Photos from my trip

So, I know I have kept some of you waiting, but I finally got most of the photos up onto a website that I made. Thanks to Preston, other people can actually see it! Visit it here!

Goodbye Beijing

It's been a wonderful 1 and a half months here in Beijing, China. But, as all good things must come to an end, so does this trip. I have some of the most fondest memories here, took about 1529 picutures, and also visited a ton of places.

I came here on June 29, via CA982. The first few weeks, were spent with my Grandmother, as my parents would come on July 25 because they only get 3 weeks of vacation. My grandmother and I, spent the first few weeks buying clothes, and curtains. We went out to dinner on a daily basis, often with my relatives, or her friends. We also went to Beihai Park to drive boats.

June 19 is a day I will never forget. The grand opening of the first Apple Store in China, the Sanlitun Apple Store. What a day that was; liveblogging from my iPhone, standing in line for almost 4 hours, and meeting some truely wonderful people there.

July 25 is the day my parents came. Once they came, we went to a lot of places as my grandmother is too old to travel too much around Beijing, which takes 3 hours to go from the North end to the South end. We started out by going to the Temple of Heaven, and Wangfujing Street, where the Olympic Flagship Store is. We also went to Chaoyang Park, where you can take a boat and go all around the park. Chaoyang Park is also the site of the Beach Volleyball competitions.

The next day, we went to Tianamen Square, and looked around. The Monday to follow, we went to Henan to visit relatives. That is really a true flavor of China. Beijing is all comercialized, but out in the Country, that is where you see true China.

1 week later, we were back in Beijing. After going to the National Center for the Performing Arts, I was able to go to an Opening Ceremony Rehersal. Though I thought the rehersal wasn't that impressive, the actual one was extremely good, except for the fact that some fireworks weren't real, and the little girl in the red dress was actually just mouthing the words as the song was prerecorded by someone else before hand.

After the games started, I went to see a tennis match, followed by soccer and athletics at the National Stadium. These final days have been spent busily packing, last minute preparations, setting up my grandaunt's mac and transferring 3+ gigabytes of photos to my iPod.

Once back in the USA, I will have to catch up on all the things I have missed, do my summer homework, and then create a photobook from the tons of photos I took in China.

CA981 is my flight number, you can track it from the Flight View website.

This is my last post in China. See you back in the states soon.

Almost Time

Tomorrow is when our flight leaves, CA981 (I think). These past few days have been really busy preparing for the trip back. I took tons of pictures from the Birds Nest and also the Water Cube. Look forward to seeing my pics back in the USA

6 More Days

So, there are six more days till I get back to the USA, August 17th in case anyone was wondering. I have much to do these few days, with two olympic games and even more shopping.

8/8/08

Today is the Opening Ceremony for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. If you have been reading this blog recently, then you know that I thought the rehersal sucked. But, I think that they will make the actual thing better. Some Sarah Brigtman person is singing in it along with this guy who I have no idea where he came from, his name is Jackie Chan or something. (That was sarcasm.) It should be a little better. I will not be going anywhere today, because, the security is going to be really really tight and there will be a lot of famous people arriving today. Meanwhile, I have been visitng some of the famous places in Beijing, the Temple of Heaven, Wangfujing Street, and more recently, Qianmen Market Street. I have yet to go to Tianamen Square and the Great Wall as the torch relay and ever tightening security has made that almost impossible until after the opening ceremony.

Official Pictures Site

Ok. Here it is! After tons of hard work, Preston and I would like to unveil the official site for my China pictures. It is still a work in progress, but here it is!

Official Site

(Site is password protected for security reasons. For those who don't know it, please e-mail Me or Preston requesting a password. Or, use this Form.)

Temporary Picture's Site

This site is temporary, until Preston gets MobileMe, this is the site.
Pictures

What I've Been Up To The Past Two Days.

7/5/08

I went with some of my relatives on a relatively private tour of the Olympic Green. We took the car to the Main Press Center (MPC), where we went on a private tour (along with several other families) of the main press workrooms, the AP workrooms, along with a tour of the hotel in the MPC.  We also got to see the main conference room, where they will hold all the announcements, etc. The hotel, is owned by the Bei Chen Group, whose president let us go on the private tour. We went all the way to the top of the hotel, the 16th floor, where we were able to see the National Aquatics Center (Water Cube) and also the National Stadium (Birds Nest). After that, we were treated to a 12-course lunch at the hotel's restaurant, where the food, was, horrible, yet expensive. Just to tell you guys, I got to see all this stuff, before the general public gets to see it. I'll be posting pics as soon as I get a good web hoster. 

7/6/08

I got new glasses today, along with a ton of food. I also sent out 6 postcards that should arrive in the next 10-15 days, but it should be earlier. 

7/7/08

Today, I got a new violin. Thats pretty much all I did today.  ): 

Hola From Beijing!

Hi everyone! This is my first post from Beijing, China! I am here for the 2008 Summer Olympics! Staying at my Grandmas house, which is only about 1 mile away from the olympics. Our flight (CA982) got humongo delayed so we had to wait about an hour. Luckily, the food is good, but McDonalds here for breakfast is expensive. I had to spend $4(US) for breakfast! ITS A SCANDAL. ITS AN OUTRAGE. Well, all is well, I am posting from my Grandma's friends house as we do not have DSL YET. It's coming tomorrow for me. 12 hour time difference from Beijing and CT. 14 hour time difference between here and Denver. I'll post my pictures from the journey here later.

Wall-E And China

Tomorrow is Friday. The last full day I will be here before I go to China. I'm leaving on a 4:30 P.M. flight to Beijing from JFK. I'm taking Air China. I'll find out my flight number soon and post it.
Tomorrow also happens to be the release of Disney Pixar's Animated Film: Wall-E. Meet us at the AMC Lowes Theater in Port Chester, NY if you can for the 6:00 P.M. show.