Ill adopt your second child for a train ticket

So we are in Beijing now. We have spent the last few days at a charming little hostel right close to Tianeman square. But National Day is on the first of October and due to the proximity of our hostel to Tianeman it will be closed for the next few days. Not sure what National Day is? Oh but neither did we. But its the most special day in China and to ice the fucking cake it also happens to be the 60th anniversary since the events of 1949, of which I am sure you are all well versed. But to cut a long story short even though 5% of the population is traveling and moving between cities on this most wonderful of days it creates an impossible situation, travel-wise, for us. Virtually every train, bus, and hotel is booked straight through the beginning of October.
But Beijing is beautiful: excellent food, better communism and a whole-hearted commitment to martial law, not to mention the crippling language barrier.
But we have found another hostel nearby to stay tomorrow night and finally found transportation out of this city. Not on a train of course for those are all booked but rather on a 13 hour bus from Beijing to Xi'an.
Some Beijing highlights: hand-pulled noodles, enormous bottles of tsingtao for fifty cents, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, and duck liver served with thin pancakes, cucumber, plum sauce, and bean sprouts.
We must also take a moment to acknowledge the markets here in Beijing. Never in the whole wide world will you find such a large group on individuals commited to the savage ferocity of selling the same thing as their neighbor. Really the only safe way to walk through a market is with your hands in your pockets, dake glasses on, and you eyes committed to the pavement in front of you. Not an ideal position to survey the goods albeit but I have found no other way.
Sorry that this post has no pictures: imagine is sitting in Tianamen sqaure, strolling through the Forbidden City, and sweating out faces off walking up the Great Wall. There will be pictures as soon as we come into contact with a computer that has not had the USB ports ripped out. Oh and did we forget to mention that Nate doesnt like tea? Unforgivable.

p.s. I am positive Chinese woman are better looking than Korean ones. The jury is still out for Nate.