The first thing we saw after landing in China and getting off the plane; the Beijing international airport, which was amazing.

Our accommodations while in Beijing, the Jingshi Hotel, right on the corner of the BNU campus. A welcome sight after the long trip over.

The most impressive building on campus. It looked strangely familiar to us ...

A neighboring university to BNU, which had an impressive statue of Chairman Mao.

We had great food at every meal. Here, a fancy lunch out with some other faculty members and the dean.

There were lots of lectures...

Martina lays out the basics of glaciology and modeling.

Thomas takes it to another level with an introduction to ELMER.

Steve muddies the waters a bit more by introducing CISM.

Bill plays anchorman and brings it home with an intro to CESM.

Not again! We got used to the network falling down at crucial moments.

We were sometimes short on plugins for all the laptops ...

...especially around tea time. Watch out for electric shocks and steam burns everyone! Remember what John says; "China is always trying to ..."

There was an Olympic class ping pong table, which unfortunately we did not use often enough.

Back to work everyone.

Students working hard on the side of the room ...

...and at the back of the room.

We were busy every night seeing different parts of the city.

Usually we found ourselves struggling to keep up with "Hutong John" as he hurried through the maze of alleys. Quick! Don't loose sight of that red jacket!

Hidden away somewhere in the middle of it all, an amazing discovery ...

...a real microbrewery...

...with good beer...

...and access to great takeout (here, flat bread and roast lamb skewers). By the end of the week, we could find our way here without John's help.

Bill and Ji struggle to get CESM working on "Pink Bunny"; BNU's (unofficially named) climate modeling supercomputer.

And it works! The group completes it's first ice-sheet / climate change ensemble simulation; suprisingly (not really), we find that Greenland's surface mass balance becomes increasingly negative (blue) as the climate warms (from left to right).

To celebrate our minor victory, cake! Our host John does the honors.

A rare sighting of (the highly essential) Gu Wei (in pink), without whom the meeting would have been an utter failure.

Group photo in front of the big screen.

It's over. Ji (also essential!) and John heave a tremendous sigh of relief...

...as do the rest of the organizers and instructors.

We found a little time to be tourists too. Each outing usually started on the subway, which ran very often and was always very full.

Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City.

Entrance to the Forbidden City.

Bronze lion and palace.

Palace detail.

Rooftop detail in the Forbidden City.

Temple in the Summer Palace.

Summer Palace detail.

On the last day in China, we had a great trip to a remote section of the great wall, which included a nice hike and one final grand meal.

The hike was more than we anticipated. Thankfully, Ren brought some snacks for us ...

Whatever it was, it kept us going.

This time, it was not China trying to kill us ... it was John! We decided not to go down any further, despite his many protestations.

We survived for one final group photo.