36 hours later....

We left Beijing last Thursday evening by train bound for Kunming (昆明) all the way in the south of China. It was a long ass train trip, 36 hours in all, but well worth it for the scenery alone. Kunming is completely different from Beijing in that it's elevated but also very tropical. The air is humid and there are palm trees. It's already starting to feel more like back home in Miami.
The guy in the photograph all the way to the left is our friend Paul from Newcastle in the U.K. We leave China this afternoon and arrive in a town called Sapa in Vietnam tomorrow afternoon. Check for constant updates over the next few weeks...

Beijing's Parks

Beijing is a city full of parks. They help bring loads of green to the cityscape and the climate is perfect for all kinds of flowers this time of year.

above and below: this is Yuangmingyuan Park (圆明园) in the northwest of the city. Once the location of a splendid mixed European Baroque and Chinese palace, it's today ruins and well-kept greens and gardens. It was destroyed by the French during the Opium Wars. The little girl above is my favorite student. Her family has become my adopted Chinese family and they took me to this park one afternoon.

a picnic with friends at Chaoyang Park （朝阳公园)

Ross and I went to Tiantangongyuan (天坛公园) the Temple of Heaven Park. This is the temple emulated in the China section of Epcot Center. This one's more impressive.

Smelling the flowers at a park who's name i forgot right next to Tian'anmen Square (天安门) and the Forbidden City (故宫)

Sichuan Earthquake Memorial

In schools across China, students made thousands of paper fold birds in memory of the students that died in the Sichuan Earthquakes a few weeks ago. These are from a school i frequent in the west of Beijing.

The kids placed the birds along the school's courtyard on long expanses of fence and wall