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Erik and I had a great time in Beijing last weekend, despite the fact that we were unable to buy sleeper tickets for the overnight train between Shanghai and Beijing. We spent the night in seats, so did not sleep much before we arrived! We got to Beijing at about 7 in the morning and still managed to have an activity packed day despite being tired.

One of the first things we did was go shopping for shoes. I only brought my flip flops (of course!) and I wanted to see Mao's body. Chairman Mao was China's revered leader. After he died, they preserved his body so that people could continue viewing it and pay their respects to him. Last year, since I was not wearing shoes then either, I was prohibited from seeing Mao's body because to wear sandals is considered disrespectful. So this year, I was excited to finally see it. However, like most sites in Beijing, the place was closed for renovations. Beijing is preparing for the Olympics next year, so unfortunately many of the tourist sites were closed. We did spend some time hanging out in Tiananmen Square, which is the world's largest public square.

Us standing with Erik's mom

Erik's mom has also spent the summer in China, so we wanted to go to Beijing to see her before she returned to the US. We had an excellent time with her and Erik, of course, was very happy to see her. We all went out together to eat Beijing duck which was delicious. The husband of one of Erik's mom's friends lives in Beijing and graciously took us out to eat and drove us around to see the sights. Such a nice guy.

This is a picture of one of the Ming Tombs. Emperors from the Ming Dynasty (1364-1644) are buried here. Very beautiful.

Us and Benjamin at the Ming Tombs. Benjamin is our Chinese friend who came with us to Beijing.

We also visited the Lama Temple. This temple is much different from the other temples in Beijing because it is a Tibetan temple. Tibetan Buddhism is much more mystical then other forms of Buddhism and its temples are always painted bright colors. This temple is famous because it has a record size Buddha that is 60 feet tall.

Me standing under the ornate gateway.

Of course, no trip is complete without visiting my favorite, the Hard Rock Cafe. It always feels weird to be in an all white environment when you're in China.

We did some other cool things in Beijing (including, of course, seeing the Great Wall) but Erik will post later on that.

This Saturday, we celebrated Erik's 24th birthday. We had so much fun! Many of our friends came out to celebrated with us. We ate dinner at a Hot Pot resturant (Erik's favorite) and then went out afterwards. We feel lucky to have met so many cool people since we've been here. On Tuesday, Erik's birthday, we will be celebrating again! Shanghai has discovered Cold Stone icecream which I am very excited about. I want to buy an icecream cake but Erik's trying to talk me out of it. As you can imagine, it's a little expensive here. We will be going out for another of Erik's favorite foods, Japanese, on Tuesday. Here's some pictures from our fun night!

Erik's become close with his coworkers at Newave

Me and one of my Chinese girlfriends, Eileen

Me and one of our Chinese American friends, Henry

Shanghai definetly has begun to feel like home for us. We like our apartment and the neighborhood we live in. We're also meeting many new people and making lots of friends. Erik and I often go to English Corner, which is a gathering of Chinese students who want to practice speaking in English. We've met many people by going to these and they are always anxious to practice their English with Americans.

Erik is now working too. He's a teacher at a summer camp and works many hours nearly everyday of the week. Thankfully, he'll only be this busy for 2 months. In the fall, he'll start his Chinese classes! But he will be able to save much for a travels this year!

Unlike Erik, I'm now working less because my Kindergarden has less students in the summer. It's been a nice change. I enjoy my school very much. I teach 3 to 7 year olds, so it's definitly been a challenge! Like most kids that young, my students are very active and loud. However, most are very enthusiastic about learning English and I'm already starting to see an improvement in their speaking skills. They love to play American games, such as Duck Duck Goose and Red Rover which they've never played before. They also love to sing and learn American songs. It's been a lot of fun teaching them my childhood games. I feel they are much smarter then I was in Kindergarden! Many of my 6 and 7 year olds can already read and write, and their penmenship is better then mine is now!

We are enjoying spending time with our friends. Two more friends from the US arrived here a couple weeks ago and stayed on an air mattress on our floor until they could find an apartment. We had 5 people in our small apartment for awhile! It was fun though, nice to spend so much time with good friends. We are looking forward to another friend arriving in August. Also, a close friend of mine is considering moving out here. I hope she does!

This month should be fun as more friends arrive, Erik and I will soon be paid for the first time, and we get the opportunity to bum around Shanghai more. There are still many places we have not gone yet, such as the waterpark, and I know Erik is anxious to go to the zoo. So it should be an eventful month!

Home Sweet Home. Our apartment is on the top floor, the second window.

Celebrating Tony's birthday by eating dinner at a Japanese restuarant.

Celebrating our one year anniversary by eating at a Brazillion BBQ. Our friends will soon be opening a Brazillion restuarant where they promise the food will be even better!

Erik and I are finally starting to get settled. I have finished my first full week of work and so far am enjoying my job. Erik also has been working a couple hours a week for a teaching company and will be getting full time hours soon. We both love our apartment. Right now, we are sharing it with a friend who was on the China trip last year. In a couple weeks, two more of our friends will be coming and crashing with us until they can find their own place. We're excited to see everybody again!

We owe finding our apartment to our Chinese friends LeeJun and Benjamen. They spent many hours with us going to apartment agents and talking with them since our limited Chinese would have made it almost impossible to get an apartment on our own.

We've been eating at a lot of different resturants around Shanghai. At Hot Pot, we all tried pig brains, which was actually not too bad.

We also went to a Sichuan resturant. Sichuan food is one of our favorite types of Chinese foods.

We have more pictures in our photo gallery, check it out!

We also made a movie of our apartment for all to watch. Enjoy!

Erik and I have finally made it to Shanghai! The flight was long but we survived. We took some cool pictures from when we were flying over the North Pole.

Notice how the iceburgs are smaller and melting? Erik says that's because of global warming. Maybe Al Gore was right.

Right now we're staying in the cramped international dorm at ECNU. We're pretty anxious to get an apartment! Hopefully within the next two weeks or so. We want to line up jobs first. I have three interviews set up so far!! Erik has a couple set up too. So, so far everything is going well.

Last night we met with all our Chinese and GVSU friends who are here. It was really good to see everybody again. This is going to be an awesome year!! I'm going to have one of our Chinese friends, LeeJun, tutor me in Chinese this year. Erik plans to take a Chinese class at ECNU.

We hope to go to Seoul, South Korea to visit some friends sometime this summer as well as to Beijing. Aunt Ruth plans to be Beijing in August, so we hope to meet up with her as