Happy Chinese New Year!

Well last weekend I finally was able to get out of Korea and check out Beijing. It was amazing...I was only there for 4 days but we fit a lot in. I went on a guided tour group with a size of about 10. We were able to see the Temple of Heaven, Forbidden City, Ming Tombs, Tianamin Square, Great Wall, and much more. I can't explain it all in a blog but I'll give a short summary at least:)

The 2008 Summer Olympics are going to be held there so there was a ton of construction going on. We were able to see the Bird's Nest (one of the stadiums for the Olympics that's being built) and a lot of buildings being torn down. It was great to hear another language and get a different feel of Asia. There are a lot more bikes, older cars, bargaining, and greasy food in China :) Beijing currently has 2 subway lines I believe, and they want to have 15 lines by next year for the Olympics...crazy!

The Great Wall was definitely one of the highlights of the trip. It was rather steep I have to say! whew! I believe we got to the highest part of the Great Wall out of the 4,000 Miles that it is...anyways it was beautiful and surreal. The weather was great, there were a ton of people, and yeah...it was wonderful. I didn't realize that it was so mountainous..I loved it.

One of the other man highlights was the White Cloud Temple. The people celebrate the New Year for 15 days (Spring Festival), so a group of us had the last day free and hoped to find some festivities in the city, and we did :)We saw a huge line of people and wanted to check it out. We figured it must be something good if all the locals are there.

It was amazing. Everyone was carrying incense and praying, monks were throwing the incense in the fire, there was security all over the place and hardly any tourists! yay! It was one of the most surreal and beautiful experiences I've had so far.

We also went to an outdoor market during one of the evenings. It was pretty sweet I have to say. I had silkworm on a stick and I don't' really recommend it...yeah...
The food overall though was delicious. I felt that the daily routine became :
eat, walk for a little bit, eat, walk a little more, eat, chill, eat, sit on a bus, etc...
but the food was good and very greasy/oily. I think I gained like 5lbs in 4 days...oi. :) It was nice not to have spicy food for a change. Okay well that is a very quick summary on my stay in China. Maybe I'll get back there before I leave Asia, but we'll see. :)
My only disappointment about the trip was that I didn't get to see any parades with dragons or any lantern festivals...sad...but I shouldn't complain.

anyways I'll post my pics on my flickr account so check em out if ya want.

I guess the only other news is that I am finally done with Pre-School! yay! I have my mornings back!They had their graduation on Friday and it was pretty darn cute. Even though they can be a pain sometimes, I'll definitely miss them, some more than others :)

Our Avalon program also starts in a week so all of us foreign teachers have some seminars we need to attend next week..fun fun fun...a good break from teaching though. Okay I believe this entry is getting a little long so I will depart. Hope all is well and I'll write more soon!

The Power of Avalon

So I realize it's been a little while since I last wrote in here, the reason being, a combination of both lack of time and lack of anything extremely exciting. I figure I would spare you all from reading a complete bland entry and wait until something at least a little entertaining happened. :)
Our school is switiching over from E.C.C to Avalon on March 5. The slogan is "The Power of Avalon" and yet I continue to associate it with Avon and Powerade...anyways everything here is blue and white and says Abolon in Korean (the Korean alphabet doesn't have a "v" sound). Our curriculum as well as length and size of classes are changing which hopefully will be good...hopefully :) We are moving into 80 minute classes and I don't know if I can hold students' attention for that long. We'll see.

The weather has been pretty warm. No major ice storms, snow storms, or any storms really, so I'm not missing the mid-west in regards to weather :) I'm still doing pre-school in the a.m. and el.ed in the evening. The kids have way more energy than me! oi.

Well I am feeling like I'm at my low with my stay here so far. The first couple months were great; full of new adventures, hikes, etc... but I think teaching these long days make me too tired on the weekends to do anything too adventurous. I have been visiting different churches in Seoul which has been great. There is a large English Ministry in Seoul called Onnuri so I've been checking out their 2 campuses. Hopefully I'll get more connected in the near future.

I still haven't had time to go to Holt yet but I have been involved with G.O.A.L which is an organization in Korea that helps connect Korean adoptees with fellow adoptees and also supplies a wide range of resources for adoptees (helping find families, jobs, community,..) So I've been getting a little more involved in that circle.

This upcoming weekend though is the main highlight of my week. I will finally be out of this country for a couple days and will be able to spend the weekend in Bejing with my girl Kychele over the Lunar New Years!! Great wall here I come! I'm super excited and hopefully I'll feel a little more refreshed when I return on Monday. I'm going on a guided tour so that should hopefully be good (less stressful....I get stressed out way to easily as most of you know! ) Anyways I should get rollin. I have taekwondo practice....I love it but man it's rough :)