Mark Twain

"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness and many of our people need it sorely on those accounts.  Broad, wholesome charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."

Beijing Photo Diary

Olympic Park, Bird's Nest

That's not fog, that's pollution... This was probably our third day in China, and it was getting a little hard to breathe.



The Great Wall of China






Summer Palace







Lunch with a local family


Wait.. what?




... and last but definitely not least... STREET FOOD.

Anais Nin

"Are you also willing to become an exile?  Or a scapegoat?  We are the notorious scapegoats, for living as others live only in their dreams at night, for confessing openly what others only confess to doctors under guarantee of professional secret.  We are also underpaid; people feel that we are in love with our work, and that one should not be paid for doing what you most love to do."

China 2012. Who doesn't belong...

The Chinese people's fascination with foreigners was my favorite part about China.  It wasn't rare for people to come up to us and stand next to, and sometimes in front of us to pose for pictures.  A few times, we would be posing for our own pictures when a few Chinese people would jump into our photo to take pictures too.  Before we knew it, there'd be dozens of cameras pointing and flashing at us.   I guess you could say it felt like being famous.  Basically, head to China if you need an ego boost.  On this particular occasion, a Chinese tour group at the Summer Palace had interrupted our tour guide to ask if her group can take pictures with some people in ours.  2 people volunteered and this was the result.

Sheer excitement.

Thoreau