As a little girl, I had your typical girl dreams.  I wanted to be a princess, a magical enchantress, and super fabulous hero with a secret identity – all of which were inspired by She-ra, quite possibly my favorite cartoon of all time.   Who am I kidding – it is.  She-ra may not have been your typical wand wielding wizard, but she could talk to animals, heal the dying, and her sword could do all sorts of neat sparkly stuff.  I mean, her sword could freaking turn her horse into a unicorn with wings!  That’s pretty magical if you ask me.  I haven’t exactly abandoned these dreams.  I’m still hoping that something really amazing will happen and one day I’ll wake up, own a kingdom, be able to cast fireballs from my finger tips, and be known and loved by millions as, I don’t know, Babe-a-realla!

Until that day comes though, there are a few other dreams I’d like to tackle.  They are a bit more reasonable and sorta reside in the realm of possibilities . . . at least two of the three do, anyway.  Hey, as Meatloaf says, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

My dream is to own a farm, but not just any farm.

On this farm, Cillian Murphy will be my farm boy – Princess Bride style.
“Farm boy, will you fetch me that . . . pitcher?”
“As you wish.”

I will have a herd of billy goats.  They will mow my grass.  And Cillian will milk them.
“Milk that goat for me, farm boy.”
“As you wish.”

And on this farm, I will have acres and acres of berries.
All sorts of berries.
Blackberries.  Raspberries.  Blueberries.
I’ll bake pies and Cillian will sell them to all the local folk – all the while saying,
“As you wish.”

The following pictures are from our little excursion to the Taiwan Folk Village during our May Holiday. I apologize in advance if they suck. Five minutes after we arrived, my camera decided to collect all the moisture that Xiamen has to offer(which is a a lot) in the very center of my lens. Luckily, Phil had his camera, but then his battery decided to die half way through the day. I don’t think God wanted us taking pictures or something, but somehow, we ended up with a few decent photos. Take a gander and enjoy.

Religious figurines chilling on a hill.

This little moth attacked Phil’s foot before we headed into the village and wouldn’t get off. Phil shook his foot real hard too. So, I coaxed him on to my finger and lead him to safety. Hopefully, he liked the bush I chose for him.

This little guy just doesn’t know how to play fetch.

There were countless statues all over the place.

Lantana. It’s every where I look in Xiamen. A very pretty flower.

More religious offerings. This would make a super cool bird bath.

Buddha. Enough said.

I’ve never stood so close to a Tiger before. If you can see through the ring cloud, you should be able to notice the cataract in his left eye. Poor thing. I thought at first that they were just letting him sit there without any chains and that made me super nervous as I took the picture. However, I saw later that there was a very short, older than sin chain that attached his neck to the table – which somehow didn’t make me feel any better. I have a feeling he could have easily dragged the table with him as he made the crowd of on-lookers his dinner.

Once again, if you can see through the fog that is my lens, you might be able to tell that this is no ordinary leaf. It’s actually a butterfly. We found him in a building called butterfly world. It is the best place to go to get photos of butterflies – if your camera is willing to cooperate. I thought it was pretty cool looking.

If I had been on the other side of the road, this picture would have turned out better. All things considered though, it didn’t turn out to shabby.

Lantana over-taking the beast.

Popcorn clouds. We never had this many blue skies in Fuyang. Never.

Most everything in the village was man-made, but it was still impressive.

Everyone thought it was normal for the local Chinese to get a picture with the gigantic Taiwanese statue, but when the laowai decided to do it – everyone had to stop and stare as if I were doing something wrong or exotic.

One of the best pictures to come out of day. No matter where we go in China – there always seems to be stairs in the way of my destination. You would think that I had gotten used to them by now, but no, I still hate them as equally if not more than before I got to China.

Here is that moth chilling on Phil’s shoe. I think Phil could have walked all throughout the village and he never would have budged.

Probably the cause of the moisture attacking my lens.

Pretty mountain side.

Actually, I take that back, I’m pretty sure this was the shot that destroyed my camera for the day. If you forgive my finger intruding on the left over there – the picture didn’t turn out half bad.

That’s the Beach Road and the ocean relaxing in the background.

