Good for the Seoul

I planned to have bookend trips to Seoul, South Korea on my way home this summer.  Reason being: 1) I love Korean culture; 2) My flights usually go through Seoul anyways, might as well stop for a few days and enjoy it; and 3) I had been to Seoul, as you might remember, in December, but it was too cold to actually go out and see/do much of anything and I wanted to see the city in the summer time.

For the front part of the trip I didn't really have much planned, which, to me, is a fun way of traveling.  It opens itself up for all types of possibilities.  I knew I wanted to explore a little of the city, meet some nice locals, and gorge myself on as much Korean cuisine as possible, all of which I did with great success.  The first place I decided to explore was Namsan Tower (better known as Seoul Tower).  I could see it from near my hostel and it didn't appear to be too far off so I decided to just walk in its direction until I arrived.  Using the giant landmark as my compass I continued down any street that appeared to be heading its general direction, and eventually navigated myself into a park, which looked promising.  With the tower still in sight I walked around that park for almost an hour, constantly backtracking trying to find a way up to the tower with no success.  Finally I decided to use my limited Korean to ask this nice Korean girl for directions.  My luck was with me and not only did she speak English, but she herself was looking for how to approach the tower as well.  So now I had someone to accompany me in being lost!  However, she eventually found the way and we walked to the top together.  At the top it provided a great view of the city and was a nice quiet place away from all the urban noise.  An extra bonus of this adventure was I now had made a friend who showed me other parts of the city and introduced me to some new Korean foods!

Other places I visited during this front end of the trip were: the Han River (major river flowing through Korea), a few popular markets, and Cheonggyecheon River (an underground man made river that cuts through the heart of the city).

After a five week trip to the U.S., I returned to Seoul for the back end of my vacation to South Korea, this time only for four days.  This time I had tentative plans.  I wanted to visit one of Seoul's nearby islands one day, and most importantly, I REALLY wanted to watch a Korean baseball game.  Through a social website, I was able to meet a very nice host who wanted to not only arrange these events for me, but also attend with me.  I am so thankful for this girl who really went out of her way to make sure I had a fun trip.

The island we went to was called Seokmodo, and the threats of rain had apparently scared off all the tourists, which is nice because it didn't rain and we practically had the beach and island to ourselves!  We rented a pair of bikes and rode five miles or so to the beach, which provided the opportunity to take in the beautiful landscape of rice fields sandwiched between mountains and the sea.  It was a very nice and relaxing day trip that offered another view of Korea aside from the busy city of Seoul.

The next day was the day I had tickets for the baseball game.  It was the Kia Tigers v. the LG Twins.  According to the worker at my hostel, this was a highly anticipated match.  Unfortunately though, it was absolutely pouring for the entire day and, according the hostel worker, Korea doesn't play their games in even the slightest bit of rain.  Feeling dejected, I was hesitant to make the 45 minute subway commute to the stadium for what I assumed would be a canceled game.  Miraculously, however, a couple hours before the game the rain stopped and hope was once again restored!  With no cancellation officially posted on the website I took my chances and headed to the stadium.  Reaching the stadium it became very clear that there would be baseball tonight.  I got swept up in the excitement.  Seeing almost every person in either a Tigers or a Twins jersey I decided  that I too needed to display my allegiance for all to see, so I sought out to buy me a jersey.  Wanting to support the home team (although the crowd was almost a 50/50 split) I bought a Twins jersey.  When the vendor asked whose name and number I wanted I instructed her to give me whoever was the best player.  She gave me #16, Jeong Seong-Hoon.  Expecting to see his number scattered throughout the crowd, I was a little worried when I couldn't see anybody wearing his jersey, besides me, that I might have been duped by the jersey vendor and given the jersey of the teams worst player.  However, when he came up to bat I saw that his stats were actually quite good and decided that I would just become his biggest fan and wear his number proudly!  The game itself was an amazing experience.  Totally different than I had ever seen baseball before.  Yes, the rules and strategies were the same, but it was the atmosphere that was different.  This was not your typical relaxing and social American baseball experience.  The best way to describe what goes on inside a Korean baseball stadium is to say it like watching baseball at a European soccer match.  Non-stop singing, chanting, and cheering the entire game!  It is hard, if not impossible, to not get swept up in the excitement and have a boring time.  In the end, my LG Twins came through with a 13-3 victory and my trip in Korea came to an exciting and memorable end.  I feel fairly confident that this will not be my last trip to Korea.

