Chengde Buddhist Temple

Northern China and Inner-Mongolia

The Great Wall

Betina and I at the Summer Palace in Beijing. The Palace is on the edge of the city and was used by royalty as an escape from the heat because it's built around a small lake.

A foggy day at the Summer Palace.

Betina at the Forbidden City

Betina and I at the entrance of the Forbidden City in front of a ridiculously large portrait of Mao.

In this picture Betina and I are getting ripped off in a tourist trap.

These pictures are from our first trip to Beijing just a couple of weeks after we had arrived in Tianjin. We were both captivated and overwhelmed by the massive, hardly Western-friendly city.

The Beginnings

This is my school- Tianjin University of Finance and Economics. The new part of campus has many buildings that look very cool and futuristic on the outside but are barely finished on the inside. For example, my classroom is one of three that has an air conditioner.

This is the view from our apartment. Apartment housing as far as the eye can see is pretty much the norm in urban China. Our place is actually on the last subway stop and has a pleasant, suburban feel to it.

This is one of the first pictures taken of Betina and me. At this point, we were in the beginning of our honeymoon period with China. Those were the days...