Ming Tombs

The Sacred Way. Giant stone statues of animals - first one sitting, then one standing. An awkward, but accurate translation.
The entrance.
The ubiquitous huckster...

The Great Wall

It's a long, hot walk along the wall in August. Tons of people and stunning views. An astonishing feat. Not without it's commercialism....
It ain't flat. And those steps aren't all the same height. Some were as high as 2 feet.

When we got to one of the turns, this is what we found. Snacks, cold water, and trinkets.

Food in China

Lots of good food in China. Mostly Chinese, of course. Here's a typical lunch or dinner. Many dishes on the lazy susan, tiny plates for each person, beer or coke to drink, and watermelon for dessert. We only ate western food once - when we couldn't stand the thought of another whole-group Chinese dinner. Fortunately, there was a Fridays in the hotel compound where we were staying. Unfortunately, our stomaches didn't enjoy the burgers as much as we did.

Forbidden City forbidden

For some reason, the Geocache that I found in the Forbidden City is now no-where to be found on geocaching.com. I don't think I'm being paranoid. It was there before and now it's not. Can the Chinese Gov't make that happen? If it was the GC folks, the cache would be listed as disabled, but it's just not there.

Wierd - and disappointing. Now I only have 2 caches in China.

Geocaching in China

Yes I did! I'm now global. 1) Tianaman Square, 2) Forbidden City, 3) Buddist Temple in Beijing. They were all virtual and added some fun to sites we probably would have seen anyway. You can't see China on Google Maps, but the GPS still works.

China

So many pics from China that I'll just jump in. For more, you can visit Matt's Blog or the new blog of my China presentation partner, Katy Anthes.

You are welcome to stop by the house for a traditional slide show, if you'd rather!

Breakfast at the hotel. Dumplings, cold meat, veggies and, at 2:00, a Chinese doughnut. The doughnut is pretty good, especially after you put sugar on it.

I'm standing in the center of the Temple of Heaven, talking to the gods.

We ate at this restaurant for lunch the first day. Since we were with a big group, I never saw the menu. But, I'm pretty sure I didn't eat this.

The ubiquitous trinket vendor. This one is at the Temple of Heaven, but they were everywhere. Good thing we finally bought another suitcase...

Check out that great headware!