Namsan Tower

Kid's drum performance in the middle of one of the markets

Cheonggyecheon River

Han River

Ferry to Seokmodo Island 

Go Jeong Seong-Hoon!

Self explanitory

Homecoming

This summer was the first time I had gone home in over a year and a half and it was great to see all of my friends and family (including my niece and sister in law for the first time), eat all the foods I had missed (not so great gaining 20 lbs though), and be reaffirmed that no matter how long I am overseas I will always have a home in the US.

My trip consisted of visits to: Auburn University, Mobile, and our lake house. Our lake house, a place I have been visiting ever since a baby, will always be one of my favorite places in the world.  The place is so serene, and, having lived in the busy country of Singapore for 2 years, serene is rarely experienced.  I have described our lake house as being my Walden, except minus the introversion and hermit-like seclusion.  The lake is much more enjoyed with friends or family.

Now back in Singapore, focusing on starting what will be my 3rd year here, I am comforted by the comfort I felt back in America.  Prior to I had anticipated feeling like a "tourist" or somewhat detached from American society due to my absence, but I was wrong.  The comforts of home never go away and that is true wherever you call home.  And hey, who says you can only have one home?

First contact @ the airport

Back at Auburn

Gotta have some Momma's Love, Nachos w/, and Sweet Tea.  Auburn peeps know what I'm talking about!

Lake House View

Success

China Princess

Olympic Games 1996

Stone Mountain

Sri Lankan Holiday

I am bit late on this entry, but for Chinese New Year this year, which just so happened to coincide with my Birthday, me and some friends (and some friends of friends that I had not met before) decided to go to Sri Lanka for a 3 day vacation.

Unfortunately, time did not allow for us to see all that Sri Lanka had to offer, but we did manage to get to see some pretty interesting things.  For the first night we flew in very late to Sri Lanka's capital city, Colombo.  The next morning we headed for Unawatuna in the south part of the island. Here we spent must of our time just lounging on the beach, tossing the rugby ball around (this was short lived as on the first day some wild beach dogs came and bit right through it and carried it off), and dinning on some good Sri Lankan food.

We also visited a couple cool sites while there.  One day, we headed to the nearby town of Galle, which has the remnants of an old colonial Portuguese/Dutch fort and still has many colonial style buildings.  It was pretty cool getting to walk the ramparts and be surrounded by the Indian Ocean.  While walking around we stumbled upon a cricket match and spent sometime taking that in, which is much more interesting now that I actually know the basics of the rules.  Another site we visited was a local tea plantation that was known for it's Virgin White Tea.  This Virgin White Tea is so meticulously harvested in order to assure its utmost quality.  First, it can only be harvested by virgin women, wearing gloves, using golden scissors, and collected in a golden bowl (these golden tools are no longer a requirement, but this used to be the custom).  In the end we got to sample different teas grown on the plantation, including the revered White Tea, which, in my opinion, tasted not too dissimilar from water.  The last and coolest thing I did was to visit a sea turtle sanctuary.  From every October to March, sea turtles come to the beaches of Sri Lanka almost every night to lay eggs.  Unfortunately, there are many poachers who come steal these eggs and sell them to people who eat them.  As the sea turtle is becoming increasingly endangered, places like this sea turtle sanctuary are becoming more and more important.  This sanctuary actually purchases the eggs from the poachers (as poaching them themselves would be illegal) and then raises them in the sanctuary.  When they hatch they then release them to the wild.  However, as part of a fund raiser for their mission, they always keep a few hatchlings behind for visitors, after making a small donation  to get to actually release the turtle into the ocean themselves!  Me and my friend Paul (the only ones interested in visiting the sea turtles) jumped on this opportunity and we both got to release a turtle.  Very cool!

The next day it was back to Singapore with another stamp in my passport, another journey to a new country, and a whole lot of new memories to take with me.

