Lil' titbits on China

I didn't really have the chance to conclude on my trip to China. When I got home, I realized that not only did i have tonsilitis, but i also had 550 pictures. Wow.

Here are some at the weekend market called Panj---something in Beijing.





This is Mao Zedong...a huge statue.


As always, I bought a painting from a local artist.




Can you believe that they sell passports at the market?


Does anyone know what instrument this is?




So the question that everyone keeps asking is whether or not Briana and I went to the Olympics. Well, we actually got tickets to see Men's Diving before we left. But when we got there, we found out that they were fraudulent. We complained to the Olympic committee, and were able to get tickets to just get inside the Olympic Green.



This was the remarkable line just to get inside the doors of the official Olympic Store. Inside the store, it was complete madness. There were people shoving and carrying Costco sized baskets of souviners around. I managed to get a few key chains and T-shirts.


Of course, the only thing to eat in the Olympic Village.








Somehow, this picture came out so cool. I am in focus, and everything else is not.


Just something that I thought was interesting was the ticket scalpers. Outside the Olympic subway station, you could find literally, a ticket market with people selling tickets at 1000 times the price of the face value. Yes, you read right. There were people selling tickets at outrageously high prices, and there were signs that said no ticket re-sales. One man said that he got arrested on the first day for buying, but they didn't keep him in jail long and it didn't stop him from going back.





Things I remember:
Every time we took a taxi, there was an automated voice that would say "Hello passenger, thank you for taking my taxi."
I was addicted to these apple pear things.
Everyday Briana and I would miss the Vegas dry heat and come back to the hostel aching for a shower.
The pollution wasn't as bad as I thought.
Once, we stood in line for the bathroom and soon realized that the people standing in line were waiting for the squat toilet, while no one was using the Western toilet.

All in all, China was amazing. I have some wonderful new memories.

Here we are as we leave Beijing with all of our stuff. The trip to the airport wasn't too fun. Long story short, we were those people you occasionally see running through the airport. We were late because we took the wrong subway, and then took a taxi and got stuck in traffic. Then we got dropped off at the wrong terminal. Haha, what more could go wrong? With minutes to spare we made it, thank god.