Beijing...

Although I never dreamt of going to Beijing, I'm glad I took advantage of the opportunity when I had it. Our trip was considered a university visit, since we visited Tsingsua University (pronounced similar to Sheng-Shwa) and stayed on the campus there in a hotel. The campus was beautiful, even though it was one of the coldest places we had been so far. During our time in Beijing, we visited the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, the Great Wall and the Beijing Zoo to see the Giant Pandas. Despite all of these amazing sites - the majority of the students loved the Pearl Market best, since they were able to buy knock-off clothing and shoes extremely cheap.




This is a picture of a particular pond on the campus - Isn't it beautiful?! Going here really reminded us that it was fall. One more interesting tidbit about the university - the quality of education is comparable to Harvard & MIT! Wow!


The bicycle is the most popular means of transit on the campus.


The Great Wall! We had about 30 minutes to explore which was perfect, I was so out of shape I could barely hike it for that long. One thing you never really hear is how steep it is!

One of the giant pandas!

Hong Kong...

For the short time I was in Hong Kong, it was great. Technically the ship was there for two days, but because I was signed up for a trip to Beijing, I departed Hong Kong early on the second day.

One of the reasons I was excited to go to Hong Kong, was because that is where Disney has built their newest park. It was soo interesting (for me at least) to compare how they changed their product to cater to the market there. My friend Cat (from the ship) came with me. I was lucky enough to have had two extra complimentary tickets from my time at Disney, which I was able to use to get into the park there. It was definitely an added bonus!


I was surprised how many of the signs were in English. Many people don't know that before this park opened, many cast members trained at Walt Disney World.

I thought the Jungle Cruise attraction was brilliant! There are essentially two main languages in China - Mandarin and Cantonese, in addition to English, so I was interested to find out how they would handle that challenge on a spieling attraction (one in which the person at the front of the boat has a talking part). Their solution - 3 different lines, one for each language, and they rotated the boats: one for Mandarin, one for Cantonese and one for English! How cool is that?!

The Hong Kong skyline - amazing. Soo different from NYC!

It's been awhile...

Sorry, I know it's been awhile - I've been getting used to life back in the States and trying to job hunt/decide on my next adventure. So far to no avail, but as soon as I decide, I'll let you know.
Another thing I've been working on is trying to locate a photo sharing site that supports videos too - believe it or not, there aren't too many out there, and the ones that do exist all charge. So, while I continue my search for the best channel to share my memories, I figured the least I could do is post a couple pictures from the countries I never had a chance to post.
Thanks to everyone who tracked me during my trip and again, my apologies for not being better about it.
- Bonnie :)