While we are on the subject of pets, I want to mention two certain someones I have failed to ever talk about on this little blog of mine. Why has it taken me this long? I don’t know. In the beginning I guess I was too upset. After that I guess I just had other things to talk about and eventually their pictures just got lost in the sea of all the others somewhere on my C drive. I think that is where they are stashed. So, here is there long over due featurette – the short story of my beloved Gloria and Eduardo.

For our National Week vacation in 2006, we decided to go to Shanghai since it was so close and on our to-do-list. I have several posts that mention our week there. You can go here, here, here, or even here to read about them. Even before I got to Shanghai, there was one thing I wanted to do because of something I had seen on ETV right before leaving. On the episode, they talked about all the things you could do in and around Shanghai and also mentioned some of the old traditions still popular.

And that was how I found out that it was possible to buy crickets as pets or as prize fighters. Yes, prize fighters. And yes, when I say crickets, I’m talking about the insect that chirps us through summer and the little guys that you see hopping through your front yard as you try to mow down the mile high grass you let grow far beyond what it should. Well, these are more of the green variety(not the common black ones that we are familiar with), but you understand.

I guess one could compare this act of aggression to dog fighting, except neither one of the cricket dies in the act of fighting. The weakest just gives up and cowers in the corner. This is what the TV show told me anyhow. Somehow or another, this sport became very popular and the crickets also became a symbol of luck for the Chinese.

Now wait, don’t go getting your ahead of yourself. I didn’t want to go buy a cricket to fight. I would never ever want to do that. But, you see, I’ve owned just about every kind of animal you can buy at a local pet shop, but I’ve never been able to buy a cricket, so I had to use this opportunity to add another weird creature to the big ol‘ long list of pets I’ve had during my interesting life. And that is exactly what I did.

After a day or so of being in Shanghai, I met up with fellow blogger, Louise, and she showed me around Shanghai and took me to some cool places that I other wise would have never found. After a fabulous lunch in expat central, where I had my first BLT in what at the time felt like ages, she took me to a pet market where they indeed had crickets as well as half a dozen other creatures for sell.

It wasn’t long until I found what I was looking for. Several vendors had stands set up with individual crickets in clear jars. It was pretty cool to hear so many crickets, with so many different songs, at one time. But man, they were noisy.

You wouldn’t think it would be so difficult picking out a cricket, but it was. I investigated each jar at several of the vendors to make sure I got the best, most healthy cricket. In the end though, it was the cricket that one of the vendors took out of a roll of newspaper and tossed on the table that I decided to buy. After Louise used the Chinese that she knew, which is so much more than mine, I agreed to pay the 30 yuan for the silent green cricket sitting ever so still on the counter. I had hoped that the vendor would have let us bargain, but she/he, I can’t remember now, wouldn’t budge. I paid the 30 yuan anyway and took off with my new cricket in hand.

The only thing my new cricket needed was a name. We talked about it for several minutes. Louise said that she(we decided that it was a she) it needed to be named after a good female artist since she was a natural singer after all. It was Louise who thought of it. And that is how my little cricket got the name Gloria. Louise got me a taxi and off she went in the other direction.

The entire way back to the Koala Youth Hostel where Phil and I were staying, Gloria didn’t make a sound. I figured she was just scared and that she would sing when she was ready. I didn’t think much of it at the time. Phil was still at the hostel because he was sick. I was going to give him Gloria as a part gag gift and a get well even though I knew it would be me taking care of her. When I got there I had Phil try to guess what I had bought him. When he asked if it was a live and I said yes, he looked all worried and said, “You didn’t buy me a cat did you?” He’s allergic.

“No, silly, I bought you a cricket!” I said pulling out Gloria from behind my back.

“A what?”

“A cricket. Meet Gloria.”

And that is when I decided to do something stupid. I decided to take Gloria out of her little jar.

“OWWWW!” I screamed.

“What?” Phil asked.

“She bit me!”

I had no idea that crickets could bite and actually hurt, but man, I found out really quick. Crickets have strong little jaws. It didn’t break the skin or anything. But OW! It hurt! Poor little Gloria got flung across the room. Phil and I spent the next hour holding her and trying to get her used to us so that she wouldn’t try to bite me again. We even fed her. Crickets eat beans that look a lot like Lima beans and come in long fuzzy pods. She must have been starving because she woofed down her bean in no time flat.

Gloria sitting on my arm.

