Beijing, China for the Lunar New Year

One of the reasons we decided to live and teach in Korea for one year was the opportunity to travel to various countries nearby. In December we took a 10 day trip to Thailand and spent New Year's Eve in Bangkok. During the Lunar New Year, February 6-10th we had another opportunity to travel to a new country. We spent 4 nights in Beijing, China! We were visiting China while there were crazy snowstorms going on in the Southeast, where there were power outages for days and trains were not running. Fortunately for us, there was no snow in Beijing! It was very dry, albeit equally cold.

Although we only had 4 nights in China, we had an amazing time and would definately go back during the Spring / Summer months! As you can imagine, there was construction going on everywhere in Beijing as the countdown for the 2008 Summer Olympics nears. Speaking of the Olympics, wow!! the amount they must be making off souvenirs.. more on this later.


Gate 47 at Incheon Airport, Korea.





There's our plane, fuled up and ready to go!



Another in flight meal! Rice, beef, shrip, a bun, cake and some OJ - decent, but nowhere near as good as the food on Thai Air!



TsingTao beer.. mmm free alcohol on the plane :)



The outskirts of Beijing





Our blog would not be complete without a picture with a creepy baby doll, this picture was taken in the washroom at the Beijing Airport - instructions on how to use the baby change table.



One of the control towers at the airport, promoting China Mobile and the 2008 Olympics.

We took a shuttle bus from the aiport to this train station which was located near our hotel. The cost was Y16 or $2.25 each ($1=7Yuan).

There were about 5 city blocks that were encompassed with the shiny architectural designs below. On the first level there were some upscale stores such as Tiffany's, Burberry, Omega, Louis Vuitton and offices for Audi just to name a few.

Stay tuned for the Great Wall of China, The Forbidden City and more! (We're still sorting through pics, this isn't as easy as it looks!)