Pictures!

Yay! Back in the States, although my biological clock says otherwise. Here are some pictures which have been sorely missing due to slow internet connection:
Llama Temple, on a rare blue sky day in Beijing. This is purportedly one of the best kept temples outside of Tibet.

Adjacent to the Confucious Temple, the 国子监 used to be where scholars who scored high enough on the Imperial Examinations studied, I think. These stone slabs had the names of all those scholars carved into them. Innumerable.


At the Ten Crosses, a sort of outdoor park a couple hours outside of Beijing, there was one part in which people wrote their wishes on these red slips of cloth and tied them all around the trees and hanging strings. There might have been a romantic component to all this as well, as couples were taking pictures of themselves on a rock while making a heart shape with their arms.
The view from the highest point of a mountain in Ten Crosses. That was an exhausting climb, exacerbated by the humidity. All the boys took off their shirts, but the girls did not have such an opportunity.