Nic Trips

The biggest reason I planned my winter vacation trip to Beijing, China (to a place even colder than Korea), was because I wanted to cross off one of the things on my top 3 places I wanted to see most in the world: The Pyramids of Giza (Egpyt) Machu Picchu (Peru) The Great Wall of China  -  CHECK! We had a big decision ahead of us when choosing which tour to the great wall to do. There are several sections open to tourist in Beijing, and some are more famous than others. Badaling and Mutianyu are the most visited because they are the most restored and closest to the city (only an hour away). We ended up choosing Jinshanling, for a few reasons. Much of Jinshanling has been restored (like the other well known sections), but not as much as Badaling and Mutianyu, meaning we got to see a few sections of the wall that look original: old and crumbling. Also, Jinshanling is very far away from the city. It's normally about a 3 hour drive, so it attracts much few tourists. O...

For this year's winter break, as soon as I finished up with my English camp, I flew off to China for a short, 5 day vacation. I flew into Beijing from Korea on Saturday afternoon and met my mom at the airport. I was so happy she agreed to visit me and take this trip together. Lucky Family Hostel During our time in Beijing, we stayed at Lucky Family Hostel. Normally, to be allowed entrance into China, you need to have applied for and paid for a visa ahead of time (and they're pretty expensive), but - there's a loophole! China has a policy, in order to accommodate people with long layovers, that allows "in transit" citizens from certain countries (USA included) to stay in the country for 72 hours without a visa. This means that you have to fly into China from another country, and then show your ticket proving that you'll be flying out again, within 72 hours, to a  different  country. Thankfully, China counts Hong Kong as a "different" country....