china

october 2000
the seven star stones in tiantan (temple of heaven) park

random elephant statue in tiantan park

the hall of prayer for good harvests
  

the imperial vault of heaven at tiantan park, surrounded by the amazing and very cool echo wall

tiananmen square

gate of heavenly peace, the entrance to the forbidden city

roof detail in the forbidden city
  

all the important stairs seem to have these marble reliefs in them.
this one in the forbidden city is one single, enormous block of marble

the random alleyway we wandered into right before i was bizarrely accosted 
by several chinese grocers brandishing bunches of bananas at me
  

at the live chicken restaurant, where you can order chickens, turtles, rodents...etc!
the grocery store decor just adds to the bizarreness
  

no meal in china would be complete without the tea guy filling your cup from several feet away

the donghuamen night food market, where sparrow-on-a-stick is disturbingly popular

at yonghegong, a.k.a. the lama temple
  

at the lama temple, i'm standing next to a building housing the 
world's-largest-buddha-carved-out-of-a-single-piece-of-wood, which was 
one of the most beautiful things i've ever seen, but i wasn't allowed to take a picture of it
  

hey! i am standing on the great wall of china! how cool is that?

parts of the great wall were really crowded! 
but the bus tours unfortunately don't stop for very long, so you can't get as far as the less-crowded parts
    

some great wall graffiti

at the summer palace
  

it was rainy, so this covered walkway at the summer palace was very popular

china was cool, but mike and i had a few complaints
(air pollution, crazy traffic, live chicken restaurants, etc.),
and when we finally found the complaint department, it was closed