So after I kept walking past the Great Wall Tour Offer of my hostel for 3 days, thinking everyday 'should I go or the hell Ronja, Beijing is already freezing enough - you don't have to exaggerate', I went with thought two and decided that during my planned studies, for which I will have to come back to Beijing anyway, I would have plenty of time to enjoy the Wall on a nice warm day. So instead of heading to the Wall I decided the night before to hook up my Chinese roommate (who spent 9 days straight in the room sleeping without even seeing a square meter of a city she has never been to), who happened to be the owner of a jewelry shop back in her hometown, to accompany me for the day, but especially to Beijing's Ancient Jewelry Market called Panjiayuan. She was great company to find good bargains and was more than succesful saving me money. A thank you to Sarah at this point!
After we both bad plenty of jewelry in our bags (and had been freezing enough as this market was outside at an authentic old market place), we headed to Wangfujing, Beijing's biggest and most well-known shopping mile, having a stroll all the way up, carrying a candied fruit stick with us to not starve on the way *twinkle* to the same delicious hotpot place I went together with my Chinese teacher the day before. I just had too good of a time there to not not come back. So this time, instead of a mala tang aka spicy soup, I tried the gali tang aka curry soup and have to say it was waaay better than the day's before. Man, I could have taken a swim in that curry soup! As Sarah is a vegetarian, we ended up ordering tons of veggies to dump into our own little bubbling pots. DELICIOUS. I could have been sitting there all day. I think I could have even put a straw into my soup to take sips of it. So this lunch totally hit the spot and was exactly what I needed after hours outside in the freezing cold weather in Beijing. So after treating myself to some new pants at Forever 21 - can you believe it, there is a Forever 21 in Beijing/I was in heaven! - we headed back down the shopping street, spending about an hour at a foreign language book store where I was heading for the English books to read to my hostkids and Sarah for the French books to help her improve both the language and the knowledge of the country. After buying a zodiac necklace for our Chinese Ayi in another store we were ready to try some Beijing street eats at Wangfujing's Night Market. So we sipped on some delcious and warm yogurt, and snacked on potatoes on a stick, fried ice cream, sesame candy and a pancake like wrap. Getting darker and darker and even more freezing outside, we finally headed back to the hostel, where I already packed all my luggage in the morning, to be able to head out to the airport he same night. As my flight back home to Chengdu was scheduled for early morning on Tuesday, and as that early there was no metro nor Airport Shuttle running (and I did not want to spend ¥100 on a cab) I decided to just spend the night at the airport. I had about 10 hours which gave me plenty of time to chat to other travelers and meet some cool people as well as some weirdoes. At least it was never boring which helped keeping me awake that night. The last 5 hours I spend together with a Chinese student traveling home over winter break of his university in America. Staying in Detroit we immediately had a lot to share (for those who don't know, I stayed in Detroit area for almost 2 months about 4 years ago over the summer) and I enjoyed his company. So when after 10 hours waiting my flight's boarding got announced, I was more than ready to take a nap in the plane. Though it was not quite as enjoyable as I thought, as after getting sick in Beijing, I was fevering on the airplane sweating in my seat like a pig and praying for that flight to finally be over. I was just happy when I saw our driver waiting outside for my arrival and who made sure me and my luggage got home safely. Amy was super excited about me coming home and Rex' eyes showed the same sort of relief about having me back. Both kids would not let of my side that day and though I felt like crab still having a fever, I was also more than happy to be back with my two kids and spend the day together with Rex and Amy, sharing stories of Bejing and enjoying each others company again.
If this trip made one thing clear, then for sure that I will be missing those little munchkins like crazy once I will make my way back to Germany. So I better get back up there giving my two kids some company :-)

...like i said. At first. But this Polish guy's snoring was just too extreme to not get waken up by the sound. And once awake I noticed how unbearable hot the whole room was, so there was no way I could go back to sleep. So I took a nice walk through what felt to me a crazy cold hostel and bugged some other people by leaving audio wechat messages at 3am at night. So my appology goes out to all of them that woke up by me laughing on the staircase. I know, unacceptable behavior. So after the hours passed and the day reached a reasonable time to get changed and washed (6am did it) I headed downstairs in the main hang out area - btw next to the staircase the only place with bad functioning wifi - and had a chat with other visitors before heading out to spend the day with my Chinese teacher. As I mentioned before, she lives in Beijing giving me class over the internet, but coming originally from Chengdu, she is great in giving me ideas for where to go, what to see and can relate to places I mention in stories. As I never met her in person, I was more than excited to finally meet her that day. We met at Tiananmen to start our day with the Forbidden City. It was great to finally meet her and just walk and talk around like sisters. She was great company, also giving me input on the Forbidden City's history and interesting facts. The whole place is massive and I immediately felt humble. Though the other tourists - mostly Chinese - must have felt like bosses, trying to literally fight their way to the front of a huge crowd infront of every single building's inside. Nuts. And their pictures could not have even been good, as for all the pushing and boxing, the whole crowd was constantly moving from left to right, screwing almost every single one of my pictures. Oh well, memories are worth a lot more than pictures, right?
