Yes, chinese people eat dogs. but not all kinds, so don't worry. I just thought I'd clarify that...they are selective about the meat in their McPuppy's. No shelties. good thing or id be drawing blood.

I thought I'd be able to leave China without having to see an animal being killed, and I almost succeeded until that last 10 minutes until I was to board the Hong Kong express to the airport. I saw a man reach into a cage, and pull out a white duck, stab it in the neck, and then rip it's head off. I lost my innocence faster than my lunch in that moment.

Why was that any worse than the deep fried whole rats I saw on skewers, or the skinless snakes wraped around a wooden stick...just throw on a little MSG and spice, and you got yourself a meal fit for mr. tasty mctaste himself. Then there is me, standing in the corner, barfing at every stall I saw something along these lines sold. Ribbed and ridiculously long pig tongues, coiled around a stick like some heavenly kebab. Containers filled with maggots which are supposed to resemble something called food? yeah right. barf.

One more bike adventure would occur, this one only 25 km in length. This one was quite awesome, as it was through the limstone karst peaks of Yangshou, China. This ended in three of us riding a raft up the Li river during sunset to watch as the solar ball descended behind these majestic peaks.

So in some random moment of retardedness as well as a light pinch of boredom, I allowed two friends to pierce my nose in our hostel room, like some unlicensed doctor operating out of an icecream truck. Yes, they used clean materials, as one of the boys had been given all these medical supplies by his mothers friend, so I felt my olafactory device was in no danger.

They shoved an earplug up my nose, then jammed the syringe through my left nostril, and punched the piercing in and waalaaah, I had been tagged. I have to admit, how much grosser does that story sound with adjectives like "shoved, jammed, punched, and tagged". Had I used words like slid and grazed, you wouldn't have gagged so much, now would you?? My only reaction, other than a brief wince, was a couple sneezes, as I often do with some pain (i.e. plucking my eyesbrows). Operation "hole em up" complete.

Hong Kong was really cool, even though it was as western as the good ole' USA. Very western, and with western attitude comes western prices. And so began my journey through reverse culture shock. you want me to pay HOW MUCH for that? yeah right. Once I had crossed the border of mainland China into Hong Kong, i soon realized my asian experience was over. It became really hard, and I became really sad to realize I had just left "chinatown".

So as I entered Hong Kong airport, and boarded my plane, I felt a real sadness for leaving behind a country that had required so much out of me, but left me with so much more. I had a solid 32 hours of nonstop travelling ahead of me. From Hong Kong to Bangkok to Dubai to London to Dublin. Nothing to cool to report. It was wierd flying over the Middle East, looking down and thinking "man i just did a climatology report on this area and now I'm actually flying over it". I can't say that thoughts didn't enter my mind as follows: I wonder if i could spit out of this plane, would that completely destroy all results we concluded about precipitation in the region? It's just strange to look out of a plane and see below you, the sandy deserts where cool indiana jones' type stuff probably exists, and dead camels and dead seas and dead other random dead things.

God bless double paned windows on airlines, or all weather/climatological reports would show anomalous precipitation patterns over parts of the world. That's my job.