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China 9

Yao Ming and I played a little 1 on 1. I beat him.

I have a better pose than the statue.

China 8

I ended up buying a silk jacket.

Stage 1 of the Chinese pottery process involves gluing metal shapes onto the jars.

Stage 2 involves painting inside the metal shapes glued onto the jars.

Stage 3 involves putting the jar in a hot oven to melt the paint. The process is repeating 6 times until the paint is thick enough to overlay the metal shapes that were originally glued on.

I am standing next to a $220,000 piece of pottery.

China 7

Another shot of the cool Great Wall ice sculpture.

This is a picture of Stage 1 in silk making: unrapping the cacoon

Stage 2 involves taking the unraveled silk and stringing 10 cacoons together to form a string.

Stage 3 requires the string to be soaked in water and then stretched out.

This is a picture of our entire tour group who ran the marathon. It was a neat group of people from all over (Minnesota, California, New York, Florida, Minnesota). This was after the race at the Gala dinner at a nice hotel in downtown Beijing.

Nick, Jess, and myself in front of the Great Wall ice sculpture.

They rate toilets in China. Apparently this one is only 3 stars.

Nick was actually bold enough to eat the 3 scorpians on a stick (bottom right tray).

The street market also sold all types of snakes, sea food, and other goodies.

China 5

I leave Qatar and go to China and I still can't seem to get away from camels. This one has 2 humps though. It is the first 2 hump camel I have ever seen.