Imagine one of those really hot summer days you've experienced as a kid, where you don't want to move becuase it's so hot you think it'll just exhaust you, but you also know if you don't keep moving, nothing will help pass the horrendously stangnant wind over your already drenched skin. Suddenly you hear the scary meaningful siren of an ice cream mobile, driven around by everyone local ex-con. You know it won't have the exact type of ice cream you want, yet in that moment, you know that it is the best you could possibly have, and you want nothing more than the re-frozen red popsicle sitting in the depths of his bone-collectible freezer. You grudgingly hand over your allowance for this momentary relief of heat. He hands it to you. It's in that white waxy paper..white enough to seem clean, but just transparent enough to verify that the old scumbag did indeed give you the red one, and not the grape one which no one ever wanted (well i actually liked the grape...). You tear into that paper and bite down with all your mite, and you think, "hey this is exactly what I wanted".

China is much like that. It's exactly what I want right now. Although I feel ready to get out of China, I know that those feelings are born out of being blindsided by the fact that in less than two months, I'll see both my mother, and Kim in Ireland. I'm loving where I am right now though, and try very hard to live in today and not in the months I will have ahead.

China has this amazing little characteristic that all necessitating some validation should seriously tap into. If China was a stage, you are always the star. For some reason, they love foreigners.

And by love, i mean "ooh" and "aahh" over EVERYTHING you do? Tying your shoes? expect a crowd. Donating blood (this is a whole other story), and the doctors will almost hug you while saying "Beijing thanks you for your blood". People will grab you to take pictures with you, they will scream at you to get your attention and then WHAM, flashbulbs everywhere. Random people will walk up to you to find out if you are okay, or if you need help. Boys will propose to you. The whole restaurant staff gathers around you as you prepare to order, people watch you play games of cards like you are spinning gold...People would practically give you anything you want, if they thought it would make you happy. At first I was just so shocked, mainly because having an American accent everywhere else in the world, isn't always a good thing. Then I just became amused, then embaressed, then amused again. I think I might know why. I recieved a 2 cent bill back in change one day, and upon closer inspection, realize I look just like the girl on the front of it. It's kind of creepy...why is she on a Chinese bill? Obviously she can't be Chinese, and she definately can't be Chinese, becuase she looks too much like me, and I'm not chinese. What the hell is going on? MOM WHAT HAVEN'T YOU TOLD ME?! If you don't believe me, look for yourself!

So lets back it up a bit...I had met two people on the boat from Japan and was still with them by the time we arrived to China. After our first cab ride which left me awe struck with the witnessing of people peeing in the middle of the streets, buses swerving into oncoming traffic, poverty stricken towns that looked like harlem after a bomb, but yet a strange beauty to it's realness. People in this port city looked at us like we were completely crazy. I don't mean just stare and turn away, but stare at us like we were aliens, with their jaws on the floor, and would continue staring until we walked away.

Beijing was quite city like, but enjoyable. My first day there, i decides to donate blood because I really want to know what blood type I have, and becuase I have never done it. I can't do it in the U.S. as they won't take blood from people who are as awesome as me, becuase they are afraid everyone will want a piece of awesome in pumping through their veins. What does this translate to? Basically, because I've been in a mad-cow disease country for more than 3 months, they won't take my goods. Whatevs, they dont even know what they are missing! So i gave blood, and i gave way more than you should your first time, and I felt wierd as hell..but now i know..IM AN A! A! A!. if i ever forget, please remind me that im an awesome A! I got a really cool bag out of it..my favorite bag ever now..and so perfect..so hell yeah for blood! 400 ml of my precious kool-aid got me endless cups of water, a cool bag, and the knowedge of my blood type. I wish you could buy everything in life with blood.

So anyways...back to China..I entertained myself with kung fu shows, and chinese acrobatic shows, the forbidden city, and tianamen square..but the BEST was to come.

