Dunhuang, China Alive 2014

Hi guys!

Thank god finals are over, so right now, I have a little free time to blog about my recent school trip to Dunhuang, China.

I am not going to tell you how pissed off I was about not getting priority this year again so I am just going to jump right into the trip. Only Sophomores in Shanghai American School get this.

Day 1:

I got up at 4:45am to reach the Pudong airport at 6am. The meeting time is inhumane. During the airplane ride, I was just studying and sleeping for the most part. So that was good. Cookie is like the closest friend I had on the trip so we were just studying together and stuff for the APUSH exam which was a few days right after we came back from China Alive.

Gotta take ugly selfies right.

We got to Dunhuang at around 3pm and after putting down our luggages in the hotel, we went to do some farming work, which was basically just plowing out the weed. It was tiring. I can never imagine farming everyday.

Look at that desert land.

And then we climbed up a nearby sand dune! It was pretty damn tiring. I'm getting old. It's too unfortunate that I didn't bring my camera up the dune because the view on the top was so breathtaking. But there was so much sand blowing and it got into my mouth so that was really disgusting. Never get sand into your mouth. I felt like puking so bad.

After eating dinner, Cookie and I shared our life stories. It was pretty interesting. LOL I bet she is still rather traumatized by my life story.

Day 2:

We visited the Mogao Grottoes. It's really famous for their ancient caves with buddhism structures and paintings. Apparently, many of the caves will be closed a month after our visit so we were really lucky to be able to view 8 caves. There were 2 caves which we visited that were very special. One was the sleeping buddha which was lying to His side and sleeping. Another was a sitting buddha which was really gigantic. Photography was not allowed in the caves so I couldn't take any photos.

We actually saw the painter of the artworks in the store. LOVE HIS MUSTACHE.

Fortunately, we went to a nearby museum and I could "secretly" take some photos of the caves.

This is how they make the Buddha structures.

In the afternoon, we went to the Mingsha Mountain to ride camels. I think this is the best part of the trip! This was my first time riding a camel. They really stink. The sky color was disgusting though so I didn't get many good photos.

So while I was on the camel, the guy who owned the camels walked REALLY quickly. It was so damn annoying like are you in a rush or something and it was also very uncomfortable. All the others on the trip took a much longer time to reach the destination. Basically, I got less worth of my money spent on this camel ride and I hate this kind of feeling.

When we got to the top of the mountain, we rode a sledge down the mountain. It went pretty fast for the first few seconds but when you try to slow down, it just stops. So, I had to push myself down for the remaining of the ride. AND ONCE AGAIN, I got so much sand in my mouth. It was disgusting.

On the camel ride back down the mountain, I have no idea why my camel kept jumping and I was literally screaming because it's so FREAKING SCARY. 

Afterwards, we visited the Moon Lake. This is a very famous lake because it is in the middle of the desert and it's unique because the sand dunes surrounding the lake has not submerged it. It's actually not as huge as I expected but it was definitely worth seeing!

Day 3:

In the morning, we went biking on the peaceful and quiet highway for about 40 minutes. I felt that it was pretty fun apart from the fact that it was FREEZING. I never got to wear shorts during the whole trip and I was dumb enough to bring only one pair of jeans.

We then went to the Yadan National Geological Park. This is also a really famous tourist attraction in Dunhuang. The rocks look really unique and some of them are shaped in a way such that they resemble animals or other objects.

It seemed to have many different locations and we went to 3 of them. The first location we visited had a rock that looked like a lion!

The next location we went to had a rock shaped like a Sphinx. This was probably one of my favorite ones out of all the rocks! Nature is so beautiful.

I need a deep shot of me as always.

The 3rd location we went to had a rock shaped like a peacock. I also climbed up some rocks and got a really nice view of the landscape.

My signature pose.

The last place we went to had rocks that shaped like ships. It was pretty fascinating.

After eating lunch, we visited the Great Walls of the Han Dynasty. As you can see, it barely looks like a "wall" but this was not rebuilt like how the main parts of the Great Walls in Beijing are.

And this is the Han Dynasty Fort. Hey look there's a face.

We went to the night market after dinner. Dunhuang does not get dark until 8pm or later. I actually didn't get much and only got a couple of magnets to stick to the fridge because that's what my family always buys when we go on vacations. 

Day 4:

We went to a museum in the morning. Ugh I forgot the name of the museum but it's pretty cool because it had a mummy in a glass case. It wasn't scary for me because I have seen mummies like this  before but the other girls were like "ew omg............."

This is bowl made out of a person's skull... Why would someone even use that.

There was this huge fluffy dog guarding the bathrooms LOL.

We then went to the Guan City of Jia Yu Guan which is another famous tourist attraction.

 That translation.

We happened to catch a martial arts/ kung fu show.

 So much swag.

Even more swag.

The significance of this one brick by the ledge was to show that the architect of these structures actually measured the precise number of bricks needed to build them.

I think they used this wooden stand for Kung-fu.

We got to our 5-star hotel where we stayed at for the last night. 

After dinner, we went to Hero's Square and it's just an open area that people conduct their own activities. There were a lot of elderly dancing and we tried dancing with them too but it was actually pretty tough.

Day 5:

It was the last day of our trip! In the morning, we visited the Hanging Great Wall. It's another section of the Great Wall and I don't think it was rebuilt.

Apparently, there were people who drew some hearts on the rock mountains. Cute.

In a distance, you can see the snow mountains.

With my awesome freshies <3 Thank god they are not annoying.

And these are all the Sophomores who went on the trip. Yeah we are not very bonded lol.

Overall, I think it was a really good China Alive trip. I would have regretted staying in Shanghai to study for APUSH. The downside was that this trip was so expensive and it took so long to get to Dunhuang and back to Shanghai because we were always taking transit flights. Other than that, I really enjoyed it. I will really recommend my friends to go to Dunhuang in future! :)

Thank you for reading!