Road Trippin'

Last weekend, we took a spontaneous last minute trip to Jingzhou and Yichang.  Both are cities in Hubei province, which is where I live.  We decided to make it a full on girl's trip with our two best Chinese girlfriends, Watermelon and Dawn.  These girls have been such a blessing to us.  They are the closest friends we have here.  I love them both so much and will truly miss them!

At the train station, we all realized we had on our TOMS. So of course we needed a pic!

Dawn and Watermelon snacking away on the train ride.  It was about a 4.5 hour train ride to Jingzhou.  Not so bad compared to the 17 hour train rides we have done before.

We made it to Jingzhou, where Mandi and Ryan teach!  They are two of our friends from Zhong Relations. Mandi is from Louisiana too!  Unfortunately, Mandi had to leave to go to Beijing the same day we arrived, so we only got to spend about 2 hours with her.  It was still fun seeing her and Ryan though!

Outside of the school where Mandi and Ryan teach

Dawn and her backpack are the same size! haha

Jingzhou is a really neat city.  It is full of character and history.  There is a wall that surrounds the city that we got to walk and bike around.  The weather was beautiful!  I wish we would have had more time to spend here. 

Part of the wall

About to go biking!  The bike was super cute, but surprisingly difficult to pedal.  We were worn out after an hour!

After biking, we headed over to the Jingzhou museum.  Dawn was so excited about this part!

A jade mask

Some beautiful pottery from the Qing Dynasty (1636-1911A.D.)

We asked a group of Chinese tourist to take a picture of the two of us.  This was how we posed. 

This is how the Chinese tourist told us to pose. 

There was also a corpse of a man from 167BC.  The boxes on the left are his insides.  It was  amazing at how well preserved everything was. 

Outside of the museum this lady was making sugar sculptures of animals. Dawn was so excited because it reminded her of her childhood!  

She got a monkey!

After a day in Jingzhou, we got on the fast train to Yichang, which only took 30 minutes.  We hung out that night and Les and I ate McDonald's, which is a huge treat for us.  There are no burgers in my city, so even a McD's burger makes me super happy!

Watermelon's high school classmate lives in Yichang and invited us to dinner.  We tagged along with Watermelon and Dawn, even though we had already eaten.  We went to a hot pot restaurant.  I actually really like hot pot.  Usually, there is a large bowl of broth over a that is boiling on the table and you order various dishes and cook them yourself in the broth.  It is really good!

Dawn, Watermelon, and Watermelon's friend

When I go to hot pot, I order vegetables, beef, pork, tofu, and chicken.  When Chinese people go to hot pot, they order cow stomach and duck intestines. 

This is cow stomach.  I have tried it before and don't like it.  It is super chewy and hard to eat.

This is duck intestines soaking in blood.  This was a new one for me.  I had never seen it before.  I didn't eat it, but I'm afraid at some point over the past 2 years I might have tried it on accident.  Without the blood, it looks like noodles.  Blah!  Gross!  

The next day we took a tour to the Three Gorges Dam.  It is the largest dam in the world.  To get to the best location to overlook the dam, we had to take a series of escalators.  This is one of them.

At the top. You can kind of see the dam behind us. 

Chinese people love their umbrellas, rain or shine.  They have to protect themselves from the sun, because it will turn their skin blacker (words from my boss, who also believes eating carrots will turn your skin blacker).

Here is a better picture of the dam.  It is 594 feet tall and 7,661 feet long.  It is a hydroelectric dam located on the Yangtze River, which is the third longest river in the world.  This is the same river that runs through my city.

After checking out the dam, we took a river cruise to go back to the city of Yichang.  This was my favorite part of the whole trip.  I did not feel like I was in China at all.  The weather was gorgeous with blue skies, plenty of sun, and blue water, all quite a rarity here.  It was a 3 hour long ferry ride! 

Look at that blue water!  I couldn't believe this was the same river that runs through my city, which looks more like the Mississippi River.

Selfie with a very pink face.  My skin isn't used to so much sun!

We also went through a dam.  It was really cool and really scary all at the same time.

We had a late train that night and didn't get back to Huangshi until 2am.  It was probably my last train ride in China.  I really have enjoyed taking trains and will miss traveling like that.  Overall, it was a fun, quick 2 day trip with good friends!