Okay, so today we did Tienanmen Square. We took the subway, which started out fine but got very crowded very quickly. If i remember correctly, this is the largest public square in the world.








Mao Zedong Memorial Hall is at the south side of the Square. This Hall is divided into three halls and Chairman Mao's body lies in a crystal coffin in one of the halls surrounded by fresh bouquets of various famous flowers and grasses.







Thought this was a pretty cool statue. It is inside the Forbidden City. Looks like half turtle half dragon.









Shot taken standing inside Tienanmen Square. With so many people in Beijing, I thought it was going to be more crowded. After walking the square for a bit, we went behind it to see "Old Beijing". Pretty cool. One street looked like very old construction, but it was only built a few years ago in anticipation of the Olympics. There were some old places there though. We checked out a very old eastern medicine pharmacy that had all kinds of stuff. You could buy a 100 year old ginseng root for 180,000 RMB, which is about 26,000 bucks. Were going to get one each, but they only had one so we decided against it. Haha.

This is a shot of one of MANY buildings inside the Forbidden city. We went through it pretty fast and it took us about 2 1/2 hours. I think if you looked at everything you could spend a day in here! It is very expansive and surrounded by a large moat.







Another statue inside the Forbidden City. There are usually two of these when you see them. The male has one thing under his left paw and the female has another thing. I read what the things were but have forgotten. Sorry. There is symbolism to what they have and the reason why, but it has been like sensory overload and I have already forgotten it.....


May stay close to the hotel tomorrow and relax before having to get on the 15 hours of plane rides we have waiting for us on Monday. We may try and hit the swimming cube and maybe explore more of the Olympic village.

A few more picture links to view them all if you wish:

The Great Wall daytrip.

Beijing and Olympic Village

This is a shot of one of the many bears at the entrance to the Great Wall. There are bowls of apple slices on the wall that you can buy for to throw to them. This one was getting fed by a group of people. There are about 8 or 9 bears in this open air pen.






This is a shot of me about halfway up to the high point we can walk to. It doesn't look bad but the stairs are very unevenly laid (one might be 6 inches high and the next 18 inches high) and there are stretches where it feels like a 45 degree incline or more where you feel like your nose is going to hit the ground because you are about parallel with it because of the slant. We paid the 10 bucks or so to ride the single car lifts up and bypass the bottom part. Best 10 bucks I have spent in a long time!!!

A shot of the wall and how intricate it is in places. Sometimes to go up, you have to go down some of these square buildings. Some of the openings can only accommodate one person and some were so tight and low that paul and I had to squeeze though. I can't tell you how many chinese people I literally "ran into" or "ran into" me.



Another shot of the wall and how long just the part we are on is. This is just about 1/4 of the way for us (and the most level). Just packed with people. We did pick the closest place to visit the Great Wall from Beijing because we opted to not do the 50 dollar tour and just take a dollar fifty bus on our own. For that reason, we were told it was one of the busiest parts of the wall. Worked out pretty well. We paid a dollar fifty for a 1 hour bus ride to the wall. Not Bad.


This is a shot of one of the many mirrors on the car ride to the middle. I took a picture to catch myself in the reflection. Paul is in the car behind. It felt like it was a carnival ride and that we were going to ride it like a roller coaster, but we didn't go over any cliffs. We rode them back down as well with the cars all bunched up together and the lead car had a worker who was braking all the way down to slow us from going too fast. After all that walking and climbing, even going down was difficult in places and on the calves.

Tomorrow we are going to try to see Tienanmen and Forbidden City, maybe more. I'm ready to start winding down and start heading home!!!!

Okay, it's been a while, but we were finishing up work and trying to get things done so we could enjoy Beijing. To the left is the hotel we are staying at. Looks like it is crumbling down, but I think it was built for the Olympics. We are about 2Km from the Bird's Nest and all of the other facilities. The hotel is only 45 a night and the room is pretty nice (and free internet!). We got here around 12 this afternoon and walked around till about 5 (see pics below). We ended up eating at a chinese fast food type place. I had some dim sum rolls, kung pao chicken and rice, a 24 oz beer and a cup of milk tea for 11 bucks. Couldn't even finish half of it. (Drank all the beer though). We may be loading up on the free breakfast and hitting this place at night.