Laughter: The Not so Universal Language

In my travels, I have encountered many language barriers.  One thing that always seems to traverse the seemingly insurmountable language gap is an innocent laugh.  However, this is not necessarily the case when the chuckle is being expressed through text.  As I make new friends in the different places I visit, which inevitably means that we become Facebook friends, I have noticed that many different cultures express laughter via text vastly different.  Here is a list of the different ways to type out a laugh in the respective cultures that I have seen so far:

United States: haha
Spain: jaja
Vietnam: hihi
Thailand: 5555
Korea: kkkk

If you know any others then feel free to comment.

Christmas Abroad

Christmas is the time of year where all the family gathers together and spends quality time together.  Unfortunately, this year I was not able to reunite with my family over the holidays simply because it was not the most logical option for me.  It was definitely hard being away from the family, especially when Skyping with them all being together except me, but it is just part of the life abroad.

Although I could not be back home, I did, however, do the next best thing, which was to plan an awesome trip traveling around in Asia.  Me and my roommate, Jason, decided that we wanted to go skiing.  Originally, I had imagined knocking out two birds with one stone by going to ski in Korea, as Korea was the next top country on my very extensive list of places to see.  But while researching, we discovered Japan had better skiing and opted for the more expensive but also more entertaining trip and planned to go to Japan for skiing, and still visit Korea for one week.

We skied for four days in Niseko, Japan, located on Hokkaido island, and made National Geographic's list of top 25 places to ski in the world.  Being an amateur skier at best, and only having skied one other reputable place (Salt Lake City) prior to this trip, it is easy for me to claim this was the best snow I have ever skied!  For one, there was plenty of it.  It snowed everyday we were there and for the first two days it snowed the entire day.  Secondly, it was amazingly light and  fluffy that our skies just cut through it no problem.  The best illustration to describe exactly how light the snow was is when I went to throw a snowball at the back of Jason's head while he was not looking, the snowball disintegrated almost immediately after leaving my hand and I ironically got hit in the face by a mist of snow as I walked right through it.  One of the nice parts of this resort was that the lifts stayed open at night.  It was incredibly to seemingly have an entire mountain to ourselves.  As we skied, it was tricky to know the difficulty of the slope because the Japanese only have three identifiers: either green, red, or black.  (In the U.S. you have green, green-blue, blue, blue-black, black, and double black) So the variation in reds and blacks was HUGE.  Due to this, every once in a while I would have been skiing really well all day and get a little over confident, and maybe see a challenging course I THOUGHT I could do, and subsequently have my confidence restored to a safe and reasonable level.

Our last day of skiing was on Christmas Eve and it was by far the most beautiful day of skiing we had on our trip.  The skies cleared up which exposed the nearby volcano which had previously been veiled by the thick snow storms.  After skiing the entire day, we went and ate a nice steak dinner (AMERICA!) and retired to our hotel room feeling well beyond my years physically from all the skiing.

Christmas day was a traveling day for us because we had to fly out the next morning for Korea, and the earliest bus for the airport would make us miss our flight.  Because of this, and the fact that we were in Japan, the day lost a little bit of its allure and feeling.  It took constant reminders for me to even remember that it was Christmas!  But that night I Skyped with my immediate family on their Christmas morning, so a small part of me got to feel like I was there with them, so I am thankful for that.

The next day we flew off to Seoul, Korea.  Having many Korean students in my school, I have gotten to know and love the Korean culture.  It was this that made me so eager to visit.  I even have taken Korean as the second language I want to learn in order to satisfy one of my bucket list items.  This will be a very long and slow process but I hope to make it there one day.  As of now, I have about 20-30 common words and phrases memorized and stored in my Korean arsenal, which came in handy a little on the trip.  There were not that many sights in Seoul, nor many things to do.  Plus, the -10° Celsius (5° Fahrenheit) temperature made going out for long periods of time very difficult.  Despite this, I had a wonderful time in Seoul.  I found that the people were extremely friendly and helpful almost to a fault.  One older gentleman who was with his son noticed that we were studying the subway map rather intensely one morning.  Confident through our traveling experience we thanked the man and explained that we knew where we were going, to which he then asked where that was.  He then said that he and his son were going in that direction so we could just follow them, and proceeded to take us somewhere totally different than where he had told him we were intending to go.  We were not upset, as he showed us a neat market area, we just found it funny that after learning where we were headed he essentially said, "forget your plans, follow me and I'll show you somewhere totally different".  Another thing I really loved about Korea (typically what I love about anywhere I go) was the food.  The street food, the traditional restaurants, and everything I ate that was Korean was delicious.  One of the highlights of my trip was meeting up with one of my student's family for a traditional Korean meal in a traditional Korean house (hanok) and even sitting in the traditional Korean style, which is on the floor.  the meal was fantastic! Must have been at least, no exaggeration 25 different dishes brought to our table.  The food was great, the company was great, it was a real treat.  I felt slightly like Anthony Bourdain in that moment, except much younger and not nearly as cynical.

