The dome. Notice how it is not perfectly circular.
Jill and I continued our tour around the Hagia Sofia.
We were both in awe and could barely talk.
I know, this doesn’t happen that often.
Enjoy the moment.
This is where the Olympic Torch was located outside the Bird’s Nest.
Continuing Jill’s and my photo shoot at the Bird’s Nest from a few months ago, I thought I’d post these pictures of the actual structure.
It is quite imposing and very impressive.
The sad part is it isn’t really used for anything at this point.
There was a concert here, in the past year, but that is it.
The concert, by the way, was Justin Timberlake.
I almost bought tickets to see him, since I actually like his music, and think he is really quite funny, and it would have been an amazing blog post if I had gone.
It was basically a great night for photographs, because the moon was full, but by the time we arrived, the pollution was pretty horrendous.
If you look close enough, you can see little dust specks in the photos, and it was hard to breathe.
It is definitely a major problem in Beijing, and much of China, at this point and hopefully it will be taken seriously.
Jill and I only plan to be here for my three year contract so we aren’t that worried about it but if I had kids, or planned to be here for the long haul, it would make my choice a very difficult one.
By the way, since we took these pictures, Jill’s camera has not been working correctly and we are pretty sure it is because of the dust and grime that got into it.
Sadly, we know a lot of professional photographers here in Beijing and they don’t trust anyone to fix their cameras so we are stuck only using my iPhone 4 while we are traveling to Turkey and Greece.
Hopefully the pictures will turn out nice enough and we won’t lose much in memories.
Then again, we plan to live in Turkey or Greece, sometime in the future, and we can take more pictures when we live there!
The aquamarine tower.
Jill and I decided to venture out to see the Bird’s Nest at night about 2 months ago.
It seemed like a nice day but then the pollution rolled in and it was pretty horrific.
I can’t remember what the air quality level was but I’d guess it was around 250.
In comparison, people in San Francisco would riot if the air quality ever hit above 10.
People in Beijing just deal with it, wear masks, and do what they do.
It isn’t like they are moving out anytime soon so when you make do.
There is a tower that has a few restaurants in it and you are only allowed to go up in the tower if you have reservations.
Well, we didn’t have reservations so we just took some photographs and walked around.
I’m glad to say that we got some beautiful shots.
I’m sad to say that the pollution, and particles in the air, have caused Jill’s very nice camera to go nuts and there isn’t anyone we really trust to fix it here.
Therefore, we probably won’t be taking with us on our trip to Turkey and Greece a few days from now and will try to shoot the vacation only with my iPhone 4.
Not the best choice but better than having a camera that doesn’t work.
The next few days will just be posts about the gorgeous pictures we took and walking around the Olympic Stadium area.
Some Turkish food after watching martial arts.
Jill and I were wandering around our new apartment area and headed down to Ritan Park.
This area has a lot of restaurants from Eastern Europe and the Asian Sub-Continent.
We ended up eating lunch at a Turkish restaurant, to get us ready for our upcoming trip to Turkey and Greece starting July 15th, and enjoyed it greatly.
We’ve both been to Turkey before, Jill three times and me once, but neither have been to Greece.
We can not wait to see the blue ocean and enjoy the delicious food and the beauty of both countries.
We will be gone for a month, exactly, and it will be a wonderful way to celebrate everything that has happened in our first year in China, our first year together, and the first year of Jill’s website really starting to take off and become a big player in the San Francisco travel arena.
By the way, if you don’t know about Jill’s website, Please click here: SAN FRANCISCO TOURISM TIPS and “like” her page on Facebook or go to the actual San Francisco Tourism Tips website and subscribe by email.
Everyone that does that helps us immensely and allows us to continue to travels around the world and our eventual idea of living on a beach, moving countries every 3-6 months, and just being happy vagabonds.
We’d both greatly appreciate any support and please feel free to share with friends the live in San Francisco, want to visit San Francisco or want to know more about San Francisco!
Being that we are in Beijing, this is a bit of a digression.
My apologies.
As we walked around Ritan Park, Jill noticed this gentleman doing his martial arts and we were hypnotized.
I love that you can hear him hit his own hand as he kicks in the air.
King Arthur’s court in Beijing?
My buddy, Richard Ivey, wanted to know more about American Muscle Cars in China. And Jill’s dad, Bill, also loves hot rods and rebuilds them so here’s a little something for you guys.
Jill and I went for a walk in search of the famous Xinyuanli wet market.
A wet market, for those that don’t know, and I didn’t know, is a place that sells mostly fresh goods and foods.
This means fresh meat, cheese, fruits and veggies.
We found it and it is amazing.
I will do a blog post on it in the near future but since I’m on my 10 day green smoothie challenge, and all I’m drinking is green smoothies, we didn’t buy anything there and I didn’t want to be too tempted by staying in it for a long time.
Suffice to say it is a huge market of pretty much anything you want.
