This weekend it was time to get out a suitcase so we could get ready to start packing for our quick trip to China this week! We are leaving on Wednesday for the two hour flight to Beijing for about four days before coming back Sunday morning. We will have our own private tour guide and driver to take us around to the different sites which saves us so much time researching and navigating their crazy busy public transportation! On Thursday we will be doing the one thing that we are most excited for and care about the most during our time in Beijing: walk on the Great Wall of China. We definitely cannot wait to have that experience! The rest of the time we will see some of the other major sites in Beijing and eat some real Chinese food (we are curious to see if we like it or not).
Traveling to China is no simple or cheap task, even when you are so close. Anyone who steps foot outside the airport in China must have a visa, regardless of how long you are staying (though I guess they issue some exceptions to those staying less than 72 hours). Getting this visa was slightly annoying in three ways for us. The first is that the visa fee for US citizens is nearly four times as much as for a citizen of any other country in the world. The second is that US citizens cannot obtain a Chinese visa by simply going to the Chinese embassy here in Seoul. Instead we had to go through a travel agency in order to get the visa. The third, and most odd in our opinion, is that as US citizens wanting to obtain a Chinese visa while living in Korea, we had to have six months left on our alien registration with Korean immigration. Fortunately, by going now we have exactly six months left on our alien registration. We had planned to just visit China on our way home in March but when we found out it would be impossible for us to get a visa with only a few weeks left on our alien registration, we knew that this was our only opportunity. It works out great since this week is the Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving, holiday which means we both have a five day weekend!
In addition to getting ready for a trip, we went to the mall this weekend to have lunch with some of the students that Eric tutors and their moms. While at the mall we found a small store that carried foreign good at a much better deal than the other stores we know of so we were able to get some treats for the weekend, including Lays potato chips and Milano chocolate raspberry cookies! We spent our Sunday afternoon at the park near our house walking and sitting while enjoying the warm (not hot) fall weather. The weather this week was a bit disappointing. It has definitely cooled down which is nice, but this week was quite monsoon-like with a lot of thunder and 90% humidity all week again. 75* and 95% humidity is MUCH more comfortable than 95* and 90% humidity though so I guess I won't complain too much! The weather in Beijing should be comfortable enough for us this week. We will just have to see what all we can see through their thick, dirty smog!!
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