Its flippin China!

Couple of weeks ago was Lunar New Year, aka Chinese New Year, aka vacation! Katy and I joined a tour group, a Korean tour group that is, and made our way to Beijing. Here are some pics from the trip. The highlight was definitely the Great Wall- its just so impressive when you set eyes on it for the first time- inspires faces such as the one below


These stairs were crazy steep- nearly killed a man by accidentally bumping into him, just barely saved him from tumbling to his death. . .Random note- ran into some teenage Koreans from my town here- they asked me if I was "an English speaking person" I didn't try to deny it.
Though I am the first to accuse Katy of being a klepto, I will vouch that she is not pocketing some extra souvenirs here. This is the one market we made it to- filled with all kinds of great fake goods.
Temple of Heaven
The little statues noted the importance of a building- 3 Statues= not important, 10= the most important
The Temple of Heaven again
Our tour group- filled with sneaky Koreans that denied any ability in English and then randomly pulled out sentences such as "That is a man-made mountain" when no one was watching.
Random find of the trip- great alley with fun shops
The statue in Tienanmen square
Tienanmen square
Night food market serving absolutely everything on a stick- note the snakes. Also available were starfish, scorpions and other "tasty" edibles
The "Hey it's early and we're excited to be in China" photo
Bikes rule this sprawling city.
A portion of the Forbidden City
View of part of Beijing
Inside the Forbidden city- not as difficult to get int0 as the name implies (haha, joke of the day)
More Forbidden City
Tienanmen Gate- one of the entrances to the Forbidden City
Circus show

Summer palace- the lake was frozen cause it was COLD.
Buddha's Temple inside the Summer Palace

Ding Ling's Tomb