To those of you who have suffered through one of my massages...to those of you who have writhed in agony on the table as I dug my elbows into your back, your glutes, or your shoulders...to those of you who screamed, cried, begged for mercy, sweated, clenched the table...I dedicate this blog TO YOU. Because yesterday, it was my turn to be pummeled into a crying, sweating mess by an 80-pound Asian lady who showed no mercy. But anyway, we'll get to that. Yesterday we unfortunately awoke to more overcast and gray, which again has put a real damper on my beloved photography (the visibility is just terrible, and it's almost impossible to see the true beauty of this place). Today calls for more gray and even some thunderstorms later on, but luckily the next three ... read more

Let's do the math on this one. Really nice hostel = $4 a night. Lunch of dumplings and noodles in the most beautiful park I've ever seen = $1.50. One-hour massages by highly skilled therapists = $3.50. The temperature outside = 79 degrees. They have mountains, palm trees, and wild monkeys. We may never leave this town! Ah, Guilin. This is the spot I was most looking forward to, and it does not disappoint. After another hearty breakfast at our hostel, we hitched the bus down to the river and were immediately at home in the humidity, the palm trees, and the ambiance of, funnily enough, a small southern city like Savannah or Charleston. Aside from the crazy karst mountain formations everywhere and the Chinese signs, we could almost be home... Unfortunately the gray and overcast ... read more

First off allow me to calm everyone's fears that we are stuck over here begging on the streets or something awful like that. Perhaps we were being just a tad melodramatic in our last blog. Our banking mishap was solved this morning by going to a different bank's ATM that successfully read our cards. Apparently the ones we tried yesterday weren't "Bank of China" and for whatever reason didn't accept our cards. Or, at least that's what we could gather in our very limited Chinese. So!! Not to worry, we pulled out a few thousand yuan this morning (which sounds like a LOT more than it actually is, believe me)...and we're good to go! Thanks to everyone who responded worriedly and offered to wire us money. You guys are the best. We got a good heartfelt ... read more

Olympic Park As I type, we are sitting in the pitch black common area of our hostel. Construction on our street knocked the power out at about 8am this morning, and we just arrived back after dinner to find the power still out. So here we all sit, one guy strumming softly on a guitar, three candles burning on the tables…almost like camping, if we had some marshmallows! This will be our final post from Beijing, as we will be heading to the train station in a few hours to catch our overnight train down to Xi’an. It will be about a 12-hour ride, covering over 800 miles, and we’ll arrive around 9am tomorrow morning. While we’re excited to continue or journey, we’re sad to leave Beijing, just as we started to feel at home here. ... read more

Walking The Wall So if I told you that the woman whose photo appears to the right led us on a 6-mile hike up steep mountain trails and along the Great Wall of China, would you believe me? Well, time to start believing, because that"s exactly what happened!! And our apostrophy key is still not registering, so " will be used instead...sorry...stupid technology... Anyway!! We awoke at 6:30 to prepare for our "Secret Wall Tour" organized by our hostel. It promised to take us to an isolated section of the Great Wall, still in its natural state, and assured us that there would be no other tourists around. After yet another breakfast of egg fried rice (yum!), we loaded the minivan-type vehicle with four other hostel guests, all of whom turned out to be really cool ... read more