Only once or twice did Gloria try to jump away. Beside that, she sat very still in the palm of my hand. A few times she tried crawling up to my shoulder. It was if she didn’t know how to jump. I guess if I had lived in a rolled up piece of paper all my life, I wouldn’t know how to either. She was a tame cricket. The only tame cricket I had ever seen.

For the next 24 or 48 hours(I can’t recall how long it was now), Gloria didn’t make a sound. I was beginning to think that I had bought a broken cricket. So, to make sure she wasn’t completely broken, I convinced Phil that I wanted to buy her a friend and see if she just needed a companion.

Lucky for us, Phil’s friend and old roommate from college was in Shanghai the same week we were and was able to take us back to the pet market before we had to leave. And that is when we bought our second cricket, Eduardo. I actually got him for cheaper, for some reason, maybe perhaps because he came with his own little jar or maybe he was older or a different type of cricket. Who knows. I think I paid either 10 or 20 yuan for him. It’s been too long to remember exactly. I knew for a fact that he knew how to chirp. I heard him.

It wasn’t more than a few hours of putting the two of them together that the chirping began. It went on and on and on and on and didn’t seem like it would ever stop. Buying two crickets to talk to one another was probably the stupidest thing I could of thought of doing. The rest of the time in Shanghai and for the rest of their short lives- we didn’t get a lot of sleep. I can remember screaming “Shut up” a lot during their lives. It’s amazing how loud they could be.

Taking them back on the train was particularly funny. Before we had got on, I had told Gloria and Edwardo that they had to be quiet as if they could understand me. I didn’t want to get kicked of the train because of bringing crickets on board. To make sure they didn’t chirp I rattled the cages a little bit every once in a while. They were pretty quiet there for the first thirty minutes or so and then they started.

“Shhhh,” I whispered into their cages. “Please be quiet.”

Ah, but it didn’t matter. The other Chinese passengers had heard and now they wanted to see what the laowai had with her. I reluctantly pulled them out of the bag I was carrying them in and placed their little cages on the table. The Chinese ewwwed and awwwed. Some asked how much I paid for them and where I got them. They thought it was really cool, so I no longer feared my crickets being taken away from me.

For the next three months, all was great. I fed Gloria and Eduardo their beans, gave them little treats I had picked up in Shanghai, and gave them fresh water every day. When we would have parties, I would take out Gloria and make her the smash hit of the party. She would sit in the small of my fist and make her rounds like a good cricket. Everyone thought I was crazy to have a cricket as pet, but they all wanted to hold her just the same.

Toward the end of the three months, I could tell they were getting old. They weren’t chirping as loud or as long. Their songs weren’t as vibrant as when I first got them. I knew that they wouldn’t be with me much longer.

One morning, late in December, Phil and I got up a little early because we wanted to go to Longmen Village, an old Chinese city built in the Ming dynasty. The night before, there was a party held at our place – I forget the occasion. It was probably someones birthday or something like that. I had done my normal thing and carried Gloria around introducing her to all the guests. All seemed normal at the time. But when I got up that morning and went into her room, I could tell something was wrong. She was laying a little on her side and there was a little blood on the paper towel lining the bottom of her cage. When I picked her up I knew immediately that she was dying. She bit me. Not nearly as hard as the first time three months ago, but enough to get my attention. She was scared and confused. She didn’t know who I was.

I spent the next two hours letting her sit on my hand and I’ll admit it, I cried. I know that she was just a cricket, but I still felt helpless that I couldn’t help her fell better. So, I let her sit out in the sun with two little beans beside her and put on a collection of music for her to listen to. I made sure that it would continue playing no matter how late we got back from Longmen Village.

When we got back, she was lifeless. She was dead. I cried some more.

A day later, Eduardo died too. I like to think that he died of a broken heart.

With both of their bodies in a box, we carried them over to a pretty park with lots of trees behind the high school. It was a pretty park, and mostly quiet due to few people walking through it. The park was hilly, if not a little mountainous for Fuyang, so we found the highest peak, Phil dug the hole, and then we put both of them in together.

I said farewell to Gloria and Eduardo and cried all the way back home.

I never thought I would be able to say this, but I was the proud owner of the sweetest, cutest, crickets, a person could ever have. I often think of them when I’m falling asleep at night and can here their cousins chirp me to sleep. I’ll probably never think or see crickets the same way again. Go ahead and think me crazy if you wish, but I can’t help loving all animals and insects. It’s just who I am.

