People fishing in the moat around the Forbidden City
Sunset over Tienanmen square
A rare sight in Beijing -- Jeff and John, all alone.
Goldfish
The Great Wall with a very tacky, Hollywoodstyle sign in the hills to remind everyone of the glorious olympics in 2008.
John in the Ming tombs. Pretty boring place, actually, even my Rough Guide said it would be lame, but we were there...
John was pretty fed up with touristy stuff.
Glorious Starbucks is located even inside the Forbidden City. It's not really forbidden anymore...
One of the many guards in China with a not-quite-obvious task.
Dude doing calligraphy. I recognize “zhong”.
I bought one of these flutes from this fella. He claimed that he was the real thing, and that the others were buying from him. He even had a poster with his face on and stuff. I didn't really believe him, but later we saw shops with posters of this dude. Maybe he wasn't actually duping us.
Ramadan in the muslim quarter in Xi'an. It's like christmas!
Terracotta soldiers. Some English dude we met said it was “crap”, but it was kinda what I had expected. Cool historical artifact, but extremely touristy.
Latte art at Starbucks' copy “King Coffee” in Xi'an. Maybe a little better than Starbucks, but with worse music.
Xi'an chaotic roundabout. Lots of smog. Nice city.
Drummers doing some kind of war beating.
When it gets dark, people show up in the streets and cook. Like a little outdoor restaurant for the Chinese working class.
One second before he tells me to stop taking pictures. He's woking.
A wedding at McD's. Isn't it wonderful?
This looks pretty gross, and it wasn't that good. But this lunch was about the price of a cup of coffee.
Questionable vegetable storage: next to a sick cat on the side walk. I do not approve.
John, has a red star t-shirt, which makes him look like a tourist -- a Japanese tourist maybe.
Gray houses as seen from the city wall in Xi'an.
I'm biking around the wall. It's not as smooth as it looks. Numb hands and legs after the 12km loop around the city.
The not-so-great wall.
John and I went to this store and this woman showed us weird teas, oolong tea, lichi tea, and weird smoky tea.
Old muslim dudes chatting before praying.
Chinese hills. Just like I pictures.
In 2004 China used 40 % of the world's concrete. Some of it has gone to making roads up in the air...
Chinese fast food. This dude looks like he's digging deep in his pockets, but it was pretty cheap.
Green tea. John and I were sampling and felt like we were part of a drug cartel.
The maglev train that moves at the speed of 430 km/h. That's... fast.
A garden in Suzhou -- with stones, supposed to be lions were a big labyrinth.
Gardens.
John posing.
Suzhou is supposed to be China's Venice. That's stretching it, but ok.
Pagoda and fat buddha. Great.
When the day is over, this dude's job is to incinerate all the giant incense sticks. Fiercely burning thiese were not peaceful.
Silk worms! If you listen you can hear them munch on the leaves. This is at the silk museum in Suzhou.
West Lake in Hangzhou. This is where Marco Polo stayed in the 13th century.
As any good Chinese we too posed in front of this national hero from the 12th century. That's about all I know.
Selling bugs. A fine trade.
Animal rights are not extremely prominent in China. Here represented with gold fish in little plastic bags. And by far not the worst case.
Turtles. Poor turtles.
A very cool, but pretty overpriced tea house.
A nice snack is over boiled eggs. Crushed and icky.
Bean pie at McD's. Pretty gross. But they like it.
Randomness and tackiness. A pretty nice Corean restaurant with a very tacky yellow cat for tooth picks?
A wonderful example of Chinglish.
Jinmao tower in Shanghai. 420m high. We were on the 88th floor.
Lots of dogs in China. Not for meat, and they don't bark.
The Military museum.
Shopping
