Tuesday of Our Trip - Part 3

It had been quite the night before, all of us staying up till about 3 or 4 AM. We were all pretty much asleep, but at 8 in the morning, we were awoken by some pretty crazy laughter by Carlin. Mostly mad, I rolled over to see what the fuss was all about, and I am sure glad that I did. Somehow, we still do not completely know how or why, one of the guys in our group was sleeping in the same bed as another guy in our group. The hilarity really got going when we realized that the one roommate who wasn't suppose to be in this bed, was completely buck naked...haha!!

At this point I am dying laughing in the top bunk, not really understanding what was going on but frankly not really trying to understand. The funny part was that neither of them even realized what was going on until they fully woke up, and they gave that double take at each other, like...what the heck....haha it was so so funny, I honestly laughed harder than the night before with the crazy asian guy. Hopefully you didn't forget about the 6th guy in the room, our new roommate. It was 8 in the morning and only getting a couple hours of sleep, we were all dying laughing while this poor guy just wanted a place to sleep. After the laughter settled down, we were all able to head back to bed until about noon. When we woke up, our roommate was nowhere to be found =/...so two roommates lost in consecutive nights, maybe we are the weird ones everyone is afraid to get stuck with while staying at a hostel. It was sad that he was no longer there, but it was also a good thing that we no longer had a roommate the rest of the trip to be annoyed by us.

Alright so after all the morning shenanigans, we decided that we wanted to hit up the Muslim quarter of the inner city. This part is extremely well known for its food and cheap prices. It wasn't till I got here and took my culture class that I found out how big of a Muslim population there is here in China. After the traditional and ancient beliefs, this religion has the most followers in China. It kind of blew me away thinking that a religion that I thought was primarily in the Middle East, plays an extremely large role here in China. It was definitely an interesting experience walking through the countless roads, side roads, and alleyways where this population lived and did business. Below are just a couple pictures of what we saw in this area of the town.

There were many crossroads in this area and if you stood in the middle of it, you could literally see this view on all sides of you. The streets were very narrow but there was food and merchandise sold in every direction.

This is just another picture of more of the main road going through the Muslim marketplace

After the stop to the marketplace, we wanted to check out one of the most famous pagodas in China. It is called the Big (Wild) Goose Pagoda (yes there is a small one that we didn't check out). We went later in the night because every night there is a big fountain show right in front of it. Although the pagoda was closed, we were still able to get some good pictures of it and see the fountain show. Again, below are just some of the pictures we took while we were there.

Above is the Big Goose Pagoda. The whole area around it was like one ginormous park that was lit up everywhere you looked. It was a pretty amazing sight. Again, I am not able to describe really what I saw because it really was just that awesome. The atmosphere is literally indescribable. 

The three pictures above are our attempts at water bending. It is from a tv show just to clear things up a little bit. Josh in the middle picture was declared the winner.

We really weren't suppose to get in the fountain area when the show was going on, but as you can see above, multiple people were doing it. So being the followers that we all are haha, decided it would be fun to also join in. As a result, I was able to get this picture of the fountains and the pagoda in the background. I think it turned out pretty good!

The picture above is a guy who really wanted to take a picture with me. I am still amazed and slightly confused with the amount of Chinese wanting to take pictures with us. I always try to relate it back to the states which is probably why I find it so strange...in Indiana when I see someone not from the country, I don't ask him or her for a picture with them. Haha I don't know, it just another thing I think about.

After the show was over, we grabbed a bite to eat and headed home. The rest of the night consisted of playing cards and drinking while going over our game plan for the next day. We all agreed that we would ride bikes around the inner city wall, about 9 miles from start to finish! I will be posting more pictures and stuff about it in my entry tomorrow!

Corbin