We arrived in Xian at 2:00 in the afternoon. After some confusion because our plane arrived earlier than our guide, we were off to visit one of the things I have always wanted to see in person since I was a kid, the terra cotta soldiers. The tomb of the Terra Cotta soldiers from the Qin dynasty is one of China's most famous relics. It is amazing to think that it has only been uncovered for 29 years. Standing in front of an army of 1,000 that have been unveiled was ama...
On day 3, we started off at Tiananmen Square. As Lisa, our tour guide described the history of Tiananmen Square, all I could remember was the news shots from the 1989 student uprising. It' funny how the images of one news event can come back to you sometimes. This square is the entrance way to the Forbidden City. It is bounded by the Government Building, General Mao's Mausoleum, the National Museum, and the Forbidden City. The square is frequented by tourists and is...
We started the day off with and Asian buffet breakfast. I swear some of the things they eat just are not the smells you want to encounter at 7:30 in the morning. But I am sure that they think that of some western food too. At 8:15 we were out the door on our way to the Great Wall of China. This is a 40 minute drive north out of Beijing. But first we stopped at a jade store/demonstration factory. Things we learned about buying jade were that real jade will ...
This trip Chris and I were a bit leary to take on China with out a guide so we decided to go on a package tour. We went to Beijing and Xi'an. Our tour company was called Xanadu travel adn yes they use Olivia's Newton John's song as there hold music. Which unfortunately became the pop song stuck in my head every time I looked at our luggage tags. Baring that they were a good company to go through and we had a great time. I am going to break this up in several articles over t...
The Perfume Pagoda Based on the advise of friends who had previously traveled to Vietnam, we signed up for a trip to the Perfume Pagoda. Our adventure began in Hanoi with a ride on a bus. After much shuffling between buses to get everyone to fit. We headed off to a small town that was about an hour outside of Hanoi. On this trip we met more Americans than we had seen in one location outside of going to Osan (the location of a US military installment). There were...
On the third and the fourth days of our trip we booked an overnight stay to Halong Bay. This was a beautiful trip. The ride through the country side allowed us to enjoy the scenery and watch people perform the laborious task of planting rice and getting water into the fields. The sad thing about the view was the sheer amount of trash in some of the villages. You could have a beautiful house with a yard filled with bags of trash on more than one occasion. Some...
Since we had the week off for Seol (The Korean Lunar New Year) we decided to take the opportunity to see another Asian country. We decided to visit Vietnam on a friend's suggestion and see the country that Ho Chi Mihn made famous. We spent seven days wandering around Hanoi, Vietnam and taking a few trips to some other places around Hanio. To make it easier on everyone I am going to break this up into multiple blogs. We knew little of Vietnam before coming. As wit...
Just getting back from our week-long vacation in Hanoi, Vietnam. Fun time. I expect Heather will be doing a write up in the next couple days. We took a lot of pictures, we'll be posting a link as well soon. Short summary: Very cool country. Pros: Lots of great sights, great food, great people. Cheap food, hotels, shopping. Cons: Chaos in the driving, living with trash. ...
Our new Motto " It's Korea, Why Not?" Hello all! So we are back from our six day vacation on the lovely island of Jeju. Chris is grateful that this week is only a one day work week because we ran around so much for the six days. I am going to divide our island get away into two blogs for the sake of the the amount we have to cover and the craziness involved in our trip. During this trip the Germans and ourselves developed a new motto that all Foreign...
I guess I’ve got to do something about that. Anyway, this came from a nifty little site that you can make your own map of the world or the US states. I know I can’t keep up with my brother on the states. That’s why I’ve got to establish a lead on countries before he starts to collect those as well. Link Thanks to chiprj for the link. " " " "
New Page 1 Hey, this is Chris here, giving this blog thing a try. I don’t plan on this being a long one, but who knows. Anyway, we got back from Seoul today, where we were for 4 days. Overall, I was impressed with the city. Very large (something like 20+ million when you get to the surrounding areas involved) but it was manageable and not too crazy. Of course, we went during the traditional summer slowdown, when I think most of the city gets a couple days off and heads...
On Sunday of last week, one of the Germans at Kamco, and a Russian friend of his took us to a Buddhist temple that was located in the southwestern portion of the country. Temples in Korea are usually located in the mountains. (The reasoning for this is that at one time Buddhist were persecuted for there religion so they placed their temples high in the mountains so they could continue to practice.) As you arrive at the area of the temple there is a small gathering of restaurants. As you w...
Well the flight went well. The World class business pods were pretty cool to travel in with the lumbar messaging seats that fully recline into bed positions and the personal 14" screens that you can watch movies or play video games on. Not to mention the leg room that was pretty awesome. I had brought a water bottle since I thought I would be neglected like most other flights I had been on but I was wrong. It seems as though you can have pretty much whatever you want and are fed quite we...