I miss them.

Once upon a time, we lived in 沈阳(Shenyang), and there we adopted a certain fish that we quickly named 啤酒(Pi Jiu). 啤酒 means beer in Chinese, by the way, and as long as the new Google Pinyin thing is working, those are the correct symbols. Yes, we named our gold fish, Beer. We’d been in our apartment for a few days before the other teacher sent to Shenyang with us, Christine, was given a temporary apartment of her own in the same building as ours. When she saw it though, she was very disappointed and refused to stay there. When she came to our apartment to complain about it, in tears, we asked if we could see it. It wasn’t that bad, it was clean, but it didn’t have a suitable bed as well as a few other essential things. The bed was just a bunch of sheets piled on top of each other on the floor. Phil and I probably could have stayed the few days there that they were asking her to, but Christine is much older than us, and getting in and out of the bed everyday would have been hard. I’m not quiet sure who, but by this point, one of us perked up and said, “Is someone living here?” Apparently, who ever had been living in the apartment had gone on vacation(perhaps permanently), and while they were gone, they(or perhaps the land lord) were allowing Christine to stay there until they could get the other apartment ready for her. When we asked Chris about the whole ordeal, he said that the hosts of the apartment had left very quickly and he had no idea where they had gone or if they would be returning. I’m still a little confused about the whole thing. Everything, including their bike, photograph albums, cookware and other personal things were still there. It was as if they had just vanished in the middle of the night and everything that they owned had been left behind. I don’t think I will ever really know what happened or if they came back to collect their stuff. Of all the valuable things still remaining in the room though, only one thing peeked my interest – the big glass bowl sitting next to the window overlooking the city of Shenyang. By the look of the bowl, he had already been there for several days without food or clean water. He kept swimming up to the top to get some air, and when I let my index finger barely touch the film on the water, he tried to eat my finger. Thankfully, gold fish really don’t have teeth, so it didn’t hurt. Me, being the animal lover that I am, I immediately turned to Chris and said, “Can I have the fish?” “You want the fish?” Chris asked with a look of bewilderment on his face. “Yeah, do you think the hosts will mind?” Chris kinda shrugged his shoulders, “I don’t think so.” It was quiet simple logic, really. It was either I take the fish, or he would undoubtedly die a slow, painful, suffocating death. I picked up the bowl, found it too heavy to carry myself, and handed it to Phil. As soon as we had him in our own apartment, we poured him in a temporary holding cell until we were able to clean out his bowl and refill it with clean water. I wasn’t sure if throwing him into new water without letting his body get used to the water temperature first would kill him, but we didn’t have anything we could put him in that could be placed in the water, so we threw him in and hoped for the best. Several hours later he was still swimming and breathing. I figured it was time to name him since it looked like he was going to make it after all. As I mentioned above, we ended up calling our new little gold fish 啤酒(Pi Jiu). I can’t really come up with a good reason why I picked that particular name out, except for the fact that my Chinese vocabulary is rather limited, and it seemed at the time to be both suitable and cute. How he became known as 啤酒 the Wonder Fish is another story. Keep reading. Just after we had gotten ourselves settled and used to our new surroundings, as you’ve read in previous posts, we got the call that we had to go back to Beijing to get a new health check in order for the government to issue us resident permits. We had been told that it would just be a day or so, we didn’t worry so much about our new found pet’s well being. I threw in a handful of bread, wished Pi Jiu well, and left hoping he wouldn’t be floating at the top of his bowl when we returned. Somehow, what was supposed to be a few days, turned into a week and three days. After the first three or so days, I gave up on the idea that we would return to Shenyang to find Pi Jiu swimming happily in his bowl. I had enough gold fish as a little girl to know what happened to fish that didn’t eat. I just didn’t want to have open the door and smell his death. It was bound to happen. We’d been gone too long. After we landed in Shenyang, there was no point rushing home in my eyes. I had even told Phil that he was going to be in charge of taking care of poor, dead Pi Jiu. I felt too guilty. Here I was thinking that I had saved him, just to kill him a few days later. When we finally got back to the apartment, I hesitated putting the key in the door. I didn’t want to have to see what was on the other side. (Yes, I was being a bit dramatic, but things like this really bother me. I can be such a girl sometimes.) When I finally summoned enough courage, I turned the handle and looked in the direction of the bowl which I had placed on my bedside table. To my surprise, I didn’t see a gold colored fish floating at the top. My first thought was that perhaps he had sunk to the bottom, but none of my previous pet fish had ever done that. In the center of the bowl, I could see a bit of gold reflecting off the curvature of the glass, but it wasn’t moving. I dropped my book bag next to the front door and started the awful 2.4 second walk to the table. The water was dirty, cloudy, and without a spec of food anywhere, but low and behold, it was Pi Jiu – and he was ALIVE. Barely, but alive. “Holy crap!” I screamed. “He’s alive. He’s really alive!” “Really?” Phil asked. “Yeah, he doesn’t look so good, but he’s very much alive.” Chris just sorta stood there looking curious as to why I was so happy that a stupid gold fish was still alive. As fast as I could, I returned Pi Jiu to a nice clean environment. I still didn’t have any fish flakes, so I threw in what bread and pieces of crackers I had. At first he didn’t seem very interested, but soon he started eating. The entire time that I was trying to make his home livable again, I knew that Phil and I would be leaving for Xiamen in less than a day, and this time we wouldn’t be coming back. I had no idea what to do with him or who to give him to. I asked Chris repeatedly if he wanted a pet fish. His answer was always no. He said that his home was too small and that he didn’t know what to do with a fish. I knew he had a girlfriend, so I tried convincing him to give it to her, but his excuse for her was the same as his. It seemed that I had reached a dead end. When it was time to leave the next day, I fed Pi Jiu one last time, and asked Chris again if he wanted him or knew someone who did. Chris assured me that the host of the apartment would come back and perhaps he/she would adopt it. It was my only real option, so I had to take it. With our luggage in hand, we closed our Shenyang apartment door for the last time and said goodbye to Pi Jiu the Wonder Fish for the last time. Just yesterday, Phil and I were walking along the streets of Xiamen when we saw a pet store full of colorful fish. It made me think of Pi Jiu and I wondered if perhaps he was still alive. I like to believe that the host of the apartment did come back and took a liking to the little fish sitting on the bedside table. Perhaps even now he is swimming in a nice big glass bowl staring at his seemingly never ending reflection. That is what I hope.

