Beijing

08/24/05 If you think division street in st. cloud is bad, do not come to Beijing. First of all, they do not even let forgiener(s) , yes the band and yes anyone else but chinese, drive in the country. I thought it was just part of some PRC plan to control visitors...au contraire! It is for our saftey. OMG it's like everyone is actually trying to either hit or be hit. People on mopeds carrying their entire apartment weaving and lurching. In the words of martin sheen in apocalypse now "I see no method here". This photo, which looks like coverd parking, is actualy cars waiting (the only time I saw this btw) for a light change. Like a phalanx of rusty macedonians late for a spartan smacking these cars will soon jolt forward...15 abreast and drive directly at us.

08/25/05 Summer Palace
When the emperor wanted to set up a fising shack, he called 300k of his buddies and wala, the summer palace. Unfortunately, the whole this flew in his face when his mom decided to check in on him...her and her 108 eunichs....Nothing is more lame at a fishing shack than a eunich...all they show up with is their pole, no tackle. Just inside the gate we entered at, if you were to but a burlap sack over the rock of longevity and the 800 year old dragon turtle sculptures, it had the feel of the DNR fish exhibit at the state fair. If you look on the eves of chinese buildings, there are a row of animal effigies, the more little ceramic critters, the higher the building owner's status. I'm thinking to try and cut a deal with the squirrel family who rents from us...we hang more bird seed for them to steal if they hang out on the eves of our roof in a neat line like that once in a while. The emporer has 9 squirles. All in all, the summer palace was a cool respite from downtoen Beijing but it's overblown baroque-osity was overshadowed by it's ornamental plethora. Oh...one of the families brought their three young children. Cute blondies...and a huge hit at the summer palace...I finally encouraged the oldest boy to start charging 20 yuan for each chinese person who wanted to touch their head, 30 for a cheek pinching and 100 yuan(rmb) for a photo op.
We after checking out the boat house, mother's palace and the cement pontoon we went to the buffet. Here we got our first peejio of the trip. In true automontapieac fashion PEE-jio is beer. This helped to momentarily cure Patrice from the combination of constaption, diarehea, menstral cramping and jet lag which had beset her.

After lunch and some pearl shopping at the next door pearls-are-us, we went back to the hotel. The rest of the families who had been on this tour with us stayed there and Patrice , I and our guide Peter left for the airport. We had to catch the 17:05 to Xiangfan. Okay this is where it gets interesting...