Sometimes people are jerks ( Read more... )

So... I managed to make it back from the land of Elephants without actually encountering any elephants ( Read more... )

I didnt post about the Big Bell Temple before because I went there just before I went to Seattle for Norwescon. But I did, indeed, visit the Big Bell Temple, a lovely little temple just a few subway stops south of where I live. The temple has... surprise... a big bell. It actually has a lot of bells, a museums-worth of bells. There are bells from ( Read more... )

Puffs of white fill the air. It is spring in Beijing and the blooming has begun. Little balls of pollen that look like tufts of cotton are everywhere. They stick to clothes and hair and occasionally get sucked in with a deep breath. On particularly pollen-filled days it looks like it is snowing, as the white puffs dance in every breeze and float ( Read more... )

Sometimes I wish that up in the upper right hand corner of life, there was a button hanging there that said "HELP." Pressing this button would bring down a menu of options which would provide options of ways to solve whatever problems you might have ( Read more... )

Last night I went to a birthday party for a Columbian.(Oh Gods, the tequila!) I met a West African, a Mexican, two Germans and a Scot and hung out with people from various US states, China, and- of course- Columbia ( Read more... )

For those who listen to my oft-incoherent rambling, you might have heard me mention the 798 Art District previously ( Read more... )

As part of the continuing adventures in China, we wandered early this week to the site of Tian Yi’s tomb out in the westernmost suburbs of Beijing (just past the last subway stop heading west) Tian Yi was a eunuch of the Ming dynasty and pretty much ran the Forbidden City for three emperors over 63 years. His tomb involves a lot of pretty stonework ( Read more... )

The road to Longquing Gorge is paved in old pieces of the Great Wall. Driving up there (after negotiating an appropriate fare from a local cabbie), we passed numerous sections of the Great Wall at Badaling and Suitan. Some of it came right up to the edge of the road. Others were seen as crumbling remnants on the mountainside ( Read more... )

I’ve been back a little over 24 hours now and I am, as expected, infinitely amused ( Read more... )