Me and the other two from the boat decided to take on a great wall expedition that would have us sleeping under the open stars on this fantastic structure. You hear an awful lot about all the areas along the great wall where you can't go without being harassed to be Mao t-shirts, or lighters, or bottles of cold water. None of us wanted that experience, so we decided to go to an area of the wall that was officially closed off. We figured we'd sneak onto it, and hike our asses of. The guide book we were referencing said it was a few days worth of a hike from where we were starting to the next village. we didn't know what "a few days" means..especially in terms of food and water supplies, so we loaded up with what we could, and took off.

Our first task was to climb through a watchtower, and then up scaffolding, until we could get onto the wall. After doing so, we heard a ton of fireworks go off, and we joked that it had to do with the locals warning each other of foreigners. This turned out to be exactly what was going on, so that these locals could collect a few bucks on us here and there, for climbing on the wall near their land..oh well... So far so good, then came the realization of how unstructured this section of the wall actually was! The steps were falling apart! We were walking on an extended death trap, but realized how worth it is was...there was one section that was so steep, we had to slide down on our asses. Because I didn't want to wear the ONLY pair of jeans i have on me, i wore a pair of pants I bought in Thailand. Put it this way, these pants have no more ass in them. I had to sew them back up, becuase they are so comfortable, but they are the ass-no-more pants from this day forth..we stopped for lunch, were hounded by bees and flies, but all the while loving this adventure. I can't lie, this is hard work. That wall was nowhere near the state of the tourist sections...and it was really scary at some points. After about 6 hours, we were halfway through our supplies, with no actual idea of how far the next town was, so we decided to set up there on the wall that night, sleep, and go back the next day. The longest and brightest shooting stars I have ever seen in my life, existed that night. It was spectacular..and several times in the middle of the night, I'd wake up thinking "ohmigod im sleeping on the great wall of china". By sleeping i don't mean luxury of bedding, i mean on a thin as hell sleeping back on a pile of rocks, but funny enough, it was perfect. Storm clouds built all around us, but never over us..we were spared from the rain. If it had started raining, there was no way in hell any of us could have climbed down in that slickness to the nearest watchtower, we would have had to just wait it out!

The next day we took off down the wall, and what took us 6 hours to climb, took us about 1.5 hours to climb down, although I fell a couple hundred times and begin to rub the hell out of my underwear at this point. (STOP LAUGHING!)

Is it wrong to put your nose in the corner of the dirtiest train ever, and suddenly be transported back to a home cooked meal? I swear I don't know how it is possible, but the most digusting nook of a local train, became a piping hot plate of yellow rice with a little butter on it. It makes you wonder about the physics of smell doesn't it?!

Is it wrong for people to just cough up their souls and lungs, and fart on you in public? Of course it isn't!

Okay, well today I went to see the terracotta soldiers...it was interesting..in my opinion, not worth going this much out of the way for, but hey..i saw them..and they didnt try to kill me..mission accomplished. So far so good.

I'm leaving Xian tonight (unfortunately could only get a hard seat ticket for the 9 hour journey overnight: lots of smoke, tons of screaming spitting chinese people, and tons of stares = f.u.n.) to visit the tibetan regions/villages of china, that aren't part of the political boundary of Tibet, but are tibetan as antyhing, minus all the crowds. I am just so ready to get out of cities right now, especially due to the pollution here. I constantly have a runny nose, and a slight headache, not to mention the eyesight of a mole with all the haze here. im ready for some peace and quiet, and no showers, and yak butter tea, bright material, and maybe a sky burial?

(sky burial: when someone dies, they cut them up hardcore, put the pieces out on a rock, and wait for vultures to eat that human junk up. i know it sounds disgusting as anything, but if you can imagine what a life cycle that really is, and how you are buried piece by piece into the bellies of a vulture as they ascend into the heavens, it sounds amazing. MOM I WANT THIS. only if being made into chum to be fed to sharks falls through)

read this, digest it, love it, and i'll be back with more soon!