Hello from China.

We decided that because China is so huge and we only had a limited amount of time due to visa restrictions that we’d better find a good way to travel efficiently. So yeah, we bought bicycles.

Cycling through China (as of this writing) has been fascinating. We had heard the food wasn’t so good here, but that was utter nonsense. Sometimes we’ve struggled to know what to order, but in general we’ve managed to eat extremely well – mostly due to Caroline’s skill at ordering food in different languages – the dumplings, the rice rolls, the claypots, the noodles, the BBQ, did I mention the dumplings?

A misconception that westerners seem to have of China is that it contains rude, disgusting, pushy people. In the places we’ve traveled so far this has not been the case. People are often helpful, forgiving, and very curious. Sure, sticky balls of phlegmmy spit roar from the mouths of passing drivers and the occasional kid will be peeing in the gutter, but I say, “Let he who never spat from a car or peed in a gutter cast the first stone”. The tales of woe spread by media outlets of terrible Chinese tourists doing terrible things in other countries apparently count for an overwhelmingly vast minority of the populace.

ps. The bad internet in China makes maintaining this blog feel a little bit painting a house in the rain with a toothbrush. Remember the days of dial up internet? Yeah. Try adding 30 photos to a blog behind a VPN behind the Great Firewall of China in some hotel where the modem is five floors away.