Beijing, China

Months ago, before we had a departure date--maybe even before we knew we were leaving--there was a flight promotion for Beijing from Singapore, so we succumbed to temptation and bought 2.5 tickets on the super cheap to China's capitol. As our time in Singapore began to really wind down, we realized we'd be in Beijing for 9 days, come back to the movers packing our stuff the next day, and fly out of Singy for good within a week. It seemed a little ambitious crazy, so we did what any responsible adult in our situation would do: we shortened the trip to 4 days.

It made for a chaotic, unpredictable, and even sometimes stressful last few weeks... but it was completely worth it to squeeze in one more trip before we said goodbye to Asia.

On our first night we watched professional Chinese acrobats defy gravity and the physical limits of what humans can do... it was beyond impressive.

Feel like climbing up and down a flight of stairs one-handed with your buddy doing a handstand on your feet...?

The answer to your question is: there are 14 women on that one single bicycle, and only one of them is pedaling.

For our second day we visited the spectacular Forbidden City...

Once again, Jonathan was a major attraction.

I never imagined feeling this way, but think I'm actually going to miss being followed by dozens of Asians in matching hats with cameras everywhere we go--

I don't think Jonathan will, though.

Then we made our way to the Great Wall of China. I was so excited to finally see it, after learning about it my whole life and seeing our friends' glorious pictures. I'll admit it: my expectations were high. Especially after hearing that the portion we were visiting had some of the best vistas on the wall, where you could see miles and miles of the rolling ancient structure.

Then we got there, and the fog was so thick that the visibility was the lowest our guide had even seen: less than 15 meters most of the time.

But it was still beautiful and awe-inspiring to realize how huge and ancient it is... plus the pressure was off to walk up the big hill for the "very best views," and the fog made for it's own kind of beautiful pictures.

Jonathan had a great time running up and down, and pointing through each of the arrow windows exclaiming, "ARROW! Pshhh!" (that's the arrow shooting, for those of you who don't speak Jonathan-ese).

You can see there are a lot of those windows, and so maybe you can imagine how much of our wall visit was spent shooting imaginary arrows.  I wouldn't change a thing -- it really was fun!

On our last day Fabio and Jon climbed the stairs to the massive Temple of Heaven,

Then we walked to Tiananmen Square, grateful to be in more peaceful times, and so happy to experience the world with our favorite little buddy.

Oh, yeah... and between photo-ops we filled a suitcase with cheap electronics, shoes, scarves, and a ukelele... I mean, it was Fabio and I in Beijing, you know!

And we came home on the red-eye to face the reality of moving in less than 10 days.