SOME PARTING THOUGHTS AND SHOTS Here are some concluding remarks, in no particular order, to finish off our travel blog. The first twelve are by Ken. The rest are by Siobhan. We edited each other's comments. KEN: After a month on the road in China, life at 133 East 17th Street is going to seem pretty mundane. On the other hand, a month on the road, where you have to make all your own travel arrangements, is guaranteed to wear you down. It will b...

MAO ZEDONG MEMORIAL HALL Siobhan and I slept in on the Tuesday morning on which we planned to be the first people in line at the Mao Zedong Memorial Hall in Beijing. The embalmed remains of the Chinese leader have been on display here since shortly after his death in 1976. The hall is currently open from 8 a.m. to noon every day except Monday. Admission is free. By the time we crossed under the underpasses, arrived in Tiananmen Square, passed through the ...

Foreward: We have successfully posted a few of our many photo albums on this website. The photos don't have capitions yet and some are turned sideways. But we're getting better at it and soon will hopefully have all 2000 photos (or as many as you can take at one sitting) just right. ****************************************************************** HONG KONG This entry is being written at 35,000 feet somewhere over the Arctic Circle (northeast of Vladivostok,...

(This is not a photo of the Great Wall of China. Rather, it is of a dragon boat, the likes of which you can ride at the Summer Palace here in Beijing, for a fee. We will post our photos of the Great Wall when we overcome certain technical difficulties...) CLIMBING THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA Following the advice of the great leader, Chairman Mao, who said, "He who has not climbed the Great Wall is not a true man," we arrive at the Great Wall at ...

MEMORIAL HALL OF THE NANJING MASSACRE The taxi driver required no prodding to take us to the Memorial Hall. He knew the place. Everybody in Nanjing knows the place. And probably everybody in China knows of the place, or, at the very least, of the war crime that happened here. In December of 1937, the Japanese Army attacked Nanjing, then the capital city of China. A great number of soldiers defending the city and civilians trapped inside were killed in th...