After walking through this gigantic place and looking at Cixi's (the wife that actually had the power over the whole imperial while her son was still pretty young) breast measurer - literally, this lady hired women from all over the country to give their breast milk, so that she herself could bath in it and even drink it every single day. People say that's why her skin was so beautiful. But not any woman's milk could be used. They had to have delivered to babies and finally their breast must have had a specific size. And that's where this measurer comes into place. In my opinion it was rediculously huge and I can't imagine that there were enough women with boobs that large. But somehow it must have worked.
So having seen every bit of the Palace, we made our way out to find a place to eat lunch. While walking, Emma treated me to a typical Beijing street eat - called tanghulu aka candied fruits on a stick (to be added: extremely bad for health and teeth). But delicious! So after not being able to feel my toes again we ended up in a huge mall (this feeling of slowly heating up again is priceless!) eating hotpot. But people, now listen closely. This place HITS THE SPOT! Everybody has his/her own little pot infront of him/her and cooks up his veggies and meat by himself. Totally great. And their signature sauce to drench your food in after it's been cooked was just to swim in! Oh this was soo good! I think we ate for 2 hours, but this is the whole point about eating hotpot. You eat a bit, then you talk, then you eat a bit,... I love this. So you could easily eat hotpot the whole day :D so afterwards we made our way walking down the biggest shopping street back to Tiananmen Square where we watched the flag pulling ceremony. Neat thing. While we were waiting at the Square for about 40min before though, there was literally every minute another Chinese person coming up to us asking for a picture with me. It was hilarious! Emma said we should have better put up a table and charged ¥1 for a shot. Man, that would have been quite some money. But it's fun to see how easy you can make Chinese people happy ;-) so after the ceremony it was already time to say by to Emma and to head back to my hostel. She is such a cute girl though and I was more than happy to be able to bring her some homemade cookies and a little pre christmas gift. She was too :-)
So on my way home I hooked myself up with some typical Beijing cakes and munched them down in my hostel while chatting to other people. I love people staying at hostels, they are all just really adventurous and have their own stories to tell. So no way you could get bored. I went to bed early that day, because of lack of sleep the night before and was more than delighted to see that the snorer had already left ;-P

So after a pretty short night in the hostel that was ended at 6am by the unbearable heat in our room, I somehow managed to get dressed in the totally dark room and without waking any of my 5 roommates up and made my way straight to the MC 15minutes walking distance away to start my day with a nice cup of green tea. And on the way back hooked myself up with a huge pomelo, yogurt and a tupper ware at the supermarket. To be honest, I have no clue why the heck I bought this tupper ware box in the first place, it might have been sort of a need for my German self in search of some security or just the fact that it was cheap, or I don't know what haha. It ended up in the shopping cart though and actually in the end found a great use to first store my half eaten pomelo and later keep my jewelry and other precious items from breaking.
Anyway, so I had a nice pomelo and yogurt breakfast (haha, my whole room had a great citrus smell afterwards! - sorry roommates) and headed out with 5 layers under my pretty thick jacket to spend the day together with Camila at Bejing's Summer Palace. We met at the subway station right next to one of the entrances and headed for a whole day of beautiful view togehter with tons of other tourists - all of them Chinese though. So while we were strolling through this huge and amazing park with its gorgeous buildings and views, I had a great chat with Camila, sharing stories and also being silly together. Though as this park seemed like never ending and we were slowly losing the feeling in both our toes and fingertips, we desperately hunted down this place for a place to recover and get something into our stomach. Ending up at a restaurant that was really fancy pants and charged us ¥300 haha. But as my hostmom hooked me up with some money to 'play' in Beijing I happily treated us two to this nice lunch. Which included hot water. The hot water alone was worth the money. Oh I can't tell you how good it felt to regain control over my fingers again!
So after being physically and mentally strengthened, we continued our walk through the park, but as we were running out of time due to Camila still having to work that day, we slowly made our way to the exit and headed for the subway. So after talking to a Chinese guy in the metro (who was as kind as to give me a help getting a subway ticket) who recommended me to try a closeby market for some bargaining opportunities, it was already time to say by to Camila and hand her a tiny present I got for her back in Chengdu. What a sweet girl!
