Beijing

Beijing Photo Album ⇔ (Clicking on photos reveals the entire caption and often makes them bigger.)

Our 2008 visit to the Great Wall, packed with Olympic crowds in August.

Beijing, China

Michael has loved history-rich Beijing ever since his first visit in 1985 (while studying in Xiamen 1985-86). He also taught here in 1987, at which time he lived in the Long Tan Hotel (shown below–though it has changed a lot since then!). Michael returned to China in 1999 to teach in Tianjin for the summer, accompanied by six-year-old Andrew. Because an old friend lived in nearby Beijing, the duo visited twice, and then introduced Vivian to the city before returning to the US for a year. We all moved to Shanghai in 2000, lived in Xi’an from 2002 to 2005, then in Kunming until 2010, followed by 2011-15 in Xiamen, before moving to Hong Kong in 2015.

The following photos date back to our short 2003 visit to Beijing. Unfortunately, it rained the morning we went sight-seeing and digital photography was in its infancy (older slides that were scanned look better). Nonetheless, I’ll post these little photos for old-times’ sake.

The main reason for our 2003 visit was to see two of Michael’s long-time friends. Jimmy was his best friend at Xiamen University (1985), and the pair traveled together to such exciting places as Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) and China’s biggest waterfall in Guizhou.

The other friend is Holly, who was the tour guide for Michael’s first trip to Beijing (along with his parents in 1985). She also helped him find his Beijing teaching position in 1987, and her family was Michael’s second home during that semester. In 2003, Holly and her husband Gary were living in San Francisco, but we arranged for our paths to cross while she was visiting her family. We’ve seen Jimmy several times since 2003, including 2010 (though not shown here); the main reason for the 2010 trip was to participate in the wedding of Helen Yang, Michael’s former NPU student!