China trip

AB had never met my family in China so we decided to take a trip to China. It's a mixer of ups and downs to say the least.

Not so good:

-Got sick the whole trip, both of us. First AB got sick from his aunt, and cuz I was sitting right next to him on the plane, I got sick too. And it wasn't just a simple cold, it made us so tired and cough so much that neither of us could sleep. Thankfully we were with family so they gave us some cold medicines and we tested a lot. 

- the smog in China was insane. While the regular value of health is supposed to be less than 30, the smog level in China got up to the three hundreds! We had to wear an n95 mask every time when it went outside.
-AB didn't like the West Lake so much, even though it's supposed to be one of the more beautiful and inspiring places in China partly b/c we went on a weekend and it was way too crowded, also the smog was bad.

- we got scammed: we had search drop a route to get to the Great Wall but then in the morning when we looked up the route it turned out not to be there so we had to ask the front Hotel how to get there. The hotel told us to get off at this one station and look for a tour bus that's really easy. When we got off at the station a bunch of people told us all yeah take this tour bus and it's about to leave so we were in a big hurry to find the tour bus. They told us that it would only be 20 you and going there and coming back and it also included the tickets which were $45 per person which we thought was pretty good. But then once we got on the bus they told us the bus wasn't going to leave until another 45 minutes later so we waited there for 45 minutes but when the time came they told us this bus is actually not leaving and they made us take another small car to another bus. And when we got to that bus they told us that car wasn't leaving for another hour and so by that time I wanted my money back but they refused so we decided to wait for the bus to go. When the tour bus started the lady initially it was talking about China but then all the sudden she stopped and said that we had to pay another 170 in order to watch this cultural show that none of us wanted to watch. Some of us in the back realize that she was trying to get us to pay more money so we refused to pay but she got angry and stopped the bus and told us that if we refuse to pay that we needed to get off the bus. At this point AB put on his phone and pretended to videotape her  and she got very upset and came over to us and tried to ask for the video. Fortunately I didn't know what she was talking about cuz my Chinese wasn't that good so she just went back to the front of the bus. So we didn't say anything until we got to the great wall and then she divided us up individually and tried to make deals with us. She initially told us so she will just drop the price to 110 per person but we thought that was still ridiculous since we had no intentions of watching this cultural show and all we wanted to do was go see the Great Wall. We really had no intention to continue on this tour with this ridiculous lady so we said that we wanted to go on our own way and we wanted to entrance tickets to The Great Wall that we had already paid for however she refused to give us the entrance tickets to The Great Wall because we refused to pay for the cultural show that we didn't want to go to in the first place.we finally worked out a deal with her where we pay her 20 yuan each for entrance tickets (would be 40 yuan otherwise).  So although we didn't get scammed as much as the other people it was so ridiculous that we had to pay additional in order to get the tickets that we already paid for. And it was good that we didn't continue on her tour cuz otherwise we would have only gotten 20 minutes at the Great Wall! 

- Google was banned in China, and it sucked! Man, did we feel the real impact of Google in our lives. It meant no google search, no gmail, no google maps, no google play to download apps that would be compatible in China! And all the apps I did end up downloading ended up all in Chinese - sadness that I can't read Chinese. :(  I was hoping to map out our trip in Beijing via Google Maps, but then I was forced to learn some Chinese characters and use a Chinese map app.

The good:
-Got to see my cousin's super cute and precociously smart boy. Man, he can talk up a storm. :D
-On the last day in Beijing, it snowed! It was so beautiful and peaceful. I won't forget that moment because AB made me pause and enjoy the snow because I don't think he's ever seen snowfall. O_o It was so cute watching him amuse over the snow, sticking out his tongue. >_<
-Because of the snow, the smog level went down from "hazardous" (the highest level) to "unhealthy" (below very unhealthy, which is below hazardous). Yes!
-Despite all the hassle of getting to the Great Wall, once we got in the wall, there weren't that many people (not the peak season), we could see the Great Wall for miles, and we got some nice us-only pictures! - which would seem impossible in China!  So it turned out rather enjoyable. We did have a little trouble finding the bus to go back, and ended up taking a taxi to the bus station, and it all worked out. Phew.
-The next day we actually went back to the same lady who sold us the tour bus ticket, complained about the terrible tour guide, and got 100 yuan back. I'm still amazed we were able to do that!  That NEVER happens in China. I looked up scams in Beijing and so many came up ranging from tour guide scams to tea house scams to rickshaw scams in front of the forbidden palace to KTV scams. YOU ARE FOREWARNED!
-Ate so much delicious Chinese food, especially cooked by my aunt and grandmother. But we also went to this awesome Hangzhou Restaurant (Xin He Yuan).
-We had family around us to take care of us when we were sick.
-Got to hangout with my cousin a bit and walk around West Lake. Also got to bike a little bit! Biking is so much fun and freeeee rental!
-Played some Majong with my grandparents and AB. AB was surprised how serious my grandparents were. Haha.
-Seeing how ginormous the Forbidden City was as well as Tian Tan (religious place that the emperor went) in Beijing. Seeing the enormous 13 Lin (Chinese Buddhist Temple).
-Staying in a very comfortable and posh hotel (Novotel)