JUST A SIDENOTE, MAKE SURE YOU ACTUALLY READ WHERE IT SAYS READ BELOW! IT IS A PRETTY AWESOME STORY!
I left off saying that I would talk about the bike ride around the wall. I want to preface a little bit by saying that we knew that there was a wall that surrounded some of the city, but we were not expecting it to be such a major part of the city. It still stands after hundreds of years, has been renovated a couple of times, and still brings people from all over China and the world to see it. Like most walls, it was used to keep the inner city safe during wars with other nations and actually was never penetrated from my understanding which is pretty cool. We woke up at about 10 AM with the ambition to bike around the inner city on top of the wall. Although the ride was about 9 miles long, it was well worth it just for the sight seeing.
As the journey continued around the wall, you could start to get the feeling of what it might have been like all those years ago. The seemingly impossible feat of winning this city just seemed completely unfathomable, having walls that stood 30+ feet the whole way around the city. You could definitely get the feeling that living inside the walls brought not only the feeling of safety, but that also of being important to what was happening inside the walls. Again, I keep saying that its nothing like I have ever seen, but it truly is exactly that! There really is nothing to compare it to back in the States where hundreds of years seems like a forever ago, but these walls have been here 5 times that! Anyways, after countless amazing views, the trip around the wall finally ended, and we made our way back to the hostel. It was definitely another day well spent on our trip! Below are just a few of the many pictures taken while on the journey around the wall with some brief explanations.
Carlin and Zack thought it would be a good idea to get a tandem cycle...they were regretting it later haha. Josh is just a boss in this picture.
This is the shot down North Street I believe. You can see the Bell Tower in the distance down the middle. That is the halfway point for the inner city. Another one of these distances will get you to the other side of the wall. It just shows how big this wall is all the way around.
This picture was take from a corner of the wall. We weren't sure what this building was, but it had a gold roof that we thought was pretty cool.
I had to try to take a scenic shot from the wall. This was what it ended up being; you can be the judge haha.
A picture looking back at the East Gate I believe.
We took a couple group shots, but this one was one of the best ones that was on my camera. We pretty much were the kings of the wall while we were on it =]
Alrighty, so this pretty much accounts for what we did most of Wednesday. We ended the day by playing some cards and hanging out at the bar in the basement of our hostel.
Thursday brought even more fun with our trek up one of the most scenic mountains in China. The Huashan Mountains are pretty renown when it comes to China mountains. We got up pretty dang early, and by dang early I mean about 5 AM to catch a bus to the mountains. Mind you, we still really don't know how to speak the Chinese language, so getting anywhere is quite the struggle with the language barrier. After much pointing and looking like confused white people that we were, we made it to the bus! The ride was about 2 hours which we all used to catch up on some needed sleep. We got there where a taxi immediately took us to the base of the mountain. Because it was the off season, we were able to get the tickets to enter the part for about half the price which we were all pretty happy about.
A couple of pictures that I took at the base of the mountain and while we were in the city of Huashan that I thought turned out quite well!
The city is really dwarfed by the mountain really anywhere you look.
The trek up started by taking a sky tram to the lowest peak, The North Peak. Me being afraid of heights, well lets not say afraid, I do not particularly like being that high haha, was a little nervous going up on a tram or actually heading up a mountain in general. Regardless of what I liked, we made it through the ride with some ridiculous sights. After we got out, we decided to keep heading up the mountain, and holy cow...some of the climb was extremely steep. Steps seemed to be haphazardly placed at random intervals and heights. This made the journey that much more tiresome. Although we did not quite get to the highest point of the mountain, we still got pretty high. By the time we got back to the base of the mountain, we were pretty well spent having not really done anything like this before. We also did not know we could take any bus back to Xi'an without paying extra, so we waited about 3 hours for our bus to leave just hanging out in the town seen above. We got alot of strange looks like we didn't belong, but we were content just playing cards on a bench we found. We got back to the City of Xi'an at about 7 PM, so our day was pretty involved in quite long...we all decided to call it a early night and decide what we would do in the morning. Again below are some of the neat pictures I took on the mountain.
IF ANYTHING, READ BELOW!!!
