china // xian day 2

^^ my little 15 week bump

 ^^so i am a dummy and kept taking pictures of these trees. i told tanner that i thought they were so cool and he said, "you know those are fake, right?" i didn't…

 ^^ i saw a video on youtube of these flower cotton candy's and was stoked to see it made!

^^ tanner and joey were asked to take photos with these girls 

^^ our other free day in xian was spent touring the city. side note, our hotels always had an amazing breakfast buffet where i got more than my fare share of hot pot soups. i stuffed myself with the soup on this particular morning then we took a bus to the pagoda.. we got off the bus and i looked at tanner and said i was going to barf. i found a bush on the side of the road and threw up my guts.. while tanner was trying to fend off a lady who kept asking him for money. it was kind of funny because he was trying to tell her he needed to help me as i barfed but she wouldn't leave him alone. 

we walked around the pagoda grounds and then took a taxi to the bell tower and from there we walked to the muslims quarters. the muslim quarters was a really cool, very crowded area with food and trinkets to buy. the food was weird and looked gross so i didn't try any of it and ended up eating at mcdonalds again ;) even if i wasn't pregnant, i would't try any of it. fried scorpions and chicken feet aren't my thing. tanner did trick me one afternoon into eating frog and aside from the texture, it wasn't bad. he told me it was chicken but i knew right away something was off and spit it out just because it was too chewy. 

that night i wanted to find a restaurant that served hot pot soup ( i know, even after throwing it up) but we couldn't find one. i was overly hungry by the time we found somewhere to eat and i hate this word, but i was severely "hangry." the menu didn't have any english translation and i got super frustrated that we couldn't communicate with the server. i was getting upset and slightly hysterical haha. we just pointed at random stuff and it all ended up being pretty good and i was happy after. after we left the restaurant, we walked maybe for one minute and found a hot pot soup restaurant! haha, that's life right?!

china // xian

 the rest of our time in china was mostly spent visiting manufacturers for proof but we had a few days to do some touristy stuff. while we were in xian we got to go see the terracotta warriors. it was way cooler than i expected it to be. there were football fields of the soldiers that had been uncovered and i was impressed by the condition they were in. a lot of it was ruined, but it was impressive to see what they were able to restore. every single piece was life-size and different. no two soldiers were the same and there were thousands. the story is that a farmer was digging to build a well but struck some of the pottery in 1974 so it hasn't been around that long. there were a few rooms to show what they have uncovered so far and there is still so much to be discovered. i remember it was pouring rain all day and we ate at mcdonalds for lunch because for some reason, whenever we travel i need to eat at a mcdonalds at least once to have something familiar. i loved the authentic food but seriously, that big mac and fries tasted soooo good. 

hong kong

 back in early november, we took another international flight to china. after ivory passed away, i vowed that if i were to get pregnant again, i would stay put and not do anything that could interfere with a safe pregnancy. then i realized i couldn't live life that way so why not take two separate flights to the other side of the world instead? i was around 15 weeks when we left on this trip and i was hopeful i would be over my all day 'morning sickness.' i wasn't. on the flight there, i threw up 5 times. turbulence, tight spaces, and airplane food did not sit well with me. i had thought more than once that i should have stayed home. i went with tanner to china over a year ago and didn't like it so i'm not really sure why i decided to go again. but i was glad i did go again because i really liked it this time, even with the fatigue and sickness. i loved all the food (surprisingly?!) and the sights we got to see. i know that technically hong kong is not china, so i apologize when i refer to it as a part of china. i really liked hong kong! our hotel room was insanely teeny tiny and we were sharing with an employee from proof. our two beds were about three feet from each other with a little toilet in between them and that was literally the whole room. we were only there to sleep so it was fine. we were in hong kong for an optical show but had some free time to see the city. we first went to an area where we had a cool view of hong kongs skyline and then later that day we went to the budha. we ended the day with the light show on the water front. as always with my traveling life, it was a quick stop in hong kong before we went into china. i liked how modern and clean the city was and almost everything was translated in english which was super helpful.