Previously aired in the last post…

Attempting to beat the picture system.  let’s have a go at it, shall we?

This morning, we had to take care of our own breakfast, and when i went into the school cafe to pick up a pastry, i saw this bao that looked like it was filled with pandan paste.  Highly suspicious that pandan had not made it to china, i asked the cafe lady, and she said it was some kind of bean.  wang dou?  i dunno exactly…as i was inquiring, someone else in the cafe said, without looking, mind you, that it was red bean.

but it was green….and then we both agreed we had no idea what it was.  i ate it anyways.

We then had a guest lecturer give us a brief overview of modern chinese history, which was fascinating and…disturbing.  Disturbing only in the sense that some of the events elicited either an angry emotional response or an extremely sad emotional response.  But i suppose that just means that i still have a heart…even though i’ve sworn several times that it doesn’t exist.  After the hour and a half lecture, we took a bus to the center of beijing to visit tian’anmen square and the forbidden city.

for 4.5 hours.  it was hot.  and smoggy.  but so cool.  Beijing is an interesting mix of new and modern buildings and ancient structures left from the qing dynasty.  It’s also teeming with differnt types of tourists from all different nations. I’m attempting to, again, attach media, but for some reason i can’t attack anything larger than 1 mb….which is a rather small size for a file.  I dunno how the first one loaded…’cause it’s definintely bigger than 1 mb.  Perhaps only one photo per post.  So i’ve split up the posts to see if i can show you all a picture of the forbidden city.

apparently, 1 mb is still a restriction.  i don’t understand at all.  how do you make a picture file smaller?  apologies for the lack of pictures, but i’ll figure something out soon.  and i’ve made it to my goal of staying awake until nine before i let myself to to sleep.  tomorrow we have another day filled with exploring and such.  yay for spending lots of time in the sun!  and smog.  it’s all one happy experience!

more pictures!

There were two lions outside of the inner court, but it seems like my internet is once again being a butt and not letting me upload the other daddy lion….let’s see…..

hm….nope, no luck.  perhaps a different time i’ll try and share the pictures of beijing from the top of the manmade hill on the north side of the forbidden city.  it’s there to block all the wind coming from siberia/russia area.  feng shui stuff.  this morning (it is now the morning of the 14th) we’re going to the science museum and the olympic park.

maybe i can snag something/touch something that michael phelps did too…..*drools*