Posted on January 17th, 2009 by aj
I managed a 7 hour layover in Beijing, so all I managed to see was the forbidden city. Tienanmen Square is a huge empty expanse of flat stones. Mao used to stand a million people in there just to have a chuckle at being leader of all China. Its surrounded by soviet inspired architecture and [...]
Posted on January 17th, 2009 by aj
Geoff and I took the train into Shanghai for the weekend. In between Chinese cities the landscape alternated between abandoned communes, and freshly stamped out planned communities. Five hundred units of the exact same house arranged in maddening tessellation. The families I saw on the streets and in restaurants were odd inverted pyramids of attention. [...]
Posted on January 17th, 2009 by aj
I went to China for work a couple months ago. It was my second time in China and I got to visit much more central urban places. My workplace was in Hangzhou, a small city of six million people built around an enormous lake. It felt like walking around a city of one million in [...]
Posted on July 26th, 2008 by aj
We were feeling weary of Guatemala and considered moving on to El Salvador, but we pressed on to the huge Lago de Atitlan, which sits in the highlands a couple hours west of Antigua. Its a very large ancient volcanic crater lake surrounded by three volcanoes and several Mayan villages. American hippies believe the Lake [...]
Posted on July 25th, 2008 by aj
Volcan Fuego sent out a lot of smoke over Antigua when we were there. We watched it send up plumes over coffee in the morning that dusted the city with ash. We wanted to trek up it, but it was covered with bandits. So we went to the smaller Volcan Pacaya instead. We scrambled up [...]