well I am home, and it feels good. I do have a runnin’ nose, my left ear hasn’t poped and I am dead dog tired, but it is good to be home.

Pictures include: The Great Wall, random stuff around Tianjin, China, Walking Street, a self-service pay for cell phone charging machine, random food, a star bucks rip off, Summer Palace and the Forbidden City.

Great trip!

Well Rita has come and gone, and we are safe. Me and the old man evacuated Beijing for the weekend. We did a lot of site seeing including The Summer Palace , The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, the Silk Market and a few pubs.

Sunday night we did a 6 bar pub crawl. It was quite an adventure. We started out at the Hard Rock, which is a staple for my dad. Then after that we walked over to Durty Nellies where Bob the bartender helped us find The Big Easy. My dad had heard about a bar by that name being in Beijing but could never find anyone who knew where it was. Needless to say it was a big find. We took a cab and enjoyed a few beers although it wasn�t like the Big Easy back home.

Next we kinda walked around aimlessly cause we didn�t know exactly where we were. We finally stopped into a place because we were both thirsty and had to piss. The place turned out to be a hiphop club with not a single customer in the place. I made a V-line for the bathroom where I was greeted my two guys using the whole in the floor style toilets. There were no doors or anything so they just stared at me while I used the pee on the wall style urinal while they took care of business. It was weird to say the least.

Next we found our way back to an area we knew and got a cab to Paddy Fields Irish Pub. Cool place and Xin the bartender was very friendly and even had a pint with us. I scored a free Guinness t-shirt. Xin gave us direction to Bar Street which is what you think it would be. We grabbed a pint at Follow Bar to escape all the beggers, street vendors and adult entertainment people pushing thier product on you. After that we were tired and called it a night.

Ah� I almost forgot about the party we went to on Friday night to celebrate the birthday of Tony, Scott, and Yi Ding (middle in photo). The shin-dig was a Chris� place. Some of you might remember Chris from Zack’s birthday party at the Gallant Knight.

Well today I was scheduled to be my last day in China, but Rita decided that I should stay till Wednesday. It was a bit of a challenge to get my flight changed, couldn�t do it from the internet in China (the internet can be flakily at times), couldn�t get though on the US Continental phone number and only got hold music for the Beijing Continental number. Finally I got a buddy to log in states side to get it changed. Big sigh of relief. Turns out there was ~600 on hold with Continental is the states!!!

My mom had a great quote after I told her that I had changed my flight, �I would much rather you be on the other side of the world than be stuck in New Jersey� (where my connecting flight lands)

Well I have added acouple more food item to the now growing list of weird stuff that I have eaten while in China. The other night I got a chance to try river eels at The White Cloud restaurant. Then last night I had some eel, Beijing duck and some kick ass Chilli Chicken at The Red House schezwah restaurant. I also had what they call a breakfast cake (kinda like a breakfast taco) with donkey meat. I really enjoyed all of that stuff.

Well it looks like since I will be staying here a few extra days I will get a chance to do a little more site seeing about Beijing. For various reason I have not really gotten a lot of time to spend there. It also looks like there will be some BBQ on Friday.

Last night we got invited to have dinner at the home of Miller Liu. It was a real treat to see how a college educated Chinese family lives.

Believe it or not, we had to help with alittle bit of the cooking, mainly help making some dumplings. I know all of you don�t believe me since I do SOO much cooking, so here is the proof. Please don�t act that shocked! Needless to say the food was delicious and I ate way too much.

Like I said earlier it events like this that I really enjoy while traveling. There is something about seeing how people from other countries live that really fascinates me. Random conversations with strangers, authentic markets and dinners like we had last night are almost as cool as sighting seeing in my eyes because they leave a lasting impression that a photo can�t capture.

Another fun weekend in China. I got a chance to go to another Moon Festival party although we didn�t bring a camera this time. Turns out that no one brought a camera at all. The party was in a private room at some restaurant, with plenty of food, beer and some kind of booze they call white wine. I had a chance to try some food I had never had before like, jellyfish, pig�s stomach and duck head. There was also plenty of duck, hot pot, fried chicken, and most important dumplings. Just like the first Moon Festival party there was plenty of GOM BAI (bottoms up). It seemed like an endless line of people came up and were all �Welcome to China, GOM BAI!� Even though the glasses were only about 4 or 5 ozs I still drank a lot of beer. Then there was the �white wine� more like white lightning.

Last night we went to a soccer game. Teda was playing Shanghai. It was a good game even though it ended in a 1 � 1 tie.

On this trip I have had a lot of first. First time to visit China. First time to really use chopsticks (I have gotten pretty good and can even pick up two peanuts at the same time), first time I have had duck for breakfast, and yesterday was by far was the best, first time to see an attendant in a sauna.

