Hello, Hello, I'm Back Again.


Sort of.

I am enjoying my last few days in Beijing and because of some unforseen good juju from the Chinese web guardians and because my other blog had reached capacity I'm back here.

A lot of nothing has gone on since I last blogged - I've been hanging out, writing, traveling a little and pondering life's big questions such as "mortgage, how to pay?"

But in a rare show of brevity I'm going to let some pictures speak for themselves, mostly.

Below are some photos of my trip to Pingyao, one of China's old banking capitals in Shanxi Province about 500 miles or so Southwest of Beijing. It's an 11 hour train journey, which is pretty comfortable in a soft sleeper unless your compartment is full of NOISY OLD PEOPLE WHO CAN'T SPEAK OR DO ANYTING QUIETLY EVER AT ALL EVER FOR ANY FUCKING REASON. Which was a shame for them as when my stop came at 4:32am I obviously couldn't get out of bed in anything other than a BIG SHOUTY WAY.

A man needs his hobbies, eh?

But, enough. Pingyao:

Things weren't so tough in the Ming Dynasty. Sure, the buildings were small but they did have plasma-screen billboard advertising.




An unfortunate name for a restaurant?




A modern manhole cover.




Can't help the Chinglish....Pingyao Beef is delicious (and sometimes it's donkey 'beef', but whatever, yum yum, piggy's bum). But noddle?




My hotel was along here....







Hova, big with the Mings, it seems...