I am in Hangzhou now, and it looks like I will finally have some real internet time. First, Xi'an, where I spent the last few days. Xi'an is a huge, historic city that seems to be in a hurry to tear itself down and rebuild in the form of sterile highrises. The cranes in downtown Bellevue a few years ago are no comparison to what is happening in Xi'an. The weather in China has been pretty blah so far. Fortunately, I haven't seen anymore rain or snow since Shangh...

I'm in Xi'an right now. I have to pay for the computers in this hostel, and these computers have been extremely frustrating in terms of outdated browsers and slow internet speeds. So we'll see how far how I get with this post.We all know that China blocks Facebook and Youtube. Guess what else they block? Blogspot.People have expressed surprise when I say I'm only in China for about 11 days. Well, on (full) day 3 in China, I feel like I've done a vacation's worth ...

After about 20 hours of travel, I arrived at my hotel in Shanghai at 2am local time. For those who haven't heard the story yet, Hainan Air changed the schedule of my 2nd flight. Instead of arriving at 11pm in Shanghai, it arrived at 1:20am. They notified me of this change by calling and leaving voicemail... in Chinese. This left me with a 6 hour layover in Beijing (it ended up being less because the flight was late) so I left the airport and headed over to Micros...