So at the market I found some more great deals to take home with me including some cute kitty decorations and bracelets aka stuff that noone really needs but that is too cute to not buy. So with a proud feeling in my belly and my newest trophies safely in my backpack I made my way back to the hostel. And man, was I tired after walking around outside the whole day. I immediately fell into bed and in the beginning even succesfully ignored my newest roommates snoring...

So after spending almost 21/2 hours on the plane next to a very interested and curious Chinese, and after being served the typical Chinese breakfast Chou aka not even the slightest hint of flavor rice porridge, I and luckily my checked luggage, too arrived at Beijing Airport. You might now think, why the heck did she check in her biggest suitcase for just about 4 days of travel. Well, let me tell you, my hostmom had me sent tons and tons (with that I mean half of my suitcase) of Sichuan Specialty Snacks to my agency's office for the staff to enjoy. The inside of the airport already gave me an idea of which temperature would expect me outside. It was cold. And with that I mean really cold, the German kind of cold. Just without a real winter coat and winter boots to make up for it. Not a really good match. So I quickly made my way to the Airport Express, which would get me into the city in no time and drop me off only 1 Subway Station away from my hostel - how convenient. A girl from my agency already waited for me at the subway station and accompanied me to my hostel, which I was positively surprised of. English speaking staff, large hang out area, clean rooms and bathrooms, enough toilet paper. Out for a good start there. After settling in my room and handing over 4 kg of food, Grace took me out for lunch, treating me to some yummie Dumplings, one of Beijing's specialty. Though we had not much time to spare with those little wraps of deliciousness as the actual purpose of my trip was scheduled right after - so Grace took me to the PSB aka Visa Center where another girl from my agency was about to give me and a couple of other Cultural Ambassadors a hand to renew our visa and/or put another entry on it. Meeting other Cultural Ambassadors was really neat, sharing experiences and speaking proper English, though now I am even more happy to not be placed together with all the others in Beijing. They barely make Chinese friends as they spend most of their free time hanging out together and in bars for foreigners. Speaking English. So I do see a huge advantage for me having been forced to go out and explore Chengdu myself, making tons of Chinese friends and improving my Chinese everyday, as I can connect my leisure time with practicing Chinese. And i get to be taken to all the hidden and truly Chinese spots where no tourist would ever get to. I do feel lucky to be right where I am :-)
So after the woman at the service desk assured me that the extra entry would be allowed - YAY MALDIVES I AM COMING - I headed out there as fast as possible to finally, after almost 3 months of chatting on Wechat and occasionally talks on skype, another Cultural Ambassador from Guatemala who I got introduced to during the first week in China and from then on keeping in touch with her, sharing stories - funny as well as crazy - and just being good friends. We arranged to meet at Beijing's Silk Market, a huge building full packed with anything you could ever want to buy - ranging from clothes, over jewelry to cell phone accessories - where bargaining is a MUST. Oh people, I had great fun! I could bargain a whole day just for fun, and luckily my Chinese level is by now good enough to not be scammed by the vendors for the Foreigner status. Ha, I think they were even a little bit intimidated by a foreigner suddenly speaking Chinese to them explaining that the offered price was no where close to acceptable or adequate ;-P
Meeting my friend Camila in person was great and I immediately felt like meeting an old friend. We, together with 3 or her friends she brought with, strolled through the market for about 3 hours, me walking away with lots of stuff and lots of fun memories made.
Finding the way back to my hostel was surprisingly really easy, as the subway in Beijing is super nicely organized and with its over 13 lines pretty convenient to get around the city. For only ¥2 by the way. No matter how long it takes! So after arriving at the hostel, the only goal was to get to bed as fast as possible, which made showering and getting ready for bed a 15 minutes affaire. I did spend 15 extra minutes on the stairs though, as I hunted the whole hostel down for the best signal and ended up on the staircase :-) finally in bed I was happy about my first day and excited about the upcoming, as that would only bring more time with Camila and a day at Beijing's summer palace.

Thanks to the Chinese Visa Center in Frankfurt, Germany for not allowing me a double-entry Visa, and Thanks to my hostfamily wanting to take me to the Maldives for a week over New Year and
Thanks to Chengdu's Visa Center for not being able to allow further entries for a Visa - I got the chance to go and visit China's capital to get my passport ready for out travels and to also spend some time to see what Beijing has to offer, both inspiring my eyes and my taste spots ;-)
So as my hostmom was about to decide the when my little trip should take place, we waited til the kids' last day of school for me to head out for Beijing for the upcoming 4 days. So after working myself out of bed at 4.30am that Friday morning, I was more than ready when our driver came at 5.30am to pick me up and give me a ride to the airport where my journey should begin :-)