Pictures are coming....

We are still working on getting the pictures up and online. Why you might ask? Well, it turns out that we took over 2400 pictures on this trip!!! The curse of the digital camera, it seems. Anyway, in the meantime, please enjoy this article - http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/17/asia/web-0417china.php

I thought this was pretty interesting. We definitely saw (and heard!) the spitting, and experienced the absence of queueing. However, as the article says, they must be working it, as Jess commented that things seemed to have improved since she was in Beijing last year.

We'll have those pics up soon, I promise! Keep checking here for updates!

We're Back!!!

We've arrived safely home a few hours ago. Luckily we had no airline mishaps today, although the entire trip home did take us about 24 hours. We are pretty tired!!! Today's miracle was that we did not have pay for having extra or overweight luggage, even though we had a ton of it. The guy next to us in the check-in line kept laughing at us, saying "you have so many suitcases!" The second miracle was being able to eat salad again. I have to say that I missed lettuce and tomato quite a bit. And all of you, of course! Hope to everyone soon. More pictures to come once we have rested and our brains are operational again.

Our 14 Hour Trek to Hong Kong

So, yeah.  It took us over 14 hours to get to Hong Kong. Long story, but it involved 2 missed flights, several buses, a loooong taxi ride and two chaotic border crossings.  Luckily we also encountered some helpful, english-speaking strangers to help us out.  Anyhow, we made it here finally and we have to say that Hong Kong is AWESOME!!!!  We love it!  We had drinks today at a bar which I swear must have the best view in the world.  It was incredible!  

 

OK we have to go the internet here is very expensive!!  We'll try to write again soon!  Bye!!!

Shanghai!

Hello everyone!  We are in Shanghai!   We apologize for the sparse blog postings, it is sometimes hard to get on the internet here.

 

So far we have found Shanghai to be more modern and westernized than Beijing.  We have even come across some western toilets in public places - quite the surprise!   We have been eating our fill of Chinese food, but last night we just needed something familiar, so we hit up Pizza  Hut, which turned out to be great!  Pizza Hut is pretty fancy here, they even have pasta dishes and ice cream sundaes, which we took advantage of, of course!

 

Today we visited the Old Section of Shanghai, which as usual consisted of some very pretty gardens and about a million little shops selling everything you can imagine, and some that you probably could not until you saw it.  Yesterday we visited the Shanghai Museum, the Bund (walking area along the river), and Nanjing Road Shopping Area, which reminded us of Times Square (lots of neon, tons of people, etc)  The first night we were here, we saw a Chinese acrobat show, which was amazing!  It had contortionists, plate spinners, knife throwers, a magician, jugglers, and crazy acrobats that did incredible feats.  Somehow we ended up with front row seats even though we only bought our tickets a few hours beforehand.  Hmm.....and on Tuesday we went on a day trip to Suzhou ("the Venice of the East") organized for us by Jess's mom, who accompanied us on the tour.  We experienced first-hand the insane amount of traffic here (yes, I think it was worse than the Beltway and certainly included way more horn-blowing)  and saw some beautiful gardens, took a boat trip, and visited the silk factory, where of course we were conned into buying more silk.  Anyone want some silk?  Please contact us when we get home. 

 

Tomorrow we are off to Hong Kong, our last stop (sniff!).  We hear it is pretty warm there, which we are excited about.  So far it has been much colder than we expected in Beijing and Shanghai, and we are really tired of wearing the same clothes all the time, since most of us only brought two warm outfits.  We hear it has been around 80 degrees in DC, so we are very jealous of you all back home!  Think good thoughts and send us some sun in Hong Kong!  

 

Lots of love from China, talk to you soon!

Beijing: Got Silk?

We do! Lots of it! We have gone a little crazy with the shopping here. Silk, pearls, fake clothes, purses, etc, its crazy! And its all so cheap! I think we are becoming master bargainers. A few of us (not naming names!) have had to buy new suitcases already even though we are only on our first city!

Anyway, we didn't spend all of our time shopping. We also saw a bunch of the historic sites here. Let's see, we've done the Forbidden City, Ti'anenmen Square, some parks, the hutong, and of course the Great Wall, which was really cool. Today we went to the Lama Temple, which was really neat as well. Lots of Buddha's and incense burning everywhere.

Ok this has to be quick today b/c I am on the hotel internet and it is pretty expensive. Here are some pics - Ok whatever the pics are above. Blogger does not seem to like operating in China!! Tomorrow we are off to Shanghai - hope all is well in the states!

BTW our new Chinese phrases of the day are: Xishou jian zi na li (where is the bathroom) and wi an ni (I love you), taught to us by a cab driver who was in love with Jess.