New Year's Eve was our last day and Seoul, and we were fortunate to be invited to a party that a friend of mine from Singapore, who was also visiting Seoul and had lived there for four years, was throwing with her friends.  It was a fun time of meeting new people and a great way to cap off our trip.  The next morning it was up at 6 AM to start a very long and torturous journey back to Singapore.

 Enjoying the fresh snow

 One of the slopes

 

 Skiing an almost white-out at night

Mt. Fuji from my airplane

 Inside a traditional Korean home (hanok)

 Wearing a traditional Korean hat

 Eating a traditional Korean meal with my student's family

 Part of the palace of the traditional royal governmetn

Happy New Year!

Getting Educated on Educating in Thailand

Usually when I am traveling around Asia, I joke that I am on a "business trip" seeing as how I am a History and Geography teacher, and the travels help me gain a better understanding of both the history and the culture of the places I teach about.  This time, however, my travels really were business.  Around 20 or so teachers from my school and I went to Chiang Mai, Thailand for the International Christian Educators Conference (ICEC), where we were to attend workshops and general assemblies for three days straight to learn about how to be better Christian educators.

This does not mean that I did not find my time to have a little fun and experience the culture, however.  Me and my roommates, James and Jason, purposefully went a day and a half early with that goal in mind.  The very first thing we did was go to the local Night Market and find a place to rent motorbikes.  Surprisingly it didn't take a drivers license, a passport, or really any documentation to rent them; just 2000 Thai Baht (about $80 USD) for a deposit.  All of this despite having never driven a motorbike before and given about as much instruction as "here is how you start, and here is how you stop".  After nearly running straight into a parked van upon existing the rental place, it was virtually smooth sailing after that as we were zooming in and out of traffic at about 35 mph as we cruised around the city.

The next day, already equipped with our motorbikes, we took to the surrounding mountains of Chiang Mai and just meandered through long, empty, steep, and winding roads.  True bliss.  In the mountains we visited a Buddhist temple, ate Pad Thai, and had coffee that was grown and made in this random village we happened to stumble upon.  Once back to our hotel, we took a nap, and then got ready for another adventure that night: spectating some Muay Thai fights.

For those that do not know what Muay Thai is, it can basically be described as an intense version of kick boxing that is extremely popular in Thailand, and is one of the most brutal forms of martial arts in the world.  I have heard rumors of fighters training by kicking metal poles to create micro-fractures in their shins, so that when it heals it would actually make their shins thicker and stronger!  I was excited.  The bout card included 7 fights: one of which was a female fight, one a "special fight", one the main event, and one an international fight with one guy being from France.  It. Was. AWESOME!  The highlight was the "special fight", which turned out to be around 8 aspiring fighters in the ring, all blindfolded, going crazy to the tune of "Gangnam Style".  It was hilarious watching these guys walk around the ring throwing hay-makers at the air, or fighting the corner thinking it was a person.  Most of the fights were really good, with 3 of them ending by way of knockout (two were actually knockouts to the body!).  And that ended our day of fun.

The rest of the trip was spent in and out of different sessions.  Most of the sessions I did not get much out of, with a few even upsetting me, however there were a few that were practical and left the attendees with some good takeaway that will be applicable to the classroom.  The best part of the conference was just meeting tons of other people doing the exact same thing as you from all over Asia.  All in all, a good trip.  Now time to buckle down for the last few weeks of the semester.