The story I am about to tell, I still can't believe that it happened, especially in the middle of China of all places! We walk into this woman's shop just casually looking at all of her work. The paintings and calligraphy were awe-inspiring, done with such detail, such a steady hand, and with such love. That may sound corny, but here is why I said that. After a few of us decided to go ahead and buy some of her work that included common phrases and some with Bible verses, the lady, appalled that Americans were interested in her work, just decided to open up to us, complete strangers, about her life story and struggles she had gone through. She first warmly thanked us that she was so grateful that we were buying from her shop, and secondly blew me away with what she said next.
She started showing a picture of her and her father, saying that he opened this show many years ago, and had taught her everything she knew about the arts. She then told us that about seven years ago, he was diagnosed with cancer. She was heart stricken and really didn't understand why this was happening to him or their family. She found out that many people were actively praying for him and their family, which gave her hope. After seeing that her dad was at peace with the illness, not letting it get the best of him and never deterring him from being the happy person she always knew him to be, she came to the realization that prayer was an extremely powerful thing! She began to actual read out of the book that so many verses came out of that her father had written onto scrolls. She began to understand God's grace and the eternal Love He has for all people! Although two years after her Dad was diagnosed with cancer he passed away, she said that she was happy to have those couple years with him in complete happiness. She also mentioned that she was never able to do calligraphy before he passed away, but seemingly mastered it which she attests to God's love for her.
As she was telling us this, I could not help but tear up a little bit knowing the struggles she went through. I then started to realize how powerful God truly is! I did not expect to experience anything like this being in China where Christianity is not really looked highly upon. This woman is a testament to God's love for all people no matter where in the World! Through all the adversity and struggles, you could definitely tell that she loved her life and knew that God had a plan for her! Elliot and I talked to each other after this experience, and we both agreed that we could feel God's presence while standing in a simple shop in the middle of China! WHO KNEW!!
If this doesn't give you hope and strength in Christ, then I am not sure what will. I know it definitely reassured me that Christ is everywhere, working in those you would least expect. He is such an amazing blessing to all of us, that I think often times we forget that He helps us in times when we least expect it. So I guess what I am try to say through this amazing woman's story is that don't just assume that someone is different from you religiously just because culturally there are no connections. God has an amazing plan for all of us and chooses us as His own! I think to this point in my adventures here in China, nothing has really stuck with me as much as this one! If you are ever interested in visiting Xi'an, Helen has quite the story for you!
After ending our journey in the Muslim corner, we headed off to a club called Salsa. For some reason in China, I have been letting go of my timid "I can't dance" mentality and trying new things, this club being another prime example. Us five white people were the only foreigners it seemed in the entire club of what seemed like hundreds of people. That being said, there was one platform on the dance floor, not only did we take this platform and dance, but I took the platform and did the best I could haha. We were quite the spectacle for all of the Asians that were also on the dance floor. The attention was on the crazy white foreigners who decided to get up there and dance! I am sure this is hard for you guys to picture, Corbin in front of a crowd of Asians dancing, but it really did happen, just ask Elliot! haha, regardless it was a great time! I have quite a few videos I took on my phone, but this blogging site doesn't really do well with videos, so I will just have to show them to you when I get back. Just ask!!
We got up extremely early on Saturday around 4 AM to take a van to the airport. We got there about 6 AM and made our flight at 8. Taking the flight actually was pretty fast, and there wasn't a delay of any sort. We got into Shanghai at about 10:30 AM and made it back to the campus by noon.
The journey was an amazing one, mostly because we were able to get to a random place in China on our own, and then make it back in one piece! These are the kind of things that I will always remember and use in the future when traveling.
So that brings me to the new campus which although isn't in downtown Shanghai, it still has its own flavor of things to talk about. My next blog will hopefully be sooner than later talking about the different things discovered at this new campus!!
Again hope all is well at home! Hopefully you were able to take something away from this post, especially the story of the woman finding God.
Corbin
P.S. Because we are at a new campus, my address has changed! It is:
CHINA
Shanghai CITY
Min Hang JiaoTong University
Dong Chuan Rd #800
Foreigner Student building #9
Room Number 107
P.O. BOX 200240
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