Beijing Day 7 and 8

This was our last day we spent in Beijing, I really enjoyed Beijing- it is so big and exciting! We stayed in the cutest hostel and it was much nicer than our apartments so it was hard to leave!! I enjoyed hostels because you met some of the most random people at-it is amazing how many people come to China just to escape life!
This is our hallway :)

One of my favorite parts of this hostel was the laundry service. You took your dirty clothes to the front desk with some money at the beginning of the day and when you came back that night it was all clean and folded in your room! It was a happy feeling
We had a few more days to head back to the school, so before heading home we took a train ride over to Xian! We all went a little crazy and Beijing with our money... so to help save some we decided to buy hard seats for our over night train ride!! Definitely an experience... maybe not the best one we've had! Our train seats were basically like the seats in the chapel, except it they were perfect 45 degree angles- a little difficult to get comfortable on! We made the best of our 11 hour ride! We had a laptop to watch a movie- we put the Chinese subtitles on and let those around us watch with :) We also played some fun games with our i-pods! about 3 in the morning we attempted sleep, none of us got too much. Our neighbors figured out how to get comfortable :) When I saw them sleeping, I laughed so hard.

Hey, I guess whatever works right?
Xi'an was an amazing city and i wish we could have spent more time there! Xi'an is where the Terracotta Warriors are... which are incredible!!
On no sleep we went that day to see all the warriors!
There are three pits full of warriors, which got more impressive one after the other!

the first pit was full of warriors, but it also had a lot of excavating! It was neat to see them still digging and finding more warriors!
The second pit had a lot more warriors, several were still in pieces and digging was being done, you also were up above looking down into the pit so it was difficult to see much detail. However, they had several of the warriors in-cased around the pit!

the 3rd pit was my FAVORITE it was so incredible! There were so many warriors and you could get close enough to see all the detail put into each of them. Its true how each warrior is different!
Andrea took most of these pictures, she is an amazing photographer!



Of course we had to have some fun while we were there... so we decided to become the Terracotta Warriors!!

In the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics they had two giant marionettes come out and perform "warrior and little girl" They acted out a story of caring, friendship and peace fully illustrating the concept of the Peoples Olympics.

that night we had fun exploring the city! We tried new foods, did some more shopping and had fun out on the town ;)

We spent the rest of the night hanging out in our hostel with our new friend Tom and his dog Teddy!!
The next morning I walked into my room to find all the girls giggling and laughing!! Andrea had broken her glasses and this is the result of it :)




I LOVED BEIJING- this vacation was the most amazing thing I have ever done!! Everyday was full of new adventures and excitement!! I would go back in a heartbeat!