Beijing!

Oh, vacating, its beautiful. I started my vacation at 11:30 a.m. Jan. 29th, as my Dad took over the last 30 minutes of my English Camp. 8 Sixth graders were hounded by this MEAN Doctorate of Education. He, literally, almost hit a kid.

Haha, poor kid. It was good times though, he was on skype and I had my students ask the computer "can you visit" and he said "no, I'm in Texas." He was right down the hall, and just walked in, munchkins went CRAZY!!!

Then, it was to Seoul, to fly out here:

We left Mokpo the night before to catch our 11 AM flight to Beijing, in the communist China. It was $170 visa for Americans, $40 for everyone else.

You can see how communist they really are with the way they live - lined apartments after apartments.

At 'half-past noon' (as tim the brit would say it, dont forget the air quote)...we got into China and met out tour guide Brian. It was brilliant, I had spent about $1300 bucks on this tour, and as Jon said last night at moes. "There is and a place time to do it on your own, and there's the time to put down the dough, to take the stress out."

http://www.travelchinaguide.com/package/beijing.htm (in case anyone wants to go to China without stress)

Brian was amazing, he picked us up right outside baggage claim, dropped us off at the hotel and made sure the tour was about us. It seriously took everything that is annoying about traveling out of it, we didn't have to find a cab, or a train, or a horse carriage - we had a personal driver. It was SO worth it.

Tiananmen square:

That is the gate into the Forbidden City, where the
commoners were not allowed - hence Forbidden ;)
...it was a bit later that night obviously

Its also where that happened...

...and China's 'compensation' - wait I mean their show of Military force...

This was inside the forbidden city, obviously, gorgeous in there!!!

So, this was the Temple of Heaven at the end of the Forbidden City. There's this street that goes from this Temple through the Forbidden City all the way to the Bird's Nest. Which is where the 2008 Olympics were. China was very hardcore about making this one street, it kind of signifies their existence. According to our tour guide - I think he means, it means we build really long roads through really cool stuff. Below is the birds nest...again, only called the birds nest cause it looks. like. a birds nest.

....anyway

this was on the way to the T square to our restaurant, cool building eh?

...damn, good, food.

...but i had to pee...in this. EWWW




Then, we did the Zoo o' Beijing. Twas amazing, be sure to see the Panda video at the bottom...




This dude cracked me up!!






After the Zoo we did the AMAZING Summer Palace for one of the Kings way back when. (this was before I got my coffee.

It was so cool there, literally, these crazy kids were on the freaking lake. There was about a foot of ice beneath them, so its not like they could have died - but seriously, who does that. Crazy northerners.

This palace was built as a get away from all the stress that was the forbidden city. Basically where the Kings did their King...thing. Ya know, KINGED around. Haha, it was damn cool though.

Haha, pandas...haha, the opera. Hm. just...hm