Back in business

My apologies for the lack of posts while in China, but we were stuck behind the Great Fire Wall....preventing us from accessing blogger, picasa, and facebook. Of course, with proxies we could bypass the restrictions with limited access to the sites we have come to rely on for maintaining contact with people. It was a bit frustrating, and it certainly worked as my blogging waned entirely while traveling around the vast country. I certainly wouldn't do it justice (and would bore everyone to tears) if I tried to recount all our adventures as we criss crossed the country. We made our way from Tibet in the west down to Hong Kong for a new visa, then up the coast to Beijing and across again to the southwest. This meant lots of long train rides to make our way across the country, but in retrospect it was well worth it to be able to visit Tibet...even though it complicated how we toured the country. China continued to surprise us on its fast track to become a modern country, and is succeeding in many ways...although the modernity comes at a cost, and so much of the culture and character of places is lost in the transition. So, while we found ourselves often times in sleek fast-paced cities, we normally made our way down the rambling narrow lanes in the older sections of town where you still encountered tight communities with loads of character. China has been full of surprises, and two months was only enough to scratch the surface, visiting the main sights...and making us aware of just how many places we didn't have the time to visit. But, we ended with a bang in the southwestern province of Yunnan, but I'll share more in another post!