In China, the quality of service in places like bars, restaurants, or stores is way over the top compared to the US. This over the top service was even seen yesterday when we took a sauna bath at a spa yesterday. This place had two guys that serviced the hot tub and sauna and that was their only job. It was very strange to sit down in a sauna and then have some guy come in with some cups of water and hand towels. He even took my glasses that I had taken off because they were all fogged up and really hot. The guys would even hand you your clothes out of the locker when you were getting dressed. Pretty strange by US standards.

This weekend is a minor holiday here in China, the moon festival. They have special cakes for the holiday called moon cakes that are a lot like fruit cakes, no one really likes them. These cakes are for sale all over the place and you always see people carrying them around in their fancy boxes. There has already been several good fireworks displays to celebrate the occasion. I would go ahead and set your Tivos to record the open ceremonies for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, cause they are going to be totally awesome.

It always seems like when I travel I get into a long conversation with a total stranger, and this trip is no different.

Yesterday I took a cab to Walking Street since it was a nice day. Weather was cool and the sky was clear which is rare here. I ate alittle breakfast and was just checking out the different little shops. After walking around for a bit, I decided to sit down and do some people watching. Not long after I sat down, some random guy just started talking to me. It was obvious he was looking to practice his English. We talked a good three hours about everything from everyday life in China/USA to world politics to how to deal with a work stress.

That kinda of stuff is why I love traveling. Forget all the stupid souvenirs and the assemble line tourist crap. I want to see how life really is where I visit.

I will continue to add more pictures when I get a chance.

Now that I have been in China for a couple days, there are a couple of interesting things that I have noticed.

First, they don�t call them Chinese restaurants here, just restaurants and the same goes for Chinese food.

When we, as Americans, are mid-sentence and are unsure what to say next we will say �uh�uh�� i.e. where is the uh�uh�. remote? The Chinese use the term �nigga� instead of �uh�. Today at lunch I must have heard at least 200 nigga bombs and every time I got a little chuckle out of it.

Next, the Chinese can cook. Everything I have had no matter where was really good. I have really sharp�n up my chop stick skills.

And finally, every store or restaurant is completely over staffed by American standards. This is good for the customer because service is fantastic but it just seems over board when you aren�t used to it.

Well life is China is great, although I am still a little jet lagged.

Last night�s Moon Festival Party was tons of fun. Buses picked us up and took us to Donggu where the party was thrown. Tons of people, food, beer, laughs and toasts and most importantly GOM BAI! I don�t think I have ever drank that much Budweiser EVER. It seems werid to travel half way around the world and go to a party only to be served the same brew I can pick up at the local Stop n� Stab.

This morning we hit Walking Street in Tanggu to check out some shopping and the �beach�. I really enjoyed walking though all the different shops. The cd/dvd store was a the highlight, although nothing really looked interesting. I did end up picking up a Kill Bill vol 1 & 2 box set.

Greetings from Teda.

So far the trip has been good. I got in at ~2pm Thursday after alittle over 12 hour flight from Newark. Dad meet me at the airport. We droped my bags off at a hotel in Beijing and walked around for a bit. After going to a Paulaner brew pub that was attached to a German hotel, we hit Durty Nellies Irish pub followed by the Hard Rock Cafe (which is a standard for my dad no matter where he is). After eating the close to 30 hours I had been up had finally caught up with me.

The next day we woke up and headed to Badaling to see The Great Wall. Totally awesome. The weather was perfect and there was a slight breeze. We took a gondola and walked around before taking a roller coaster kind of thing down. Next we stopped in Beijing for lunch before coming to Teda Tianjin where my dad lives. Again we dropped off the bags and headed to the gym where a bunch of his coworkers were playing badminton. To see people who really know how to play badminton was cool, there is a lot of skill and strategy evolved. We convinced Jimmy and Rolly to join us for dinner at a hot pot restaurant. We sat outside and enjoyed a nice evening. Not too long after dinner the jet lag caught up with me and I had to catch some ZZzzs.

Today I got a chance to see the offices where my dad works. Then after he finished up some lose ends we decided to get foot massages. This was a first for me. We sat in a small room with two lazy boy style chairs. Two young Chinese girls massaged our back, neck, head, face, feet and legs. At first communication was alittle challenging but before long it turned into a English lesson. It was funny to hear the young Chinese girls attempt to pronounce English words, then they would giggle about it when they got it right. For as small as the one girl who was giving me a massage, she was pretty strong. When I was sitting on a ottoman my head was still taller than hers even though she was standing. There were times where she was smacking me harder than I think I could do.

Tonight there is some casual office party we are going to. I have no idea what to expect, but I am sure it will be a good time.

I�ll edit this post and put in some links to the pictures that are taking forever to upload.