This is a pic of the torch building you may have seen during the Olympics. I didn't see a lot of it, but i do remember seeing this building and remembering the torch shape.











A pic of the swimming place, the Water Cube where Phelps did his magic. We didn't go in today. It has an admission and your time inside is limited due to space. We are going to try and catch it one afternoon when we have more time.







A shot from inside the Bird's Nest looking down the track. We paid 50 RMB (a little over 7 bucks) to get inside and you could stay as long as you wanted to. They had some exhibits in the middle and the screens playing highlights from the games. Pretty neat looking at things from the middle.






A pic of me in front of the Bird's Nest. This is for Kelli who wanted to see me in some pics. It is windy and cold here compared to Guangzhou. We also ran into our co-worker in the stadium by chance. He took a week in the middle of his tour of duty over here and has his family with him.

The plan tomorrow is to get up early and catch a city bus to the Great Wall. There are tours that go for 350 RMB (about 50 bucks) and provide lunch, but i think we are going to do it on our own. We can catch a city bus for 12 RMB (about a buck and a half) and do the wall on our own time. Hopefully I will get some good pics. That is going to take up the whole day. We will then have Sat and Sun to do something else. Maybe Forbiddin City. Beijing seems a world away from Guangzhou in differences. In the little we have ventured out, it seems that it was almost easier to communicate in Guangzhou than Beijing. Would have thought with the Olympics just here it would be easy to get around and talk. Go figure. In Guangzhou we would get some stares from the locals. Here it is almost a little unnerving though. People seem to stare at us so long and so intently that it is a little scary, like they have never seen a non-asian. Again, wouldn't have thought that with the Olympics here not too long ago.

been busy working. going to try and get to bed before 12:00 am this evening. still hot here. wanted to share some pics that i have taken. some of the ones i took of the hong kong downtown skyline laser show look like they are pretty good (some aren't). take a look....

China Pics

again, more to come...............

Okay, was on the train back from Hong Kong. Had to use the restroom. This is it, and yes that is the ground that you can see in the hole. It is just a hole in the floor and everything just falls onto the tracks. There is a flush to make sure it goes out!!!! WOW.







Paul and I stayed in Hong Kong over night. we ended up riding up this escalator. Seemed like it took forever. I think i read that it takes over 20 minutes to ride to the top. Even though it was downhill, the trip down was pretty rough. Here is a description and details:

Hong Kong Island is dominated by steep, hilly terrain, which makes it the home of some rather unusual methods of transport up and down the slopes.

Since it was officially opened to the public on 15 October 1994, it has played a very important role in transport in Hong Kong since it links Des Voeux Road in Central with Conduit Road in the Mid-levels, passing through narrow streets. Daily traffic exceeds 55,000 people, although originally forecast to transport 27,000, and using it is free of charge.

The whole system is 800 meters long with a vertical climb of 135 meters. The total travel time is twenty minutes, but most people walk while the system moves to shorten their trip. Due to its vertical climb, the same distance is equivalent to several miles of zigzagging roads if travelled by car. It consists of twenty escalators and three moving sidewalks. According to Guinness World Records, these escalators together form the longest outdoor covered escalator system.

The escalator daily runs downhill from 6:00am to 10:00am and uphill from 10:30am to midnight. Apart from serving as a method of transport it is also a tourist attraction and has restaurants, bars, and shops lining its route. There is an entrance and exit on each road it passes, often on both sides of the road.

We were on the cheap in Hong Kong. This is the stairwell leading up to the 3rd floor of what we thought was a condemed building. This is the building where the hostel we stayed at was in. The room was probably a 10X10 room with two bunk beds in it with a 3 inch thick mattress. It costs us about 25 US dollars total for both of us to stay there.






Picture of the Ladie's Market in Hong Kong. It was crazy. People everywhere. Bags, purses, jewlry, watches, clothes, stuffed animals and more for the haggling. The good thing was that it was easy to pick our co-workers out of the crowd.









One of many pics i took of the nightly laser show that uses the buildings of Hong Kong. We are across the sea in Kowloon on an observation deck. There is music to which the laser show is synchrozed to. It only lasted for 15 minutes but was awesome. The tall building had a huge spotlight shooting skyward and that is what is lighting up the cloud above. It's amazing how the whole buildings light on and off to the music as well as the laser lights on top of them. It was pretty cool.