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!