More China stuff, being back home

I've been back for about five days now, and getting accustomed to the daily routine again. I'm the only one of my travel companions who didn't either get sick on the trip or soon afterwards, and I'm hoping to keep it that way (am popping the Airbourne like crazy). I thought I had managed to escape jetlag, too (it helped that I was the only one of the four of us who had to come back and start a daily work routine right away), but two nights ago I woke up at 3:30 am and couldn't fall back asleep. This morning it was 5 am, which I think is an acceptable time to get up and start the day. All in all, it hasn't been too bad, and I'm looking forward to a normal, fun weekend (go Pats!).

I've uploaded a few new videos from China to Youtube. I have one of people skating and sledding on a lake in the Houhai area in Beijing. In the summer, the lake is full of boats:
But of course not in the winter. I'd never seen these kind of ice sledding before (Grace also blogged about this here). So cool!
Here's the video:


I also have some videos from the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City. We were there a week ago! (wow, it was weird to just think that) I was really taken by the Temple of Heaven. The grounds were beautiful, and even though we didn't get there in time to get the full effect of the morning tai chi exercises, there was still a ton going on in the park. We spied this older couple doing what I first thought was dancing, but then realized was a type of paddle ball game. Check it out:



A few more pictures from that day:
Tiananmen:
From the Imperial Garden in the Forbidden City:
We arrived at the Forbidden City with just an hour and a half before it was closing, so we had a somewhat abbreviated tour. Grace wanted to go to the Imperial Gardens first, because she had some photo research to do for her next book, so she was a gal on a mission, urging us to quickly walk all the way to the back of the grounds, which wasn't a short walk. Here's a video from when we finally can see the Garden:


Grace is still blogging away about China. I'll continue to post some pictures and videos. Let's keep the vacation high going!