Okay so China....

I was only able to go to China for four days because it was the Korean Thanksgiving Holiday. How amazing that it happened so soon after I got to Korea! Anyways, I wanted to go to China particularly because my brother is getting his Masters at Peking University and he said that fall would be a good time to visit and it just seemed perfect. Tennyson and I took a tour with Xanadu Travel, which is a touring company in Seoul for foreigners and they had a trip to Beijing! It seemed to all work out perfectly. There were a few glitches in the beginning because our flight was overbooked and it seemed to all be very last minute. But once we got to China, everything worked out perfectly. Its nice going with a tour because everything is planned out for you. You may not have as much free time as you would like but I know that if I had gone on my own seeing everything we saw would be almost impossible. I've traveled alone before and trust me its not so great. The stress just disappears when someone else plans it for you especially since its a vacation!
Basically we saw all of these things in order: Chinese acrobat show, Ming Tombs, THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA (!), Hutong Tour (in which we were biked around through the narrow alleys of "Old Beijing"), a tea house, Temple of Heaven, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, and the Summer Palace...

It was fantastic. I had such a great time with Tennyson and meeting the people from our tour and I got to see my brother. It really rejuvenated this whole experience and made me realize that traveling is one of the main reasons why I came here.

So thanks China...you are pretty cool

oh and I bought a lot!

I went to China..

I'm still absorbing it all. More to post later!

some pictures

most of these were stolen or donated rather from the albums of Jen and Kirsten

I've almost been here a month!

yo!! whats up bloggers? I totally copied Tennyson and decided to create a blog of my own...I would love to be able to send individual emails about this experience so people could keep up but I've decided that this would be best...at least to tell my side of the story!

So lets go back about a month to my departure from lovely SC here to Korea...My leave was emotional at best. Saying goodbye to people and me fully realizing who I was leaving was difficult because I am a home body, although it may not seem that way. I did not go to college 8 hours away, study abroad, or go to Korea to get away from my family or because I hate home. I just try to take every opportunity I can and while I still can! The separation is hard though. But I knew that at least I would going to Seoul with five of my close friends which was different because usually I'm doing these kinds of things alone...Its very nice to be here with them. Tennyson and I actually flew here together (we of course watched Harry Potter on the plane). We were separated at the airport because we were taken to our hotels. I stayed in a hotel my first five days in Seoul and then moved into an apartment which belonged to another teacher here. However, I am now moving again to be closer to the school!

I will definitely write more later...I don't want this post to be ridiculously long!