Best of 2009 - Part 2

Part 2 of the Best of 2009

The most classic line of Chinglish - "Consume in whole day to the professional guide of 280 yuan and explain (suck the lunch)." Suck the lunch. that is a classic

all three of us squeezed in this moto rickshaw of death on a rainy day after the forbidden city

The great wall again. but hey it makes the best of list again cuz it really is impressive

ultra sexy milf at the Temple of Heaven

Peking opera with Debs in Beijing

Debbie and Salih were asleep and missed these huge roadside gravel ramps for semis and trucks whose brakes have failed. they were incrementally placed for a pretty long stretch of the journey back to beijing from Datong. Makes you kind of nervous.

shopping for bird cages in shanghai

these fried soup dumplings in shanghai were the bomb

ah, the days of relaxing and studying japanese on my ipod at Lake Xi hai in the sun.

Japan visit for Johnny's wedding. my first sento (public bath) experience. it takes getting used to but now i'm hooked.

chillin in nara

its nice visiting friends who live with their parents because they have nice houses with nice bathtubs with nice salted baths.

the Ghibli museum on the outskirts of tokyo is an awesome place.

back in beijing. i taught english to the two highschool grads on the left for a few weeks before they shipped off to canada to discover the harsh realities of the western world.

they try every crazy drink at the chinese grocery store olympics went on for a few months. Most notable were a corn juice drink and asparagus soda. the best was probably the fake orange flavored minute maid drink.

hong xiao rou rocked my world. this sweet and soy saucy meat is mind blowingly delish

kayaking on lake hou hai with alex and zizzo.

beijingers swimming in lake hou hai. i decided against it after seen tons of dead fish floating in the water while kayaking. I lived near this place and it was a chilled out cool neighborhood. I miss it.

this refrigerator was broken for 4 months. it got fixed and broke several times again.

trip to guangxi province. this is in yangshuo at the top of one of these mountains. super sweaty payoff.

finally got my cruise down the Li river.

maybe the most amazing day in china as far as spiritually feeling nature and all that i cant even explain it. after a stressful and aggravating journey to get to this small rice terraced village on this mountain, these views were the payoff that i can take with me for the rest of my life. how lame i know but this was an amazing day. an amazing hour and a half walk around the top ridge of this village.

before i left china my chinese was good enough to have simple conversations. this family invited me to eat dinner with them in the kitchen. what a trip. sighs all around.

a 23 hr train ride back to bejing with this.

the highlight of the ride. this grandma's "EUN DMC" shirt. it says "MIANI LOVE LIKE" "EUN DMC" "MIX LIKE GRAMNMASTER".

finally went to Maggie's the infamous hangout to find mongolian ladies of the night. it had been closed because of the olympics until then.

goodbye beijing and all the incredible stacking. Strangely i will miss you.