Christmas in China

Hey Hey to all of our friends and family,

Well, last year for Christmas we were in Thailand, and we were more than happy to continue the trend this year in China. Granted we missed friends and family, but it was pretty cool to see Beijing. China has been pretty high on my list of places to see, so I was thrilled when we got the opportunity. It is not often that it is only a two hour plane ride.

We left for the airport on Saturday (Dec. 23rd) morning at a ridiculous hour after only about three hours of sleep. Our school had its Christmas party the night before, and we made the very wise decision of going to the Casino after the party. That being said I almost wished for a longer flight so I could have slept longer on the plane.

As we were flying into Beijing, you couldn't help but notice the multicultural skyline. And by multicultural, I mean blue sky followed closely by a thick brown haze of pollution. I never thought Seoul air would smell so fresh.

We arrived in Beijing and did not do much the rest of the day. We met up with some other teachers that were flying in a little later, and then we arranged a trip to the Great Wall, and three shows...an acrobatic show, a Kung-Fu show, and an Opera. That night we took it easy because we knew every day after that was going to be an up at dawn all day adventure.

We did not expect to be so cold in China. We were watching the weather network, but we did not expect that the major source of heat for most places would be coal bricks. These bricks do not exactly heat up a big room, so most of the time at the guesthouse was spend in our jackets and gloves. Because the guesthouse was taking us to most of our trips, we often ate at the guesthouse restaurant. Good food, but man it was cold!

Day One

Our first day we took the public bus to the Forbidden City and Tienimen Square. These two landmarks are seconds away from each other, so it was very easy to spend an entire day here. Tienimen Square was a little moving. So much violence happened there and so much history that sometimes you have to stop and think of what you are walking on. The Chinese government goes to such lengths to ignore what happened there that there are no memorials, no plaques, no nothing. Even the Internet is censored...if you type Tienimen Square in Google, you will not get any results that offer any history. The Forbidden City was really nice...huge, but nice. The buildings were really nice and the architecture is amazing. I love being in a place with such history. You really feel special when you can touch something as simple as a brick that was layed down by another person so long ago. This was a good day, and we still has an acrobatic show after dinner.

The acrobatic show was really cool. I cannot believe how these guys can flip around and land on something as small has a piece of bamboo. We saw a fantastic display of strength and agility. Of course the theatre was being heated by coal bricks so I apologize if some of the pictures are blurry...I has my gloves on.

Check out some pictures in the album. We will write about day two a little later...stay tuned.

Paul