"Nihao"

                                            Frozen river/moat around the Forbidden City!

Hello or nihao from China!  Boy is it freezing here....wind chill is around 10 degrees!! We were finally able to access our blog from over here and wanted to update everyone about our Chinese adventures!  We landed on Friday around 5 am (we managed to skip Thursday due to the time change..yay for our budget haha!) After settling at the hostel, we ventured out and had some dumplings and soup for breakfast.  Then we saw Tian'anmen Square and the Forbidden City, which was amazing.  It's so big!  We mistakenly came back to our room to 'rest.'  I closed my eyes for one minute and the next thing I knew it was dark outside...Whoops!  Yesterday we woke up and went to the Great Wall with our two roommates.  The roads were a bit icy so the public buses weren't running. We took a cab and fortunately, there were hardly any tourists at the wall so we got some fabulous pictures!!  We then toured the Olympic area, went to a night market that sells normal food (starfish, seahorses, scorpions and snake to name a few!), walked around a huge mall and finally called it a night with a big glass of beer!  We stayed up till 10pm last night, woohoo!  Today is New Years Eve and we'll see what we can find to do....the worldwide new year is not nearly as celebrated as the Chinese New Year, which is Feb. 10 this year so there are no major fireworks or parties, but I'm sure we can find something! Enjoy these few pictures...more will come in the next few days. Off to Hong Kong on Wednesday!!

                                                  Forbidden City

                                                                Beautiful details!!

                                                    Check out the height of some of the steps!

                                                    A view of the mountains from the Great Wall

                                       If you're not careful.....steepest stairs we've ever seen!

                                                                         We made it!!

Off to China!!

Alright folks, it's that time again! We are headed into Guatemala City tonight so we won't have to go far to catch our flight to LA at 6:40am. We then have a lovely 14 hour layover in LA, but no worries, we have lots of things to mail home and we're going to see a movie (or two or three). We have even found a nearby hostel so we can shower before our flight to Beijing at midnight! Because of the Internet restrictions in china, we aren't sure if we can access the blog and Skype... But you will get emails from us for sure! We love you all and can't wait to share this really,really new experience! Time for some culture shock!

"It's the End of the World As We Know It"

Well, what do you know? It's December 21 and we're still here!  While in Tikal we asked if the gods would please hold off on the whole "ending the world" thing for a few thousand years.  Guess they agreed, your welcome.  Ha, well in any case, our trip to Tikal was pretty amazing.  You don't realize how huge some of these temples are until you are there.  To think it was all done by hand thousands of years ago is mind blowing! (unless you subscribe to the alien assistance theory) We spent 8 hours in the park walking around, under and over some of these structures and took some fabulous photos of the monuments and a few animal friends....take a look and see for yourself!

 Derek thought it would be funny to give me a "temple hat."

Antigua and Lake Atitlan

So we've changed the blog again! We know the previous format wasn't working for everyone so hopefully this will be like the original!  Below are a few pictures of Antigua and Lake Atitlan.  We had a wonderful 2 day side trip to one of the deepest lakes in the world and went horseback riding and kayaking! Click See More below to view the rest of the photos!!

Derek’s first haircut overseas

So I have traveled a good amount, but never long enough to need a haircut. Most of the time I just shave my hair off (much to the dismay of my family) so I don’t have to deal with it when traveling. Sadly however, Ashley would not want to be seen with me in public if I had a shinny, bald head, so I knew that sooner or later I would need to get a haircut.

The Mighty Mt. Chirripo (a long story)

***Disclaimer:  Though mostly true, parts of this adventure have been exaggerated for your entertainment purposes!

Once upon a time in Costa Rica, there were three young heroes who decided to prove to everyone how tough they were by conquering the mighty mountain of Chirripo. Now, normally a mountain would not be a challenge for the fit young heroes, because after all, they grew up in very mountainous areas, such as Charleston and Holland. What is the tallest mountain in Costa Rica compared Mt. Pleasant, SC… nothing they thought! One thing they didn’t realize is that Mt. Chirripo is the tallest mountain in all of Central America…much taller than the mountain in Mt. Pleasant.

Our Apartment in Antigua!

Pretty crazy we have posted 3 times today...that's what happens we we actually have internet!!  We found this adorable apartment about 5 blocks from the center of Antigua.  We also found out the other day that the 'blocks' here are much larger than those we're used to in the US, but we are still within an easy walking distance from everything in town without having to hear the noise.  We wake up the sounds of birds and wind and have the most gorgeous view from our balconies.  Not sure we are going to want to leave....check out the ceilings!

Backtrack to Granada- Photos!

 Here are some pictures of Granada, Nicaragua and our chocolate making class!  We learned how to make a bar of chocolate from the raw cocoa bean to the finished product- delicious!  Then, we climbed to the tower of La Merced Cathedral and saw the most beautiful views of the city! Nearly every building has a courtyard...you can see them from the birds eye view in the last picture. 

 

In Antigua everyone!

Well, we have been a little slow on updating the blog the past few days. We left Granada on a two day bus to Antigua which was very interesting. If you thought sitting on a plane for 16 hours is bad, try sitting on a bus with a crazy bus driver for two days! We left Granada on a 1 hour chicken bus to Managua where our main bus was leaving from. The best way to get around in Central America is by Tica bus. This is a company that goes from capital city to capital city. Much cheaper than a plane ticket but much harder on the soul. We left Managua around noon and didnt get to El Salvador until midnight. There were two stops in El Salvador, both in the capital, but the first stop was a nicer hotel and the second was..... well lets just say it was not much of a hotel at all. Sadly the nice hotel was all booked up so we had to go the the other one, which was safe because it was run by Tica bus, but consisted of two very small beds, a toilet with no toilet seat, something like a shower but we didnt try it, and a window. We didnt really mind because the bus was leaving the next day at 5am so we were only going to get about 4 hours of sleep! Well, once we got back onto the bus the next morning, we still had another 8 hours of driving until we got to the capital of Guatemala. Once we got there we jumped the first shuttle to Antigua, which should have been a one hour drive but ended up being 2 and a half because we had the slowest driver in Guatemala, and finally once we got the Antigua we found out that we had not eaten since the day before! So we found the first restaurant and ate the largest plate of food we could get. We then got lost for about 2 hours trying to find a hostel we were going to stay at and finely decided to just pick another one, unpack, and go to sleep! So, needless to say that those were a few rough days, and sadly Ashley and I also get sick yesterday from some bad food but..... we did find an amazing apartment to stay in for the next month and Antigua is one of the most beautiful cities we have seen yet. We are feeling much better now and should put up more pictures soon and also a long story about Costa Rica that has been waiting to be published on the blog. Thanks for all the emails and good thoughts and keep a lookout for more posts!