Beijing

I love Beijing. And I wish I had a few more days to spend here. Finally, after a week, I feel as though I am in China and everything feels different from America.

We started our visit to the Great Wall, and there's really not much to say except awesome. The climb to the top was brutal, but the work to get there was well worth it. The views are absolutely gorgeous - the wall lines the mountain ridges, so you are literally on top of a mountain looking around at pure natural beauty. And the wall itself is amazing. It's the only man-made structure to be seen from space and it is about as long as the US. I can't believe that this was made with pure man-power, and it's such a sturdy and large structure. Truly an amazing experience.

We spent the next day going through Tianamen Square and The Forbidden City. Tianamen Square is definitely a strange contrast from the great wall, in a way. It's very, very large, but lacks the beauty of the great wall - very soviet inspired. And I couldn't resist taking a picture with Mr. Mao. The Forbidden City is beautiful and China is really doing a big push to restore it in time for, you guessed it, the 2008 Olympics. It seems like everything they're doing is for the Olympics and there is so much construction going on in the city. Again, amazing.

Our group participated in a tea ceremony, which was very beautiful. Everything during the simple ceremony was done with grace and harmony (common motifs in Chinese culture) and the tea was great. It had to be- it's the only tea approved by the Chinese government.

If I had to choose just one city to come back to so far, it would be Beijing. There is so much beauty and culture here and so much history to really experience. When you hear about the 5,000 years of history, much of it happened here and I wish I had more time to really explore and see more of the sites.

Maybe I can come back in 2008....