Paradox

Here's one more for the Laraphiles.

It'a a picture of Lara taking a picture of a picture of a picture. Technically that's not a paradox, but whatever. Technically it's also a lie since it's a picture of Lara taking a picture of a palace. But who's being technical. 

Larmao

Promoting internet stalking is my middle name. Yes, I have cruel parents.
I try to keep my pictures mostly chronological, but since all my repeat viewers seem to be looking for Lara, here's one that I left out earlier.
For those of you concerned for Lara's safety, she's from Alaska. She lives in an igloo in an isolated village surrounded by burly Alaskan men. I think she'll be safe. 

Boat

This is a boat. You may be thinking "Is that just a picture of a boat?" It is in fact a picture of a boat, and nothing other than a picture of a boat. Don't stay up too late thinking about this one.





Just a boat. 

Photo Freak

So I snapped the previous picture of Head (whose real name is Jake in case you prefer that boring name) and he immediately ran over to me and wanted to see it. Afterwards he wasn't satisfied and demanded I take more of him, all in his very limited English. I have no idea what this one eyed, finger poking dance is, but I'm trying it out the next time I go clubbing. 

3QTZ

Lara and Meg attempt to entertain Head on the way to Camel, the town next to Longshen. Evidently this is where our little buddy lives. We were just headed there to go exploring, and he shows up on the bus. I believe they were in the middle of a round of Do As I'm Doing, but it could have been the Hokey Pokey. You can't really go wrong with either of these crowd pleasers. 

Now THATS Fire

This wok and open flame constitute 95% of our cooks tools. Unfortunately we're not so skilled in our wok-fu. We managed the stuffing and garlic in it, but found an old pressure cooker for our taters. I'm kind of said that I resorted to using the word taters, but it's too late now. If only I believed in editing. 

Cookin' up Quayle-fashioned trouble

Here Taylor, Meghan and Lara cook up some of our garlic mashed potatoes. Although we had a rather extensive Thanksgiving, these potatoes were really the only thing you could call authentic T-Day fare. I performed my task of official photographer, as well as table setter and subpar pumpkin pie eater. I had a pretty full plate. Is that the pun police siren I hear? 

Dread Pirate Cakeface

No, Wes didn't get married in Ningbo. He thought about it a number of times, but never got it together. This is birthday cake on his face. We appreciate the fact that they give us birthday cake, but the sad fact is that the cake is pretty horrible. Attacking people with it is just more fun than eating it. 

Facehuggers Beware

This is the Chinese birthday cake. Every time a kid or teacher has a birthday, we get this cake, including these frosting "snowmen." Why have we been getting snowmen since August? It's China, who knows. I happen to think these frosted creatures look creepier than anything in Alien. Five eyes and four gripping talons? Creepy. 

A Rare Glimpse of Emma

At Melissa's birthday party I discovered the Emma is insanely camera shy. The second I'd point my camera at her she'd run for cover. But like all the kids she does love it when I lift her over my head (which is relatively hard to do since Emma inexplicably weighs as much as three other kids.) So I had this picture taken before she could realize there was a camera anywhere near her. 

Mobbed

I wanted to take a picture with Lauren, who's one of my favorites, and I was attacked. Michael and Ryan jumped into the picture the second before it was taken, and I looked over to see if I could get them positioned. Sorry to deny you a view of my sparkling blue/green/grey/hazelish eyes. 

Just Kickin' It

Lara tries for a triple-kick. Her version of the move could be extremely useful if she is attacked by three immobile midgets. You think I'm being sarcastic, but it's already happened twice on this trip. She's out for revenge. 

Surveying everything the light touches

Here I am at the highest point of Dragon Mountain. I haven't done any research in this area, but I think Dragon Mountain could be the highest mountain in China. It took us a full hour and half to get to the top, and we only rested three or four times. So I can now add China to the list of countries I've conquered, along with Delaware and Wal-Mart. 

whyldflaur

This shot was supposed to be all artsy fartsy. I could clearly see Longshen through the wildflowers, but it didn't turn out terribly clear. But you definitely see a bunch of Chinese wildflowers, in case you wondered what they look like. 

Creeepy

This building was so Resident Evil, with a smidge of Blair Witch. We found an abandoned radio tower on the back side of Dragon Mountain, a portion of which is shown here. It was mostly empty, except for broken glass, splintered wood and shoes. A bunch of mismatching shoes. But no zombies that we could find. 

Hadouken

These are the Kung Fu Flats at the top of Dragon Mountain. We finally hiked to the top of the mountain located next to our school last week, and were pleased with what we found. Although no actualy kungfuing occurred, we certainly thought about it. I'm pretty sure my chi isn't strong enough to withstand a fifteen foot fall. 

Everything but the kitchen sink

At the end of the show they combined the majority of the acts into a finale. There wasn't too much point to it since there was so much going on you couldn't concentrate on any one thing. It also lasted a scant minute. I suppose everyone likes to have an encore. 

Jaws of Steel

The fact that she's spinning circles on her hands and feet should be the least interesting thing about this picture. For one thing, she's sitting on her head. Hello, earth to acrobat: YOU HAVE A SPINE! Even crazier: all her weight is on her teeth. I've seen the teeth of Chinese schoolchildren, and don't understand how this could ever work. Chinese magic. 

Xtreme Yoga

This lady blew my mind. She stood on one hand for about ten minutes, contorting her body in every conceivable direction, and several inconceivable ones. The amazing thing was how slow she moved: it was never a jerky motion to pull off an extreme stretch. Check out my other picture site to see more of what she can do. Plus, it's not even blurry like most of my acrobat pictures. 

Crazy Bowl Girls

I really didn't understand the theme of this act (they sat in bowls and held bowls on their heads) but it was impressive nonetheless. 

Marvel's new recruits

I swear, these guys are superheroes. They moved too fast for me to get pictures of them, but here's what I was able to catch. Either he's jumping though a hoop over his head, or he's transformed into steam to pass through. Even the guy standing in the background looks cool. 

Heals over Head

Here are some of the acrobats at work. They were freaking amazing. Sure, the positioning looks kind of questionable, but each of them flipped through the top hoop and got into formation within a matter of seconds. 

All I want for Christmas is a glow-in-the-dark leotard

These are some ghosts we ran across in a haunted theater. Oh sorry, I meant acrobats. I get acrobats and ghosts confused sometimes. These particular gho . . er . . acrobats are spinning plates at the end of poles. I thought they should have glow-in-the-dark plates to go with their outfits, but I'm no acrobatics expert. 

Heaven: Under construction

We went to the Temple of Heaven, but found it lacking. The parks and peripheral buildings were nice enough, but the temple itself was completely off limits. Stupid Olympics. They want everything nice in 2008 so it looks crappy in 2005. 

Gmork

This mouth was jutting from a doorway in the Llama temple. Creepy no? The cool thing was that there is only a mouth; there's no creature carved behind it. You can only tell that they neglected to carve the rest of the creature by walking right up to the door.

Gmork: the wolf from The Neverending Story. Supernerd points to anyone that knew this.