I'm at an internet cafe that charges a ridiculous $2.50 an hour, so I'll make this short. (Usually, internet prices are $0.50 an hour in this country).

Jason and I are in Beijing. It's been an exciting week! Seeing the Forbidden City, Summer Palace, pickled Mao, and tomorrow we will venture out to the Great Wall.

On our second day here, Jason was pickpocketed. The guy made away with our camera, so unfortunately we have lost all of our China pictures to date. Sigh. On the bright side, we picked up a camera here that is a lot nicer and smaller. Cheaper as well. It was an incredible ordeal buying the camera. I long for Best Buy to invade this country. Basically, prices for electronics are higher here than anywhere in the States (import taxes) and the annoying bargaining. Bah! At least the camera is nice.

At the nearly one month mark, Jason and I have found that we still like China. However, moving north sure seemed to give us trouble. We have run more into the "Old China" types -- rude folks who love to scream at foreigners, unhelpful types.

Our plans are to make our way south-ish again, to Shanghai. By the end of July we will be in Seoul, where I lived when I was in high school.