I woke up on a train and had an action packed day!

We were woken up by Wu Laoshi at 6:30am. Way too early! But I actually slept well on the train- no idea how. I must have been very tired. We were told to wash up on the train because we were not going to our hotel until 7pm that night. Washing up on the train means brushing your teeth in the most unsanitary bathroom ever. But thats a whole different story, which I will save you from hearing. I'm pretty sure that I when I get back to the states the most disgusting bathroom on the side of the road will actually seem like a luxurious bathroom. 

We arrived in Zhengzhou at 7:06am on the dot- just as we were supposed to. Thats one nice thing about China- everything is on schedule; they don't really have delays like America. When we got off the train we met with our tour guide and he took us to a hotel for breakfast. We were all very excited, we thought we were getting an AMERICAN breakfast. We were wrong... dumplings, noodles, and a bunch of other chinese "breakfast" dishes. So I settled with a heart shaped egg- no salt. Therefore, it was pretty much inedible. 

After breakfast we took the bus to Shaolin Temple. There we saw a martial arts performance; it was SO cool. It's amazing how much discipline the Chinese have. 

After the martial arts performance we explored around the temple and then the pagoda. I'm not sure why we had a tour guide because he sent us off on our own and told us no history about the Temple. 

When we were done at the pagoda, we took golf carts back to our bus and left for lunch. Lunch was decent- not great. It was family style. I really enjoyed the rice and egg noodles.

When we were done with lunch we drove an hour to the Longmen Grottoes. It was around 5pm when we got there. I honestly can't even describe the Longmen Grottoes. It was probably the coolest thing I have seen in China. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and the weather was perfect. If you are ever in China, you need to go see the Longmen Grottoes- definitely one of my favorite places.  If I ever have the opportunity to go back I want to stay in the hotel across the bridge that looks out to the Grottoes. 

After the Grottoes we thought we were finally going to check into the hotel but instead we got dinner first. Dinner was alright, two of the loashis sat with us so it was a pretty awkward meal since they wanted us to only speak Chinese. 

Finally after Dinner we went back to the hotel and got ready to go out. Heather, Kathy and I stayed out for about 30 minutes and then walked to the hotel. We saw Chandler outside so we went to McDonalds with him and talked to him for 45 minutes about all the gossip on the trip. When we got back to the hotel I passed out- I was exhausted after a long day!