OK . . . this is completely off topic and has nothing to do with China, teaching, or anything else that has happened to me in the last 8 months, but I thought it was high time that I put in a word for an organization that I believe in and want the general public to know about(if they don’t know about it already.) If you know me, you know that I’m a HUGE animal lover and have been since before I can remember and will be right up until I’m evicted from Earth. Some people think I am eccentric because of the lengths I will go to to save creatures both big and small, but it’s just who I am. Thankfully, there are others out there like me that will go to even greater lengths to help the animals, specifically wildlife when they are sick, wounded, or abandoned.

The organization in which I’m speaking of is called Carolina Wildlife Care. It’s a registered nonprofit organization and receives no state or federal funding, but operates on private financial support through donations, fundraising, and grant assistance. CWC, its abbreviated name, is located in Columbia, South Carolina, USA, and has a few full time and part time staff, but has a large base of volunteers to keep in running smoothly.

CWC has been around since 1989 and with the ongoing education of the public, each year just keeps getting better and better, but that is because of the help from the community. Without the help from the community, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible to keep CWC running. There are many different avenues to assist CWC and their goal to help the wildlife of South Carolina. Some people, like myself, put in a little time to feed the animals, clean and set up cages, prepare formulas and diets, clean the center, admit animals, and answer the phone, but there are a slew of other things you could do. There are constant projects in the works that could use a handy man or woman. Basically, any help is appreciated, whether physical or financial. No time is too little and no task too great. So, if you are interested in helping out in any way, you can click here to find out how.

And there is my little plug in. I urge you to at least go to the website, and read more about CWC and see if there is any way that you can participate and help. Working with CWC is not only fun and educational, but it’s rewarding as well.

You’ve probably heard the nursery rhyme This Little Piggy, but just in case you haven’t, it goes like this:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went…
“Wee wee wee” all the way home…

That is what I thought of when I saw this picture in a window of Chinese restaurant:

Chris, our friend in Shenyang, told me that it translated into something like this:

“For you I will sit in the pot.”

