Aquarium Field trip

Vacation to China

002-010: Tiananmen Square
Pictures of Annie, Me and Lucia, another teacher down south in Chusan, and other guy is Travis from GDA Seocho Campus. Just so happened he was told to use the same travel agent and we got on the same tour.

012-050: Forbidden City
First set of pictures is of the outer wall of the Forbidden City. Second set shows the inner wall where the officials and other workers lived. The third set is where the Emperor and Empress lived along with the concubines and other wives. The buildings with the green around them were being touched up for the Olympics next year. The one in the middle is the Emperor's room.

059-077: Temple of Heaven
Temple of Heaven is where they sacrificed oxen to bring rain and get good weather. The green oven looking thing is the altar and the big bowls were where they burned the skins of the oxen. The center you will see three rows of circular stairs surrounding the heaven stone where you were supposedly closest to heaven and can hear your voice louder. We got a good picture of us standing on it. Next pic is the second gate to the temple and can see the temple of heaven in the distance. Good pics of the inside where the monks prayed etc. You can tell it's been repainted.

112-138: The Great Wall
The highlight of the entire tour was the Great Wall. Unfortunately for everyone at home, it was a very smoggy and humid day so most of the pics are not that clear. I had a different idea of what the Great Wall would be like. I did not expect to have to walk up tons of steep stairs. I survived and actually got to the top of this section of wall. I wanted to kill the tour guide though because he kept pushing us to climb quicker and was not happy when we wanted to stop and take pictures. I did it though and felt like I sweat off 15 pounds. I was wet head to toe and looked hideous when I reached the top but hey, I did it! The stairs were brutal. They varied in size and they were steep. I have no clue how the soldiers walked that every day in armor no less. The invading army had to work to take the wall. We joked that they had to take a breather before they could even think about fighting.

Banging pans are so annoying

Chinese Opera

This is a the same guy that you will see fighting the inn keeper. I was not expecting this. Our tour guide said it would not be good and we could leave when we wanted we lasted 30 minutes.