Hello From China

We made it!!! We are currently in Beijing. We flew in yesterday morning, dropped our stuff at the hostel and headed for the city. Yesterday we made it to the Summer Palace, which is absouletly enormous compared to the palaces in Korea, but parts of them are not as well kept. Korea has done an excellent job of preservation and upkeep with their palaces. The Chinese have not done so with all part of the Summer Palace, which actually made it more interesting. All the fading paint, cracks in the walls, heads missing from statues, and worn down stairs gave the place a lot more character and made it seem more authentic. We then made our way to Tianenman Square in time to see the lowering of the flag. For dinner we found the "Snack Market." It was about 1 acre of food stalls with all sorts of goodness. Grilled corn, giant eggrolls, candied fruit, and EVERYTHING on a stick. I mean everything....Squid, lamb, seahorse, scorpion, starfish, octopi, etc. We were just plain hungry last night so we kept to the normal stuff, but the stranger items will have to be tasted before we leave. Don't worry, there will be plenty of pictures of that adventure. Today we are going to the Forbidden City, then maybe some shopping and possibly an acrobatic or Kung Fu show tonight. Sunday will be dominated by the Great Wall, which we are really getting excited about. It has been Alison's dream to visit the Great Wall since childhood, and it is the main reason that we chose China as our only trip outside of Korea this year. I think we are going to try to update everyday while we are here since there is so much that we are doing, it will be hard to remember after we get back. So check back again tomorrow.