I dub these, “Excalibur!”
As we walked around, looking for it, since we didn’t know exactly where it was, we happened upon this car.
I was a huge Dungeons and Dragons geek, and loved pretty much everything medieval when I was a kid, so I dig that they named this car Excalibur after King Arthur’s magical sword.
Interestingly enough, while researching this post, I found out that it was originally designed for Studebaker and then privately made by a company in Wisconsin. It is also a very classy and highly original and elegant car. Check out the link above for some of the facts about it. Definitely American made with love and respect.
How one ended up parked on the streets of Beijing, I’ll never know.
The Church Choir getting ready to sing.
Jill’s friends from back in Nebraska, Kate and Mike, were in Beijing and we decided to meet up with them.
We hadn’t really been in this part of Beijing and got a bit lost trying to find their hotel.
That, in my humble opinion, is one of the joys of being an exptraite.
It is also, depending on where you are, one of the horrors.
Luckily, this was a good experience and nothing bad happened.
We actually ended up seeing something we never would have imagined in the middle of Beijing.
A huge Church with a choir practicing in front of it.
This was a weekend, at night, and so it wasn’t a normal church setting and it seemed all the of the crowd was enjoying it and a bit surprised also.
We ended up watching it for a few minutes and then met up with Jill’s friends after that.
Just another weird moment for us in Beijing.
It is sort of an every day experience at this point and makes it all worthwhile.
Pink flowers and a pink lady.
Jill and I were walking around the canal near our apartment a few days ago.
The weather was absolutely breathtaking.
It was one of the nicest days we’ve experienced since being in Beijing.
The flowers were blooming.
The canal was flowing nicely.
The birds were flying around and the air was clean.
The Air Quality was an amazingly low 13.
That is like the air in San Francisco.
People were out walking with their family members.
Some were going for bike rides.
And we were just strolling along the canal holding hands after we had a late breakfast.
We noticed this one woman pull out her camera to take some pictures of the flowers.
I loved how her pink fit in so well with the flowers.
It was almost as if she planned it.
I doubt she did but I love how she almost disappears into the flowers and becomes a part of the scene.
Wings obviously makes this car fast.
My friend, Richard Ivey, asked me to do a blog on American muscle cars in China.
Sadly, I’ve yet to see one.
I’ve seen some incredible brand new Ferraris, Maseratis, Lamborghinis, Austin Martins, Cadillacs, and Bentleys.
But no real classic American muscle cars.
I did, however, see this rather interesting utterly lacking in muscle car and thought he’d get a kick out of it.
Jill and I sure did.
I can’t imagine the wings on the back would actually make this SMART car going any faster, but one never knows.
This is China, where I’ve learned, after almost one year living here, pretty much anything is possible.
Once in a while, I’ll just take a few neat shots with the camera.
However, there isn’t really a theme or a specific blog that would make sense where to post them.
So, I thought I’d just throw them up here and let you meander through them and see if you like any of them.
Please feel free to comment and share them with others.
That is what this blog is about.
One of our favorite pieces of graffiti art,
Jill and I continued to walk around and check out the scene.
We were very impressed and noticed a massive building off a side street.
It was totally covered in graffitti and we noticed some other people taking pictures of it.
Being that I work Sunday through Wednesday, we often go places when other people are at work, so the locations are quite empty.
However, there were a lot of people visiting from out of town and so there were more tourists than usual compared to when we normally go sightseeing.
We walked up and notice a few high school aged girls taking pictures and waited for them to finish.
They looked at us and one of them started speaking English and asked us where we are from, do we live in Beijing and so forth. They were on vacation from their high school and in Beijing only for a few days.
Jill and I have gotten used to being asked these kinds of questions, here in Beijing, and when we travel to other parts of China.
We don’t find it rude but it can be somewhat tiring as we sort of feel as if we are “monkeys in a zoo” and never really allowed to fit in completely.
Even on the subway or walking around beijing, a city of 23 million people, we are often stared at and looked at with amazement.
Now, we are good looking folks, but not that good looking. Just kidding!
We also realize that expatriates are still fairly rare to a lot of people here and we want to make a good example so that people don’t believe everything they see on tv and that most Americans aren’t running around, shooting each other and dealing drugs. We are just people who are trying to get along and survive, like most anyone else.
These girls then asked Jill, which I sort of expected, if she would take a picture with them.
This happens to us a lot.
Again, we aren’t that good looking, we are just average, but we are different here and so people want to take pictures with us.
I could never imagine going up to someone, who I don’t know in the USA, and just saying, “Oh, can I take a picture with you because you don’t look like me?” but people do here. And it isn’t done in a rude or offensive way. They just love selfies and love taking pictures with people.
So, Jill being Jill, she jumped right in and they took a few pictures.
After this, we continued on our way and just enjoyed the art and gorgeous day with very low pollution and blue skies.
