China

Beijing China feels like the most different and extreme place I will be going to yet. I am joining a group traveling with my company but arriving one day in advance to meet with the operator and see some hotels. When I got to the airport to check in I was told my flight was delayed and I might miss my connection in Chicago. But then the gate agent says she can get me on an earlier flight leaving soon but I needed to run. OH and the only seat left was first class. Great I say! I check my bag, get my boarding pass and RUN. I literally arrived at the gate as they were closing but all good. Except I feel extremely underdressed in first class with my adventure travel attire. Plus it is not even 7AM yet and I am offered champagne. So, a long layover in Chicago but I make my connection and arrive in Beijing as scheduled. Just without my luggage! At least I have my toothbrush and a long sleeve shirt. In preparation for this trip I created a Google+ profile knowing that Facebook was banned. Though actually my Facebook account worked for the first few days, only when I signed into a new wifi at the second hotel it updated and was blocked. Once the group arrives we start off straight away with Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It is torrential rain but still very crowded. The square itself is not very interesting, but the story behind it of course is. And the Forbidden City is much larger than I expected.

The next day, in my same outfit, we went the Great Wall. Mutianyu Great Wall was the section to be exact. This is at the 6th watchtower and you take a cable car from the bottom to the wall. We spent about an hour walking along the wall on our own and taking photos. It was a very hot day and suddenly a small older Chinese women appears carrying a cooler. She is selling cold waters and cold beer. And the beer was actually cheaper than the water. When it was time to descend the way down is by toboggan.

We also visited the Summer Palace, Kingdom of Heaven, and Bird's Nest - the site of the 2008 summer olympics.

And then we were off to the airport for our flight to Xi'an. Still in my same outfit as my luggage hadn't arrived yet. The main attraction here are the Terracotta Warriors. We visited the museum and saw all the warriors. They really are unique, each looks slightly different just like actual people. We also had a dumpling making cooking class here. And thanks to a lovely women in our group who lent me clothes, I was wearing a new outfit!

Next on the agenda was Chengdu. We flew and checked in the hotel, where I was greeted with my luggage! It was day six and I was defintely ready to unpack. Here we headed to the Giant Panda Breeding Center. The pandas are about the cutest things you can imagine. We also saw the Sichuan Culture Opera show with fire breating and face changing. It was like a combination of Cirque de Soleil, magic, and the circus. I truly have no idea how they did things.

From here we flew to Guilin and drove an hour north to Yangshou. This was my favorite part of the itinerary. Suddenly we were not in a city and in the countryside. We rode bikes past rice platations. We hiked Moon Hill. We took a river boat ride along the Yulong River and marveled at the karst formations. And we watched cormorant fisherman in action.

Our last leg of the trip was Shanghai. Which for me, was a bit like being back in NY. It was so cosmopolitan. We actually ate dinner at an Italian restaurant. We did do a boat ride on The Bund and went to the top of the Shanghai Tower, the world's tallest tower until the completion of Burj Khalifa in Dubai last year.