Bits of Beijing

Happy Chinese New Year! It is the year of the tiger. Brave, courageous, bold, and gracious. If your into that. Here are some pictures from our week long trip to Beijing, China. Stayed in an amazing hostel and had a great experience.


Olympic Village for the 2008 Summer Olympics. The bird's nest now hosts little theme parks and such, and the water cube is being turned into a shopping mall. The rest of the village is more or less empty.

Some breakfast at our hostel. Catching up on what the China Post says about Obama meeting the Dali Lama, the Vancouver Olympics, US selling arms to Taiwan, and Google.
This guy doing water calligraphy in the park around the Temple of Heaven
The Temple of Heaven
Me in front of the Simatai portion of the Great Wall. Less restored and way more fun to hike than some other sections north of Beijing. I highly recommend it.
Court preparing to fly down.
The bridge between the Jinshanling and Simatai parts of the wall.
HA!
Natural beauty.
Best hike.
Wild mountains. Infinite valleys.
103 large steps to the next watchtower.
takin' a break
jokin' around
sneekin' a peek
the old culture street turned new for the olympics. still bustling
the temple of incense at the summer palace

the frozen lake at the summer palace


everywhere you look there are lanterns.
playing on the ice. quite a change from Taiwan weather
a tower in the forbidden city.
taken from the bell tower onlooking the drum tower. we got to see a demonstration of the drum players. these towers were the time keepers of old Peking.
Overlooking the forbidden city from atop a hill in Jingshan Park
navigating our way through the maze of walls in the forbidden city.
displays of ceramics from the Tang, Song, Ming, and Ching Dynasties.
This palace burnt down and with it numerous priceless antiques from past dynasties.
Forbidden City
A Colorful wall in the courtyard of Mental Cultivation in the forbidden city.
These stones were made of marble and carved elsewhere around china. In order to transport them to the palace the roads were purposely frozen over so that they could be pushed down the ice. They are so heavy, at the time, there was no other way to transport them to the palace. pretty cool.
Tienanmen Square. Monument to the people and the entrance to the forbidden city in the back.
a busy night market on the night of the new year.
delicacies aplenty. If your curious theres scorpions, centipedes, crickets, starfish, worms, seahorses, cicadas, and fried banana
I was amazed at the imperial cypresses and junipers around the city's parks. beautiful trees.
there is a mulberry tree growing out of this juniper.ha
so cool
statues of Confucius's students
these are the Confucian Analects carved on over 150 stone tablets in the second oldest school of Confucius.


so there was a crowd of people pushing and shoving to get to the center of this circle. literally. nothing except a 2 foot circle in the middle of a park. ha