Let's see if this still works

I think I'm all done with the pictures of Beijing. I've been living in Nanning for the past year and a half and I'm really behind on my photos. Pictures to come of:

Nanning

Longsheng rice terraces

Yangshuo

Zhangjiajie

HK/ Macau

Sanya

Europe

Let's start with some pictures of street food in Nanning. Much like the street food in Beijing, theres are a great variety of things to eat. The most shocking was the crocodile (maybe alligator?) which has a consistency similar to fish. Not bad though. You can also see some stinky tofu, pigeons and what I think are some sea snails. The snails are pretty weird to eat, you put on some plastic gloves and get a toothpick to pull out the snail from its shell. You can then eat the meat but be careful not to eat too much of it, as there is a division which can be noticed, and I was told it is the beginning of its digestive tracks... You get extra points for sucking the juice from it, but I'm too worried about biting the wrong thing. Anyways, I'll add more photos later, I've been liking to edit them on my iphone recently.

The Summer Palace 颐和园

Some pictures of the summer palace in Beijing. This place was huuuuge, it would be fun to rent a bicycle to get around. Anyways, this is where emperors would chill and hang out

Temple of Heaven 天坛

Some pictures from the park of the Temple of Heaven. Unfortunately we got there a little late so the shot from the other side of the wall is the only one I got of the actual temple of heaven. The rest is just pictures from the park.

Great Wall 长城 1

Great Wall 长城 2

ggg-walll

Olympic Green 北京奧林匹克公園 (OK I'm back!)

Olympic Green is the Olympic park where the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing took place. Ai Wei Wei worked on the design, and he's one of my favoritessss <3

Pandas!

Soooo while in Beijing, we went to the Beijing Zoo to see those black and white bears that like to eat bamboo and are occasionally good at kung fu. And it was a similar feeling to seeing snow for the first time. Because it's something I've seen thousands of times on TV, computer and books but had never ACTUALLY seen. But I concluded that they are definitely cute.

I wasn't too impressed with the condition of the zoo however. The exhibits seemed dirty and not taken care of, and there was even some misidentification of popular animals like tigers and lions. It's possible that the zookeepers had put the wrong animals in the wrong exhibit. One exhibit had signs with information and pictures of lions, however the exhibit was a couple of tigers. Its weird because I have even seen a couple of English books (made in China) teaching the word "Cheetah" but with pictures of leopards. And when I asked a friend about it she didn't know they were two different animals. In her defense though, they don't have Animal Planet here.

I was also surprised by seeing all these adults and children all knocking and pounding against the mirror of pretty much every exhibit. I know kids do that because they are young, and haven't fully developed the ability to look from another person's viewpoint or imagine how others feel. But an adult should know that banging against the wall of an exhibit where an animal lives is wrong. Don't do it! But anyways..... let's not turn this into a "blah blah feelings blah blah emotions" kind of blog...

Beijing markets

yummm... sheep penis

One of my favorite things about China are the night markets and food stands. Most Chinese people I've met don't enjoy going to clubs or bars(and going to the movies or karaoke can get a bit expensive), so this is an alternative night life which everyone can enjoy. People can just sit down, eat some barbecued fish, pork, beef, lamb, chicken, frog, scorpion, crocodile, dog, cat, snake, crayfish, crab, sea urchin, starfish, worm, etc... and drink some beer or tea. I might be forgetting some of the food you can find at these places, but probably any animal or vegetable imaginable you might be able to find. In Hanzhong a student actually told me about a shop where they sell dog meat and that his mom makes a great dog meat dish. Here in Nanning the food selection is pretty different from Shaanxi, as Nanning has a tropical climate and is near the sea. I tried crocodile at a big food street here in Nanning last week (not bad, like chicken and fish put together if I had to liken it to something). Another student told me she tried rat tail at another food stand near our school... riveting!