I of course found it hysterical and had to take a picture. This little piggy may be willing to be dinner, but he sure as heck doesn’t look very happy about jumping into the pot of boiling water. I don’t think I would be very happy either.

So, maybe the nursery rhyme should go something more like this:

This little piggy went to market,
This little piggy stayed at home,
This little piggy had roast beef,
This little piggy had none.
And this little piggy went…
“Weep weep weep” til the meat fell off his bones …

Whoa, I was just trying to be creative, I didn’t mean to get all Grimm on everybody. Heh, but it was a little funny . . . if just a little bit.

Just wanted to say that we FINALLY made it to Shenyang. We’ve only been here 2.5 days and I already have enough stories for a lifetime. I’ll post them later, as I am at school right now and have some students to test. When we either get Internet in our apartment or am given time to type at my leisure here at school, I will post all about my experiences so far which include . . .

• The dead Pigeon in our co-worker’s first apartment and the condition of ours.
• My first trip to a Chinese hospital.
• The story of mistakenly ordering 2 kilos of dumplings.
• Being run over by a cart of DVDs running away from the cops.
• And the pictures of our new cozy apartment.

I’ll get to them soon. They are all very interesting. Until then, use your imagination.

– G

Here are a few pictures from our little trip down to Hong Kong. We were only there a few days, but I must say that I really liked it there. It was a bit too expensive for my blood, but the city was clean(and I mean very clean), easy to get around(I loved the subway), and it had many interesting things to go see(even though we were only able to see a few of them). One of the things I really liked was the big buildings. I’ve never been to New York City, but I imagine that Hong Kong is a lot like it. As soon as I got off the subway and walked out to the street, I could feel the buildings hovering over me. I felt like a little bitty ant. At night the buildings were really fantastic. The light shows they put on were something else. I liked walking down the streets just to see all the different displays on them.

Nice photographing skills, Phil! I wish these were the birds visiting my bird feeder!

This is another picture taken at Hong Kong Park. We don’t have arches like these back home, but they are nearly every where in China. I remember hearing about their significance at one point, but my memory fails me right now. If I ever have a big enough garden in my backyard, I am going to put a slew of these in it. They are like gigantic frames and the scenery of the garden are their pictures. Gotta love Chinese architecture.

A nice place to wander around and get lost.

Okay, this doesn’t have much to do with Hong Kong, but after Phil took a picture of it at one of the McDonald’s we ate at, I couldn’t resist putting it on here. You have to admit that it’s pretty freaking hysterical. Before you go thinking that this is just some more Chinglish, I have to tell you that the original message on the box was – Sweet Taro Pie. Taro is a potato. Phil just thought it looked much more interesting the other way and photoshopped it. After giving it the name, we’ve both had a hard time calling it by it’s original one. You must know how nick names stick, especially if they are funny ones. The real kicker is the picture of the girl kissing the guy. The expression on his face is just great. The “Caution, I’m hot” adds to the humor as well.

Oh, my Sweet Tard Pie.

As you can see, we’ve found a way to upload pictures again. At least for the time being. For those of you keeping track, Phil and I are still in Beijing. Our next attempt to get the heck out of this city will be on Saturday the 10th at 11:00 pm by overnight train. So far the weather looks clear so we shouldn’t have a problem in that regard, but at this point I won’t be holding my breath or getting my hopes up. After everything that has happened, nothing can shock me anymore. As long as I get there in one piece, I don’t care how or when I get there.

Because the Internet cafe we use on a daily basis doesn’t have any working ports, we’ve had to upload them via WECL’s computers to our emails and then run across the street and download them to the Internet cafe’s computer desktop where we can then upload them to Blogger. It’s all a crazy mess really, but hey, I get to post pretty pictures again. That makes me happy! : )

So without much further ado, let me introduce you to the lucky five contestants that were chosen for today’s post.

Some elderly people playing Majong at Longmen Village.

I’m not sure who’s driving: the boy or the crazy cat. Located on a wall at Longmen Village.

“Here Piggy, Piggy, Piggy, I’ve got a jiao for you.” One man is about to make all is dreams come true by chucking the equivalent of a penny in this pig’s mouth. It’s the year of the pig, by the way.

I wish this was my front door back home. Everyone would envy me. My memory fails me, but I think this picture was taken at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.

One of the 7 dragons on a wall in Hong Kong.