We arrived in Beijing at the civilised time of 2:30 pm and found our hostel with no trouble whatsoever. The hostel was within 5 minutes walk of Tianmen Square so after a celebratory beer we headed out to explore. The square itself is enormous and is surrounded by Chinese Army officers who keep an eye on all the visitors.  Apparently there a...

As the first month or so of this trip will be in Beijing, the next few entries will go over some of the highlights of each week (so you don't get bored with the details of our everyday life).    Day 5 - New Years Eve! This was definitely a highlight for me, since we don't have much in the way of fireworks in NZ these days. In the b...

Temple of Heaven: "The Temple of Heaven, where emperors once performed important rites is a prime example of Chinese religious architecture. Construction began in the early 15th century under Yongle, whom many called the 'architect of Beijing.' Set is a huge, serence, mushroom-shaped park, the Temple of Heaven is surrounded by splendid examples ...

If the airport in Seoul Korea was my favorite airport that i've visited, Beijing has to be my least favorite. It's huge, but poorly organized, the shops pop up randomly, the gate I was at was hot, stuffy and unclean and my flight was even changed to a different gate with the only warning being the fact that it was changed on the central screen. ...

Well, I am here at the hotel in Beijing! The flight went quick and took about 13 hours. Arrived in Beijing this morning at 5:30am. The first thing I saw coming out of arrivals???? A temple? A peking duck restaurant? NO! Starbucks of course!!! Anyway, I got picked up by the tour company. It was so nice to have someone waiting for you in a strange...

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Ben's students arrived Wednesday night. They are a reminder that the summer is over and time is passing. When they showed up at the airport I made hasty and rather unflattering judgements about them. Then I took them on a neighborhood tour and changed my mind. I worry that I disliked them at first because they represented competition for Ben's t...

What a beautiful day. Congi agreed to drive us again today. We had decided to go to the Summer Palace Yi He Yuan first. It seems like people drive with one foot on the brake and one on the gas which makes for a jumpy ride. Cory got car sick and when we finally made it to Yi He Yuan he got out of the cab and threw up in a bush. We grabbed an oran...