Hong Kong/China!

We arrived in Hong Kong and were here for about 2 hours (enough time to get to the airport and wait for our flight to Beijing). From what I saw of the city it looked huge and like the technology capital of the world with all of its huge buildings for Samsung, Epson, Phillips, etc..
I got to spend a lot more time in Beijing. The air was much clearer than we were expecting, but that is because they have shut down all of the factories until after the olympics to clear the air. We got to see a bunch of the olympic buildings/arenas and they were pretty cool looking. It will be awesome to watch on television and be able to say I saw them in person! Wait 'till you see the cool designs of them all.
The city was so clean, which is not at all what I was expecting. When you think Beijing (or China with all of its people and huge cities) you picture more of an NYC setting. It wasn't like that at all. It was very clean and there were no homeless people or beggars. A very nice change.
Our first Chinese dinner was a specialty of Peking Duck. I think I tried every part of a duck possible, and it all tasted the same/not very great. Of course there was tons of rice and sweet and sour fish, etc- ugh i ate so much Chinese food I will be happy if I don't have any more for another year at least.
The next day we went to the Great Wall of China! If I never climbed another stair in my life I would still have climbed as many as any average human. It was a lot of stairs, but I loved the clear air and the smell of the trees. And getting to the top was a great feeling (especially because not even half of our group made it all the way up)! The day was sunny and windy-absolutely perfect weather. I still cannot really believe that I hiked the Great Wall (CRAZY!)!
I got to go to an Acrobatics Show one night. It was basically unreal-a lady literally sat on her own head, while holding up four chandelier things. It kinda freaked me out to be honest. Then a little girl came out and did like 50 flips in a row, followed by some men who were just as flexible and strong on top of that. Asians are crazy!
I saw many things in both Beijing and Xian over the past few days. The Summer Palace is a huge park with a lake that you can take boat rides on. We walked around and enjoyed many pagodas and temples. Tiananmen Square is where Mao Zedong, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party is buried. It is as big as 9 soccer fields. Thousands of asians visit everyday to see his tomb because they love him so much. There was a Forbidden City which had awesome looking pagodas and buildings, but they were all under construction so we didn't get to go in any of them. We also went to the Temple of Heaven where people pray for good harvest and health. It was beautifully painted and had amazing architectural structure.
Another very large and exciting part of our trip was visiting the Terra Cotta Warriors Museum. A long story short: there was an emperor who wanted to be buried with warriors to protect his soul/ghost so he had his warriors make thousands of stone-scultpures of themselves and their horses and armor to be buried with him. It took them 4 decades to finish it all and buried the emperor. Soon after he died, another emperor took over and ordered his army to go and destroy the tomb. Hundreds of years later a man was building a well and scooped up random pieces of the sculptures (discovering the tomb) and now it is all being excavated. We saw tons of the warriors that have been restored and the sites that are still being dug up.
There are so many people in China, and I know everyone has heard that before, but experiencing it just isn't the same as hearing about it. They have no sense of personal space at all, because they have always grown up and had so many people around them all of the time. It got to be very irritating to be around so many Asians in museums, streets, restaurants, markets-everywhere. They push and shove and cut you off like you are not even there. This was probably my least favorite thing about China as a whole.
Basically, I did a lot in China. I had a calligraphy lesson one day, visited lots of museums and shopped of course. I went to traditional Tang Dynasty Dinner Show with dancing and singing, music and great outfits! I spent my last day in Shanghai where it rained all day; I enjoyed walking around in the cool weather though. The city seems fun and the waterfront is really cool looking with neon lights at night and huge buildings. I had one really bad day that I seriously sprained my ankle (which is swollen and black and blue) and chipped my tooth (two different incidents though). I was also accused of stealing an ice cream cone from a restaurant by a bunch of little Chinese ladies who chased me down, and got stuck at an airport for 5 hours because the pilots went on strike! Oh the joys of traveling.
One month from today and I will be back in the U.S.. I really can't imagine it and don't really want to. Japan is our last big stop, then a few small ones in between there and Miami. I realize my phone calls, postcards and emails have basically seized, however the last month is going to drag on so they will be coming back into play very soon. Hope all is well and don't worry I will eat plenty of sushi for everyone!
Peace and blessings!

FUN FACTS:
-Population: 1.3 billion
-Literacy rate 90.9%
-Language: Mandarin with hundreds of different dialects
-China second best economy (next to US) in 2007
-100 cities in China (each average over 1 million people)
-1 child policy is very much in force
-6,000 people a day die in car accidents
-Government officials drive around in black Audis
-Currency: 7.015 Yuan = $1 US