Chinese Germs & Jet Lag

There is just something about asking your body to readjust it’s internal clock twelve hours into the future and then bombarding it with heavily polluted air, foreign cuisine, and a whole new collection of unfamiliar germs and bacteria which causes it to violently protest your existence.

I’ve been back stateside for about as many days as I was gone, and it’s only in the last day or two that I’ve actually begun to remember what it’s like to feel human… or at least, like a human that doesn’t fall unconscious between the hours of 6PM and 3AM (because those are real convenient hours to sleep). I’ve come to the conclusion that I am really just not cut out for world travel.

China itself, I have to say, was an experience. I learned unequivocally that the Chinese people (despite what the government may say…or do) are completely in love with Americans, American culture, American things, and apparently me, because I am American. I cannot tell you how many pictures of myself smiling uncertainly and surrounded by half a dozen random Chinese girls there will be floating around on the Internet, but suffice it to say more than enough is probably the case. The first time I was asked to have a picture taken with me I kept discretely trying to figure out if my fly was open and this was all a joke… but the 4723rd time it happened I was an old hand at smiling wide and flashing the peace sign with three people I have never seen before in my life putting their arms around me. In America my sense of personal space would be greatly infringed upon by this type of behavior, but hey, when in China…

If you didn’t feel compelled to sift through all 200 pictures of the China adventure… my favorites from each place we visited are:

Beijing

The Great Wall of China as seen through a haze of pollution:

Things you definitely do not see in the US:

A fair representation of what I used to look like when woke up in the morning:

See?

Uncanny, no? Okay, moving on…

Qinhuangdao

Where the Great Wall starts:

A rare peaceful spot:

Chinese sunset and accompanying lens flare:

Shanghai

The bund at night:

No small river ferry:

Hangzhou

Literally the second peaceful spot I found in China, and this was 8 days in:

We have Canadian geese, China has these just strolling around in the park:

Hangzhou is where they grow Dragon Well green tea. Hand picked and processed and a cure for almost anything that ails you, from wrinkles to diabetes, they say:

And one final lens flare:

And now for the exciting news… I swear the next post I put up here (tomorrow, not next week) will have a picture of a power tool in it, and some helpful hints on coping out shoe molding… Yes! Shoe molding!