 Coffee Shop

 Call of the Wild

 Muay Thai

Lady making soap flowers at the Night Market

Underdog Knights

This past Thursday we had our Championship tournament for the U-14 rugby team I have been coaching this year.  This was a winner take all tournament, which basically meant that all of our previous games throughout the season meant squat and what place we finished hinged entirely on this one tournament.  Needless to say, I was nervous going in as the boys had worked so hard all year, the thought that they could walk away empty handed (despite being in 3rd place going into the tournament) made me literally sick.  The flip-side of the coin was that we could also improve our standings if we played well.

Our first game was against the UWC-SEA dragons (United World College-South East Asia). The team that was ranked 2nd going into the tournament, and yet the ONLY team we had not beaten (tied once, and lost by less than one try twice).  The Knights started the game strong by scoring after a couple phases after the opening kickoff.  However, the Dragons were quick to tie it back up.    When we scored another try in the second half, UWC was again able to match us with one of their own and do one better by scoring the go-ahead try.  Due to 2 missed conversion kicks the score was 17-14 with time dwindling down.  As the horn sounded to signal the end of the match, we had just been awarded a penalty and were allowed to play until the next stoppage.  From the penalty tap, our fly-half had a break away run starting from mid-field and ending within the 5 meter line.  Due to great support, we had players there to ruck over, retain the ball, and give a few more drives towards the try-line.  However, the UWC defense stood tall on the try-line and one of our players was pushed out of bounds at the 1 meter line, officially ending the game.  It was a hard fought battle, and it was a bitter pill to swallow knowing we had come so close (scoring that try would have put us ahead 19-17).  However, we had no time to wallow in self-pity because we were scheduled for the very next game against the division leading Huskies from CIS (Canadian International School).

Although CIS were the division leaders, we had beaten this team before (whooped 'em 25-0 in fact), so I knew we had a fighting chance if we got ahead early as they tend to shut down when they were behind.  Despite having played an exhausting game just minutes before, the ICS boys dug deep into themselves and put everything they had into this game and it showed.  Everything was on point: tackling, running, supporting the ball, rucking, passing, EVERYTHING!  By the games end, the Knight walked off the field winners by a score of 22-5.  WE HAD JUST BEAT THE DIVISION LEADERS...AGAIN!  First place was still attainable if CIS could beat UWC by less than 17 points, then all of the top 3 teams would have one loss and we would win due to point differential.  I quickly became the biggest CIS fan in the stadium!  This wishful thinking did not come into fruition however, and UWC ended up beating CIS.  We were now fighting for 2nd place and only one team stood in our way. SAS (Singapore American School).  Throughout the whole season, we had never been beaten by SAS, but they had tied us once.  I spent the whole time prior to the game trying to keep the team focused and to not count their chickens before they hatched.  We still had a job to do!

My worries became reality as the team let SAS score in the opening minutes of the game due to lousy tackling and not being focused.  Much worse, one of our star players was injured on the play.  With a lack of depth on the bench (only two subs), this was a critical blow.  As I was helping him walk off the field, he looked at me and said, "I can tough this out".  Keep in mind that this is coming from a 12 year old!  After asking if he was sure and him giving me confirmation, I trotted off the field to where his worried mother was waiting on the sidelines for an explanation.  To which I just shrugged my shoulders and relayed his message.  From that point on, the Knights were back to their form and scored three unanswered tries to win the game 17-5.  We had done it!  The tiny school of ICS, 1/4th of the size of the next smallest school in our division, had just won 2nd place in their very first rugby season EVER!

To a crowd of over 50+ ICS supporters who had traveled to witness this historic event in our school's history, our team marched up to receive their silver medals.  I could not be more proud to have gotten to coach these boys.  They showed incredible heart the entire season despite being unbelievable underdogs.  Only one player had ever even played rugby before starting this season, and now they are the division runner-ups!  Our motto the entire year was "TOGETHER" and they truly accomplished this together as a team.

