Fine China...Well Sorta

This past week my buddy Joe and I went to China and Japan. Since it was quite the trip, I’m going to break it down in separate posts. Our first stop was China. The time difference between China and US east coast is 12 hours which is the worst possible time difference for traveling, so I had to beat it by staying awake for the entire 12 hour flight. This consisted of me drinking an absurd amount of coffee, watching any ridiculous action packed movie (i.e. Need for Speed, 2 Guns, etc.), and listening to Yeah 3x by C-Breezy. It did the trick. I stayed up for the whole 12 hour trip. Once we got off the plane, cab drivers were awaiting our arrival and to, apparently, screw us over in our most exhausting moment. See I forgot what the conversion rate was, so they got us pretty good. Staying awake the entire flight was now sounding like a pretty terrible idea.

Now, I never have bought into the Asian driver stereotype, but once that cab driver pulled out of the airport, I became a full believer, confessed my sins to the almighty God, and was texting all my loved ones no matter what the international charges were. I do need to make one thing clear about this stereotype. Asian drivers aren’t bad. It’s the Chinese drivers. Sure, China makes up a giant portion of Asia, but the Japanese drivers were great. I will never bash you Japan. More on that later. Anyways, I have never had more near death experiences in my 24 years of life than I did in that 25 minute cab ride. Somehow, someway, we got to where we needed to be: on the curb of our hotel parking lot.

We were only in China for one full day because we just wanted to see the Great Wall so we stayed in Beijing. We bought a tour to go up the Great Wall. It’s about an hour and a half drive. I thought to myself, “Maybe since we bought a tour, the driver will be more professional.” Wrong again. I think you get the picture in how bad the driving actually is.

By some miracle, we got to the Great Wall. One of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. We took a cable car up to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall. I, honestly, felt safer in this cable car ride, than I did in any form of ground transportation. Ok fine, I’ll stop talking about that. Anyways, if you’re wanting to go to the Great Wall, I highly suggest going to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall because it isn’t as touristy as the other sections. Also, bring your hiking boots because it is quite the trek.

The tour came with a massage at the end, which was great since my dogs were barkin’. The tour only consisted of Joe, an Australian couple, and myself. So, they put all 4 of us in a dim-lighted room with 4 recliners. The massage felt great. There’s, also, a stereotype of Asian massages. For the sake of my job, I am unable to go into detail of what that stereotype is, so if you don’t know just ask around. So, the massage feels great, then it gets to the end. She starts to massage my calves which feels wonderful, then up to my knees which felt quite nice. Then, she gets up to my thigh, really up my thigh, and I was all like. I had to squirm around a tad to send the message that my calves still feel pretty tense. Crisis averted.

After the massage, I went to my masseuse, gave her a bow, and walked off. My tour guide, Michelle, pointed to my masseuse and said, “Josh did you like your massage?” Oblivious to what was going on, I walked back over to my masseuse and gave a second bow. Finally, my tour guide told me that I need to tip her, so I did. As we’re heading to our cab, our tour guide stopped us and informed us, “Just to let you know this tour did not include a tip.” I was already in the cab and had to get out to give this lady 20 Chinese Yuan. They’re definitely not scared to ask for some money, and that’s how the rich stay richer.

To be honest, I wasn't a fan of Beijing. Don't get me wrong, The Great Wall was unbelievable, but the city of Beijing is pretty terrible. If you want to go to China, go to the Great Wall and maybe visit Shanghai. I've heard that place is awesome. In the end, we got to see the Great Wall, and that's exactly what we came there for. Then, we were off to Japan.