So just a little update on our busy month of August.... We went to Beijing for 4 days starting on the 10th... then flew back to Busan for the weekend and jetted off to the island of Jeju-do, South Korea for 5 days on the 17th... We then had a lovely little birthday celebration for Laura out in Hauendae on Saturday and are now getting back into the swing of things... kinda...
I say kinda... because I still don't have to physically go into work until next Monday... and don't teach until Tuesday :)
Life is good in Korea... or as the many Korean t-shirts say ... "Slow life is way to happy long fulfill life :)" ... yeah.. sure...
Onto to China I say! (I'll be posting one day of our trip at a time as it would just be wayyyy too long otherwise.. oh .. and i took over 600 pictures... by the way... I haven't edited any of these pictures... so don't expect anything too amazing out of this batch... the jeju pics though... will be more up to par )
We rummaged through the Beijing airport around noon on the tenth and it was an amazing building... the architecture was really cool and I managed to get a shot off before some wayhoo in a tye-dye shirt started talking our ear off about how he's flying to Thailand and hopes he can practice his japanese waike therapy on some locals riding the trains?? ... WHAT?? EXACTLY!
They also had some pretty crazy technology in the airports that I'm fairly certain was installed to impress people checking out the Olympics last Summer... they could read your body temperature as you walked through "immigration" with no need to stop... just in case you've got something that would spread like wildfire in a country of OVER A BILLION PEOPLE!
We met up with our tour guide shortly after at the terminal... her name was Cici... and to our surprise... it wasn't a giant tour with 50 foreigners on a coach bus and one Chinese guy with a microphone... We had our own personal tour guide and our own car with driver for the 4 days! Sha-bingy!!!
Here's a quick shot of Laura and Cici (tour guide) at the Summer Palace...
Okay.. from here on out... it's a ton of pictures of Temples and food... so if you don't like cultural stuff... run... jog.. walk.. or bike away from your computer.. now...
First stop was the Temple of Heaven... This is the main place where the Emperor would come to pray to the God of... you guessed it ... Heaven.... These temples are circular in shape and made up of nothing but solid painted wood... They're circular shape represents Heaven... and each temple is surrounded by a square wall .. which represents earth...
Here's Lolo (haha thanks Leanne) in front of one of the side buildings... not used for prayer...
Silhouette of the temple....
This place was pretty huge and we didn't even get to check into the hotel to stow our luggage before the hike... I always like to take a creeper shot of Laura walking in foreign places... something I find comical of a blonde woman walking amongst a completely homogenous population... here's one in China at the Temple of Heaven...
Dragon face !
Here's a quick pic of both of us at the main prayer station posing for a shot...
Then of course I see a cool wall and ask Laura to take a quick pose down it so I can play with the depth of field of my new camera.... I know... I'm a huge geek... I realize it more and more... every day...
And while we're at it.. how about you go and stand in that doorway and I'll get a picture of you in it while we can see the temple in the background ?? (she rolls her eyes and complies)
AND here's a picture of a camouflage tree... I'm sure no one will notice you're a tree now that you're wearing all that camouflage bark.... oh wait... you've got leaves (needles) and are made of wood... you're obviously still a tree... I digress...
Sneaky Tree :
Alright... after the Temple of Heaven... it was on to our first traditional Duck Dinner... and yes... i took a few pictures at dinner as well... haha...
Here's a shot of the oven where if you click on the photo to enlarge ... you can see the ducks frying up in the flames...
Here's our little carver boy cuttin us up a slice or two of fresh duck meat....
The cool part about dinner was that our tour guide would order all of our (prepaid) food in Chinese and a drink ... beer if we wanted... :) and then leave us alone to eat for an hour or 20 minutes... depending on our hectic schedule....
Quack quack meat...
and here's a picture of one of the servers with Laura as we were leaving... quite the unique traditional garb they were sporting...
And one last shot of some of the traditional lanterns that adorned the place.. there was a cool feel in this restaurant and it had a really authentic atmosphere... the food was pretty good as well...
We're now tearing off to see the Kung-fu show which is a play acted out in English for all us foreigners.... it was a story about a young boy who is left at a temple with his master at a very young age and how they learn to master the art of kung-fu and each progress to master and grow into their destiny... Most of the actors in the show actually train in the temples for years and years before landing a job in the show biz industry... You can't take pictures during the show... but here's a shot of one of the young monks after the performance....
After that we were brought to our hotel to check in and crashed pretty early as we were feeling a bit jet lagged...
I will post day 2 some time within the week... Day 2 included a tour of the Ming Tombs... more delicious food... an extraordinary Chinese Circus show... and oh yeah.. the Great Wall !!!
Bye for now !