Halloween

Went as Wolverine from X-Men for Halloween

The Realities of an International School

The other day, I was reminded of one of the grimming aspects that I hate most about my school in a conversation with one of my students. This is a new student at our school and has quickly worked herself into a soft spot in my heart, as she is incredibly sweet and just a joy to teach and talk to. Noticing her standing alone during recess on this particular day just watching people, I decided to go have a chat with her about how she is fitting in with the other students. It is then that she confessed the reality of emotions that she, along with many other ex-patriot kids, have to face. Her and her family just moved here, but they know it is just a temporary stop before they then have to move again, which is not all that uncommon in an international school, as many of students have parents whose jobs require them to move about constantly. This is not only hard for me as a teacher, as I am constantly having to say goodbye to students I have a genuine care and concern for and have worked hard at building a relationship with, but it is particularly hard for the students themselves. Having experienced the heartache of saying goodbye to countless friends already in their short lives, they are thrust into this opportunity cost assessment at each school they go to. Basically, the students have two choices, they can either alienate themselves from their classmates completely and save themselves from the emotional pain of having to lose yet another person they had confided themselves in, or they decide to invest the short time they have available into building new friendships and make their time at each school more enjoyable, but then never see the dividends of those investments after they become separated from their new friends. It broke my heart to hear this student look at me and tell me that she is intentionally detaching herself from her classmates to avoid the pain of losing more friends, but I honestly could not blame her. It is just one of the sad realities of an international school.

Cool Video

Saw this cool video about Singapore.  It is real footage using an affect called tilt-shift that makes it look like a toy town.  Pretty cool.

Knights Take the Field

Now that I have my first year under my belt, I wanted to take on more responsibilities at my school this year.  One of the main things I wanted to do was start a rugby program to add to our growing athletic department.  So I have been coaching a U-14 7's rugby team, which is nice because it is all my students so I am getting to connect with them on another level outside of the classroom.  There have been some challenges though, as our school is quite small and is difficult to get adequate numbers out to the practices, then we had a few players quit, and then we lost our captain because his birthday was a few months too early.  All of this before our first game.  Needless to say that all the work, effort, and stress was totally worth it as I watched my players run on to the field this past  Thursday to represent their school's very first rugby team.  Not only did they play their very first game, but they won!  Facing a school whose student body is literally four times our own, the ICS Knights were able to take home a victory.  I could not be more proud of their hard work and effort.  They definitely deserved the win.

Church Retreat

This past weekend was a public holiday in Singapore due to Hari Raya (the end of Ramadan), which meant we got Monday off from school.  Due to the long break, my church planned their church retreat for that weekend and we all went to a resort in Malaysia.  The resort was pretty nice, especially the food, but there wasn't that much to do besides golf.  It was alright though, because most of our time was planned out anyways.  Now this is a new church that I have only begun going to for about 2 and a half months now, so my main motivation for this trip was to get plugged in and meet other people from my church, which I did with astounding success.  That is one of the walk-aways from this retreat, but another major one is a renewed sense of purpose with my position here in Singapore.

One of the talks we heard while on the retreat was on living a gospel centered life and what that means for our daily lives, and it really challenged me to try and let the gospel motivate my daily thoughts and actions.  Another one of the talks was about building up our city, Singapore, and in what ways we could do that.  It was here that I really remembered and regained that sense of purpose that God had given me last year.  That purpose being to impact the lives of my students, demonstrate the love of God to them, and in doing so, glorify Him.

I have this amazing opportunity to impact Singapore for the glory of God everyday in my classroom, and I have no doubt that that is what He brought me here to do.  It is my purpose, and I plan to carry it out until he directs me elsewhere.

So it begins...year 2

Today marked the start of my second year teaching in Singapore at the International Community School.  Already I feel a sense of confidence and ownership within my classroom that was either non-existent or a little shaky at the start of last year.  My only concern is that this confidence does not turn to complacency.  All in all, it was a great reunion with most of my students and a wonderful introduction to my new ones. I am excited to see what God has in store for this year!

One Year Anniversary

So just recently the one year benchmark has elapsed.  It is crazy to think that I have been living in Asia for a year now, and even crazier to even try and think about how long I may live over here.  All I can say is that I have been truly blessed by this experience and am continuing to try and live it to the fullest.  Just in this one year I have visited 7 new countries (counting Hong Kong separately from China.  Different flags+different currency+different government= different country in Bradley's expert opinion) and experienced countless new cultural experiences.  I am excited to see what year two brings.

China

So way back to when I first accepted the job here in Singapore, my parents have been planning to come see me this summer.  However, our deal was that I wanted to spend my summer traveling other places and not stuck hosting people in Singapore the whole time, so let's pick a secondary location to meet at.  My parents chose Beijing, China and that suited me just fine.

