A 22 mile hike and an abandoned monastery

Ross read about an abandoned French monastery somewhere in the mountains surrounding Sapa, of course we went looking for it soon afterwards. We left town and hiked all day a total of 36 km. The trek was long and difficult but well worth it. The mountains are enormous and endless, the rice paddies almost mythological



The monastery floors collapsed at some point and the walls are overgrown with a bright orange moss. The small but imposing building felt like a giant haunting the wild countryside

Sapa, Vietnam

Today's our last day in the mountain town Sapa before heading by train to Hanoi. This little town set in a lush mountaintop was a French garrison during the occupation. It now exists as a tourist center with buildings in a semi-Classical French style and tons of hotels and restaurants. At a whopping $6 a night for a decently tacky room and all the French influenced bakeries with free wi-fi you could ever want, it's easy to get used to all this :)

above: both pictures are from the balcony in our hotel "Hotel Pinochio". It rains a whole lot apparently, and suddenly you'll realize you're in a cloud
below: the mountains surrounding the town are covered in rice paddies and little farm houses and roads great for hiking

above: Vietnamese coffee is the best thing in the world! it's a heavy espresso eerily similar to the Cuban coffee so familiar to me. What makes it stupendous is the bit of condensed milk on the bottom of the cup used to sweeten it. The metal bit above the cup is where the coffee and hot water are set then it slowly drips out into the cup through a filter identical to a Cuban "cafetera"

Kunming

First stop on this grand Southeast Asian tour was the city of Kunming (昆明) in the southern Chinese province Yunnan (云南). It's a very livable and sub-tropical city with a pretty nice central park and an amazing temple called the Yuantong Temple (圆通寺).

Southern Chinese art and architecture is pretty different from that of the north. The colors are brighter and more bombastic and the overall forms more exaggerated. In the temple live dozens of male and female monks dressed all in black.

The entire temple is covered with plants, trees, and flowers of all kinds. The monks seem to divide their day between study, meditation, and plant care.

We left Kunming by overnight bus to the Vietnamese border headed to the northern town of Sa Pa. It's a small tourist city in the middle of a million mountains and rice paddies populated by local minority groups called the Dzao and the H'Mong, where the woman are in full ethnic gear and offer you hand sewn bags and marijuana or opium along every street.

I'm having a fantastic time, but it's been strange and sad to leave China for the first time in 10 months.

36 hours later....

We left Beijing last Thursday evening by train bound for Kunming (昆明) all the way in the south of China. It was a long ass train trip, 36 hours in all, but well worth it for the scenery alone. Kunming is completely different from Beijing in that it's elevated but also very tropical. The air is humid and there are palm trees. It's already starting to feel more like back home in Miami.
The guy in the photograph all the way to the left is our friend Paul from Newcastle in the U.K. We leave China this afternoon and arrive in a town called Sapa in Vietnam tomorrow afternoon. Check for constant updates over the next few weeks...

Beijing's Parks

Beijing is a city full of parks. They help bring loads of green to the cityscape and the climate is perfect for all kinds of flowers this time of year.

above and below: this is Yuangmingyuan Park (圆明园) in the northwest of the city. Once the location of a splendid mixed European Baroque and Chinese palace, it's today ruins and well-kept greens and gardens. It was destroyed by the French during the Opium Wars. The little girl above is my favorite student. Her family has become my adopted Chinese family and they took me to this park one afternoon.

a picnic with friends at Chaoyang Park （朝阳公园)

Ross and I went to Tiantangongyuan (天坛公园) the Temple of Heaven Park. This is the temple emulated in the China section of Epcot Center. This one's more impressive.

Smelling the flowers at a park who's name i forgot right next to Tian'anmen Square (天安门) and the Forbidden City (故宫)

Sichuan Earthquake Memorial

In schools across China, students made thousands of paper fold birds in memory of the students that died in the Sichuan Earthquakes a few weeks ago. These are from a school i frequent in the west of Beijing.

The kids placed the birds along the school's courtyard on long expanses of fence and wall

art attack!

A small recent painting with charcoal sketches from a figure drawing class Ross and I attend near our house. I haven't drawn from a model since my first semester in college, so it's been over 6 years. It's all come back really quickly; and strangely enough more effortlessly than when i used to do it weekly in high school. I still have a bitch of a time finishing during the sessions, and specifically in finding the time to get to the faces...

videos of home

For my 50th post (YAY!),I present an updated video tour of my and ross' apartment.

living room and cat/plant balcony

"hallway" and kitchen with view

大殓 ( means big face. DA-pronounced the same way you'd shout "BOO!", and LIEN- kind of how you'd say a dramatic "huh?") the cat, our sporadically messy room and the studio/2nd balcony

we three

thankfully the recent earthquakes didn't reach beijing in a significant way. here are some recent pics

where the Great Wall meets the Pacific

The small city of 山海关 (Shan Hai Guan, roughly translated as mountain meets sea) is where the Great Wall crashes into the ocean. sounds amazing and romantic enough, but the entire old city is being demolished and rebuilt in an Epcot center generic chinese style. it's a little unfortunate because the old buildings, of which there are precious few left, are mixed chinese and neo-classical russian styles made entire out of local rose colored and white marble. we made our way there last weekend for a long weekend labor holiday.