All in all we had a wonderful trip. It got off to a rocky start once we arrived and there was no tour guide to greet us. After a few hours of waiting we decided to get our own taxi to the hotel. Once we got everything straightened out with our tour guide mishap the rest of the trip went very smooth and was quite enjoyable. Unfortunately the weather was foggy the whole time we were there...until of course the day we were leaving haha. We were both excited to be experiencing fall weather again though. We wish our pictures could have turned out more clear but we are still thankful to have the memories of having been there.
We had the chance to visit all of the main tourist attractions such as Tienanmen Square, Forbidden City, Temple of Heaven, Summer Palace, Ming Tombs, and of course the The Great Wall of China. We also got to go to a tea ceremony, an acrobatic show, and a Kung Fu show (basically a Chinese ballet). We even got to tour a home in the old city of Beijing and ride a rickshaw among other interesting things.
The language barrier would have been impossible to manage if we hadn't had a private tour guide and driver so we were very thankful for them. Overall we had an amazing trip and as always we were happy to spend quality time together.
Love Tree at the Forbidden City.
Temple of Heaven
Jackie at the Temple of Heaven.
Instead of Where's Waldo...Where's Amanda? I love all of the bright colors!
The Great Wall...what a workout!
Jack at the Great Wall.
Summer Palace
Our dragon boat ride on the Kunming Lake at the Summer Palace.
Me pretending to be a gymnast in front of the Olympic Bird's Nest stadium. I won the gold!
Restaurant where we ate our pecking duck dinner...this is probably one of the actual ducks we ate!
On our Rickshaw tour of the old city of Beijing.
Look Mom and Dad, I'm playing my violin with this Chinese duo!
Eating a delicious fruit kebab covered in some type of sugar/honey/caramel like sauce. This was on Wangfujing Street which is said to be the first street in China. It is also one of the most popular shopping districts in China and being there reminded of us NYC.
Chinese pineapple beer...yummy!
The residential area outside of our hotel. This is the day we were leaving...notice how clear the sky is compared to the other days! Just our luck!
Jack doing an ink painting during our layover at the Seoul airport.
I made a keychain. The Seoul airport is so cool. They have free cultural crafts to do for foreigners and they even have parades throughout the airport with people dressed in traditional outfits.
We have missed Starbucks dearly...we had it 4 times throughout our trip!
Can you believe that I found a small town in Maryland where they have no Starbucks and HAVE NEVER HEARD OF IT BEFORE!!!!!
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