It was really great to get to see my parents.  Even though I Skype with them fairly regularly, it is not the same as getting to see them, hug them, and spend time with them, so it was a real treat.  As for Beijing, it was really nice getting to see the historical sites like the Summer's Palace, where the emperor would spend his summers to evade the summer heat.  Its grandeur and beauty were impressive as it looked out over a giant lake.  Another highlight from the trip happened randomly while we were just standing in Tianamen Square.  Tianamen Square gained international notoriety after the protests in 1989 (you may have seen the photo of the man standing in front of the tanks). To this day, Tianamen Square remains a popular site for protesters against the Chinese government.  For this reason there are police and military officials EVERYWHERE!  Well our story picks up while we standing in the square, just across from the Forbidden City, when all of a sudden this woman in a wheel chair opens her book bag and all these papers just go flying.  Within seconds there were 5 to 6 officers around snatching up all the papers (including the one under my foot that I had stepped on to prevent from blowing away, and secretly was hoping to keep to have it translated) and wheeling off this old lady and putting her in a van.  I have no idea what those papers said, but I have to assume it was some form of propaganda because she deliberately threw them on the ground.  It was just interesting to witness first hand the tight grip of China's Communist hand, and how quickly they were able to erase this woman's best efforts at "free speech".

Perhaps the biggest let down of the trip for me was the Forbidden City.  The fact that during the imperial times nobody was allowed in that part of the city makes it an intriguing site, but once inside it is a little boring.  I mean the architecture was beautiful, but it looked like all the other temples we had already seen.  Its size was very impressive, but as you walked through the compound everything started to look the same.  It is still a must-see due to its historical value alone, it just didn't live up to its hype.

Other sights we visited were the Temple of Heaven, Birds Nest Stadium and Olympic Park, the Silk Market, where I taught my parents how to bargain, and the Drum and Bell towers where we just barely were able to catch a spectacular drum performance (the towers used to be used to keep time). But the REASON we were in Beijing, the main event, the headliner was the Great Wall of China.  One of the most recognizable structures in the world and certainly one of the grandest, it is something most people aspire to visiting in their lifetime, and we were getting to do just that.  Now the weather we were experiencing had been crappy to put it nicely.  Dreary haze covered the sky with a blanket of foggy grey.  Not the most picturesque setting, but we had to make the best with what we were given.  Now, I had heard from friends that much of the wall that tourists see today was part of a massive restoration project by the government in the 1980's, and in some locations was not even built in its original location! (Why not just build a wall in America, call it the Great Wall and save money on airfare right?)  To avoid seeing a replica, I looked into the different places where you can tour the wall to find an authentic one.  The trouble was that the more authentic the wall, the more difficult it was to access.  Luckily we were able to discover one place where there had been minor restorations done to the original wall, and still had a chair lift to the wall to prevent my parents from having to hike to the top.  Being in the high elevation certainly didn't help with the visibility issues, but it was still impossible to escape the giddy feeling I got from standing on such a significant piece of world history!  The part of the wall we were standing on was built during the Ming dynasty in the 14th century.  That is before America was even on the map (unless the Native Americans or Mesoamericans had maps...).  

However, I was still disappointed that we went on such a crummy day and did not get any good pictures, so we decided to try again on another day.  This time I found a tour that allows you to hike from Jinshanling to Simitai, about 7 km (4.5 miles), on the wall, and the latter sections have remained completely untainted by restoration.  So I went for a solo day hike along a 700 year old structure on what just so happened to be a day with the most beautiful weather.  It was completely blissful, as the wall was vacant of the crowds and I could just be alone in my thoughts (which tended to be imagining I was a Chinese soldier having to ward off a Mongol invasion).  The hike was strenuous, and got harder as it went along, but totally worth it.

Having satisfied our Great Wall expectations we were all set to leave, but having a late flight, decided to catch an acrobatic show before we left.  The things these people did were incredible.  Extreme feats of strength, balance, flexibility, and danger.  At a few points, I was almost certain I was about to witness a death.  Luckily I didn't and it made for a great ending to a fantastic trip.

The Protester

Drum Tower