Year of the Rat

Happy Lunar New Year! (It's the year of the rat, not the dragon, but I don't have a picture of a rat!)

I'm Also Thankful for...

My five senses and the ability to touch this velvet ear and fuzzy snout...
...to smell a wall of wisteria in bloom...
...to see one of the wonders of the world with the one I love...
...to taste an ice-cold beer after a long day...
...to hear the sweet song of a bird sitting on a wire.

I'm grateful that all of my five senses--and my four limbs and my one brain--are all in good shape and allow me to experience the world every day.

A China Holiday: Wrapping Up, Part Four: Food

Donuts, aka "Donald Rings."
A most fabulous scallion cake.
Baked beans on toast (veddy veddy British...at our hotel, for breakfast).
Lovely fruit juice.
Congee and sushi and tofu, for breakfast.
Something gelatinous...which stuck to the plate, even when turned upside down!
See?
Food: always an interesting part of travel, yes? Because I'm a vegetarian, I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in terms of fully immersing myself in a cuisine, but it's always fascinating to see how/what people eat. And don't you LOVE the little panda and bunny buns up top? They were filled with delicious--no, really, it's yummy--red bean paste, so as yummy as they were cute!

This is the end of my China travelogue...there are hundreds more photos, of course! Come on over to my house and I'll show you!

A China Holiday: Wrapping Up, Part Three: Bicycles

Bicycles of every shape and size (and a few scooters, too, like above). The bicyclists would just launch themselves out into traffic--either fearless or crazy, or a bit of both!

A China Holiday: Wrapping Up, Part Two: Dogs and Cats

Most of the dogs we saw all looked as if they had a common ancestor--they were short legged and had rather pushed-in faces (that cutie above is a repeat, but he's so darling I had to put him in again!).
The beagle on the Great Wall...
This one looks as if it might be part Shar-pei...
This one seems to be able to defy gravity (why, Blogger, why?)
And how cute is this little dude/dudette?

A China Holiday: Wrapping Up, Part One

After all these months, I realized that I never finished blogging about our trip to China. This is the last day...we visited the Summer Palace...so lovely.
Lots of guards around that day because Silvio Belusconi was visiting, all the way from Italy.
Elderly men use giant brushes to practice their calligraphy in water on the pavement.
We left the Summer Palace ... some wonderful signage...
In the afternoon, we went to a hutong area, full of tiny traditional residences situated behind doors and along narrow alleys (hutong means "alley"). There are not many of these areas left...and in fact, I read an article about how some of them have been torn down and rebuilt to attract tourists. Our driver tried desperately to get us to agree to a bicycle rickshaw ride--absolutely not! We walked around for a little while...
Another wonderful day...our last in Beijing.