a couple of days ago.

I loved Chengdu!

The city is not all that exciting but the hostel I stayed in made it such a cool experience and the people I met made the trip even more fun!

I spent one morning at the people's park with thousands of Chinese people. The people watching was simply amazing and I had lots of great fun just watching people.
The park is pretty big and there are many activities to do such as rowing a boat, or feeding the koi fish by the pond.

Here is the bonsai garden with tons of cute bonsai trees.

Today I flew to Chengdu from Xi'an and took the airport shuttle to my hostel. Once I got in the shuttle I couldn't believe my eyes, the hall on the bus were full of luggage and we had to climb through bags to find a seat meanwhile the storage under the bus where I put my bag was empty! Sometimes Chinese logic makes no sense to me!

oh my! Getting to Xi’an wasn’t easy! First of all I had to chose from 3 different options: cheap 16 hour sleeper train, “expensive” 6 hour fast train, or more expensive 1.5 hrs flight. I really did not want to sleep in a train by myself and having to take care of my belonging and the thought of a dirty bathroom really did not appeal to me! Going on a plane seemed like a good idea but taxis and the time to get there adds up so I decided to pay for the train because my two last trips on fast train have been really good!

My roommate told me about his tour to the Great Wall and how bad it was; he paid $50 for a "tour" that had an angry Chinese lady guide that only took them to a touristy part of the wall and said they had to be back in an hour and a half otherwise they would be left behind.

Finally made it to Beijing in a 6 hour long ride from Huangshan.

On the way I got to see beautiful scenery but also many many many factories that would have smoke coming out of tubes and polluting the environment and making the towns almost invisible due to the high level of pollution.

Once I got back from Huangshan I decided that it was a good day for a lazy day so I took a shower, did laundry and sat in bed… for hours!

Yellow mountains day! So exciting!

I am impressed that I did not wake up super anxious about today's hike but instead I was excited. I woke up super early to take the 6:20am bus up to the mountains with my Chinese roommate.

I left my hostel at 6:30am to make sure to not miss the 8:31 train to Huangshan!

The metro ride as predicted was good and on time. Strangely we had to all get out of a metro, they closed the doors and made us take another one.

Once I got to the main railway station the adventure began! Trying to figure out things here in china is a little bit more complicated and literally no one speaks English, sometimes not even at the help desks at the stations!

I am gladly to say that after 1hr and 40 mins I finally made it to my train!

And I was also glad that the was decent! I have heard horror stories of Chinese trains so I paid to go on the fast train and expensive train to try to avoid any bad experiences.

After 3 hours and 15 minutes on the train we stopped at a station and a lot of people got out but I noticed that the people sitting next to me didn't get their luggage... strange!

They had long announcements in Chinese but nothing in English! They had been giving info in English such as the stop names and to get out of the front door but this time no english. I was very confused!

We ended up stopping for 35 mins and people went out to smoke and got some food.

In the train I got to observe a lot of Chinese people eating; all the people I saw were chewing on big bones and they were all wearing plastic gloves. One of my many pet peeves is people chewing loudly and with their mouth open and guess what?!? thats the way Chinese people eat. They chewed on the bones, chewed very loudly while talking to one another, and on top of that spitting the bones down to an open bag on their lap, some even spitted the bones on the lap of other people! It was so disturbing!

Finally made it to huangshan and oh my! There is absolutely nothing written in English! I was actually shocked!!!

Thankfully I had the name of the bus I needed to take in Chinese and showed it to a guy that pointed to the bus but otherwise I don't know how I would have done it!

I finally arrived in Tunxi, the super cute town where I'm spending a couple of days in a hostel.

Made it to China, aka the great firewall!
The land of WeChat, AliPay, and sensored Google, Facebook, Instagram and 99% of the things that the rest of the world use on a daily basis!

Getting out of the airport and riding the metro to my hostel made it extremely clear that I was no longer in civilized Asia... I have now entered a new world of screaming and pushing... Can't wait to see what a month here will be like!!!

My hostel welcomed me by having a designated smoking area right at the entrance and having to go through a cloud of smoke to check-in!

I dropped my bags off and since it was already 8pm I set off to find some food! The street food looked unappealing and to be honest it was very intimidating to not know what they were selling and had no way to communicate with anybody to find out if the food was vegetarian (probably not!)

I just spent 30 long days in China and even though I have traveled to many countries I think China in particular was a huge shock for me. I had a hard time adjusting to their culture because it is not only hugely different from mine but it actually goes so against my believes and the way I think people should behave.

I am not writing this to offend the Chinese culture, I get that we are different and that’s why I love traveling and seeing the differences between cultures and the way people behave. Writing my impression is just the way I processed what was going on for me.

Well, I am glad I did not toss the black dress I packed for Kay's wedding because I got to use it in yet another wedding, this time... Korean style!

I do not know if there is such a thing as a Korean style wedding but the wedding I attended was a weird mix of Western with some (maybe) Korean aspects.

We got to the wedding hall and it was full of people and big flower arrangements that looked like the coronas we send back home in El Salvador when people pass away!

I have to start by saying that I made a huge mistake and I underestimated the beauty and the traveling potential of South Korea!!! I really haven't heard much about South Korea and it is not really in the "traveling map" of a lot of people.

Before going to South Korea of course I reached out to my friend Bianca for some advice since she has been living there for 13 years. She said that I could spend a year in South Korea but I know just how much she loves it so I settled for 10 days... HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake! South Korea is beautiful! It deserves twice that much time or even more but the good part is... I will be coming back for more!!!

After Busan I took a fast speed train all the way to Seoul and spent the next 6 days staying with Bianca, having fresh green smoothies (thanks to her awesome vitamix skills) every morning and eating fresh almond butter... I was in heaven!

First things first... Dinner...
Bianca cooked a delicious meal and made salad... ahhhh I missed salad and veggies so much! In Japan there was such a lack of fresh vegetables and they consider a salad a bed of cabbage with some shredded carrots on top and 5 pieces of corn... but now... it's fruit and veggies galore! I'm happy!

After eating dinner we went for a looooong walk around Seoul.

We started right outside of her door and walked through the wall of Seoul

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