The Overdue Disclosure; or, Hic Sunt Pix. In which Sala and Beker continue their narrative of Beijing and Xi'an, and much is seen and gathered.

Here are some pictures, FINALLY! Also a continued narrative of Beijing and Xi'an.

The GREAT WALL! This was our second stop, right after the duck brain drama. You see those photos of the Great Wall and think "That is some great photography. Shucks. I wish I could be exactly where they took that dramatic photo." Well, it turns out that EVERY PHOTO you could take of the Great Wall looks just like that. Here's one! With the wall scalloping between towers along the hills and everything. And mist-shrouded mountains. That may or may not actually be smog, but Sala and I have decided to just call everything white in the sky "mist" to be optimistic.

Sadly, Sally has all the photos of the night market, including centipedes on a stick, because I was too exhausted to take pictures. Sorry. Maybe later.

Day Two! First thing was a stop to Yong He Gong, one of the most famous Buddhist temples in China. Sally's aunt and uncle practice Tibetan Buddhism, so we got a nice theology lesson. For instance, did you know that anybody who studies hard enough and volunteers a lot can become a Buddha, which makes you a deity? Also: for those of you who have heard the story about my cell bio teacher correcting the Dalai Lama's understanding of whether plants are alive (answer: yes), and his attitude that Buddhist beliefs should change to account for what science discovers about the world, that story was confirmed as "totally plausible" (liberal translation) by her uncle.

These next three show some of Beijing's hutongs, or old traditional alleyways, full of tourist crap now.

I particularly like this picture of Sally taking a picture of a traditional courtyard home, most of which have been razed by now. This one is preserved as a museum.

This is us in front of Tiananmen Gate, from which Mao Zedong would stand and salute his troops as they filed by. It faces over Tiananmen Square, looking right at Mao's mausoleum, shown in the next photo.

Notice the pollution... we couldn't get any good pictures of Tiananmen Square because it was so smoggy!
The next three are from the Forbidden City. It's really big and repetitive, similar to Versailles, and was less interesting thanI'd hoped. It's not curated very well - few explanations of what the buildings were used for are posted, those that are are poorly translated, and the gardens are in a pretty bad state. Lots of dirt, not so many plants.

Oh no! I have to go check out of our hostel and meet Tony again. More tomorrow! We have all day in Chongqing to relax.

Love,

Becca

(NB.- these musings and their accompanying illustrations arrive somewhat overdue owing to a clerical error perpetrated by an unattended intern in our employ. The perpetrator has since been sacked. We apologize for the delay-- Eds.) 
(NBpt2.-Due to unforeseen difficulties in our transpacific internetting apparatus the formatting of this post may be subject to strange and altogether disagreeable fluctuations in the space-line continuum. Such miscombobulation, which high-level U.S. diplomats report is tied yes we repeat is entirely the fault of pernicious sino-cyberskullduggery, is regrettable yet inevitable. The editors would recommend that the concerned reader contact her elected representative or better yet take it up with the dubiously legitimate pharisees of the current so-called administration, and what exactly does damned old Jon Huntsman think he's doing anyway. We regret nothing. -Eds.)