Living in Asia

O.K., so the title might be a little miss-leading since these pictures were actually taken on different days while hanging out in the city but we still wanted to share some of the sites' and sounds' of our home away from home.....Enjoy!!!











Friendship Square...











Best looking KFC building I ever saw so far.........................










What a typical beach in China looks like. Over-crowded, dirty, & full of camping tents & umbrellas. People out here don't like to be out in the sun so they bring their tents to the beach. Go figure....








Look at that beautiful & pristine blue water....Oh wait...Shit, I was daydreaming about Hawaii... ;)









Evening view of downtown...









One of the good things about China is that people are pretty active over here. Every day between 7PM - 9PM, most people head to anyone of the numerous parks around city and just exercise, walk, play games, or practice Tai Ji like in this photo...



























Pretty common sight in China.....Even though you see a ton of vehicles on the road, the reality is the average Chinese person can not afford a vehicle and they will do whatever it takes to transport things like this guy on his scooter. One time I even saw this other guy transporting a couch on the front of his scooter. Don't ask me how he did it because I couldn't believe it either.....

Hey Chino, your uncle is looking for you.......

Before heading to the Great Wall we decided to check out the museum in the center of the city. The museum is dedicated to what everyone in the world knows as the Korean War, except here it is known as the "War to Resist US Imperialist Aggression and Aid Korea." Whatever, at least it was free....

Statue of Mao Zedong (left) and a Chinese General

War Propaganda Material

Well after a brief layoff we are finally back and ready to start blogging again. The hard drive on our PC actually went out, so it took about 2 weeks to get a new hard drive and re-install everything before the PC was up and running again. Thank God for NewEgg because it's hard to trust the electronics out here, you never know what's real or what's bootlegged. Then we took a week off and went to Maui, Hawaii for vacation because the next several months are pretty much lock down mode at work because of the schedule.Anyhow, so a few weeks ago we decided to head northeast for a 3 1/2 hour drive and go see one of the oldest parts of the far Eastern end of the Great Wall in a city called Dandong. Dandong is right on the border between China & North Korea, separated only by the Yalu River. So getting into North Korea is easy, it's getting out that's the problem...lol....In all seriousness though, we saw some pretty amazing scenery on the way up too Dandong and in the city itself.

Near the entrance to the Great Wall is a tourist viewpoint into North Korea. Behind us is North Korean farmland separated from China with a fence and a narrow part of the Yalu river.

Entrance and starting point for the Great Hike up the Great Wall.

Although it's hard to tell from the photo, the last guard station on top of the mountain in the distance is longer and steeper than it looks in the picture.

And finally we made it to the end.

View from the top of the very last guard station.

















So after we were finished at the Great Wall, we headed a little further north were we stopped to check out the Yalu Jiang Duan Qiao bridge AKA the Friendship bridge. The bridge reaches only halfway across the river because part of it was destroyed by fighter planes during the Korean War but you are still able to walk out to the end of half of the bridge from the Chinese side and get a really good look into North Korea.

View of the missing section and the Korean end of the bridge in the distance.

Local Chinese women that were eager to meet & speak with us because we are foreigners. To bad we couldn't understand what they were saying most of the time.

Where are those Imperialistic American pigs?