A Travelogue and (occasional) Sketchblog
Note to self – my Chinese gets exponentially better once I’ve got a little bit of booze in me. I had a small class of Jianjiu, or Yaojiu (medicine wine), which is basically the local baijiu with roots and herbs in it. It’s still pretty nasty, but I can pretend that it’s got some kind [...]
Say what you will about raptors or the T-Rex, but this actually scared the pee outta me; the thought of such an animal existing:
Paleontologists have discovered fossils of several crocodile species that indicate some crocs galloped upright on land, some were enormous, and some literally ate dinosaurs for breakfast.
…
Unlike modern crocodiles, many of these ancient [...]
It’s been a nutty week or two here, time seems to be flooding by both quickly and slowly. I tell people, “I’m two minds, really, one part of me loves it here and wouldn’t mind staying a bit longer, the other part really misses Kelly and wants to be back with her.” Well, both halves [...]
It’s cold. It’s very very cold. It’s been hovering just above freezing since three days ago and there’s a couple inches of snow on the ground. It’s a damp cold of the likes that gets into your bones and doesn’t get out. Ever. My apartment, I’ve discovered, is little more than a hollow concrete shell [...]
There is actually snow outside.
Cold. One thing I underestimated in coming here. I didn’t quite underestimate how cold it got, but what kind of cold it became. For once, yesterday is was about 33 degrees (F) outside. And raining. It rains just about every day in Xiangfan, so you can imagine, being middle November, what we’re in store for [...]
A couple days ago, I read about this satellite image:
I think I’ve mentioned this rule I decided to live by here in China, the first rule of improv, “always say yes.” I follow this rule within reason when people make suggestions of me and it’s gotten me into pretty interesting stuff. Of course, when I say within reason, I’m referring to things such as [...]
Today, I climbed the tallest mountain in the Xiangfan area. It nearly killed me, yes, but it was an awesome time. This was the second climb I’ve done, the first being barely a hill and this one being more along the lines of Geode Mountain, save for the fact that it was a couple of [...]
Being low on… everything, I did a semi-major grocery run tonight. I bought:
Two large bottles of juice (each will last me a week)
Three large potatoes
Two large onions
A bag of mushrooms
A hand of bananas
A roll of Oreos (I’m ashamed)
A bottle of Sesame Oil
Six servings of milk