Beijing

Well, here goes a feeble attempt to tell you about the amazing adventures of my last 2 + weeks off of school traveling Asia. I feel as though i've been to the edge of the world and back - every place was so unique and had it's own flavor(and some great yummy ones at that! !:) ) So here it goes...



We are so famous - everyone wanted their pictures taken with us ! These were just a few of the people that were awed with our presence... :)

We got a pic of these guards as they were passing by - they don't let you take pictures of them from the front... but it turned out to be a better pic anyways!






I loved the vicious turtules - they were clad in armor and were all around the Forbidden City.

Beijing here we come!!!

And I want to do a marathon on this... hmm... maybe I'll rethink this!



We were really here- it's a bit sureal - and even looking at the pics I can't beleive it! I think i've thawed from it though - it was 12 below celcius with high winds on the top of a huge wall that spanned between mountains - yeah, we didn't really anticipate the cold, but at least we had frozen smiles on our faces!

Emily had an addiction to ju zu.... maybe a little too extreme! She threatened to move in and eat ju zu and get massages every day... and may have been serious!

Summer Palace... pictures just don't do it justice. It was a whole hike up the front side, and then we had the other side to go down towards the lake - it was incredible! We know why the emperors got carried around instead of walking! Oh, and it was freezing on the hill with the winde, so we know can verify that it'd be a good location for a SUMMER palace!

Suzhou - a city the emperor built and had manned with pickpockets, street vendors, and "real" people so that the royal family wouldn't feel so isolated from society, and could pretend to be apart of a real city! I thought it would be brilliant to see in action! The epitome of humans disatisfaction with our own situation - when we're poor, we wnat to be rich, when we're common we want to be famous, when we're an EMPEROR we just want to be normal!

The pandas let Emily pet them - they were quite photogenic as well! :)

This is the best shot of the real pandas - they were precious, but the cages were sad. And the Beijing Zoo wasn't well kept up. I want to go to Chengdu now to see the huge panda preserve! And maybe even hold a baby panda...


We got a long very well...

We ate real Beijing Duck - at a little whole in the wall restraunt that the tour books said was worth finding - and it was a blast!We truly enjoyed it. Except for the other mei Goi - American - at the next table who wanted to vent, and talk to another human being, as he wasn't traveling with anyone and had plenty to complain about... luckily he only stayed around for 1/2 of the meal so we could enjoy our duck! :)

You can only use cursive when writing on the relics in Beijing - keep that in mind, k???