Hua Guofang

Same could be said for every Asian country I've been to, barring Japan and South Korea. However I reckon if I'd ventured out of the cities there I'd have seen the same thing. It's cheap, light and really strong as well as renewable. I've even seen mountain bikes made of the stuff!

was actually a serious question

Are you talking about the mother of your child?

This was the view from our hotel room in HK, was only a Best Western for about USD$180 a night but it had a million dollar view (it actually went much wider than the pics go, you could see the harbour at hard right). Feel appropriate to end the thread on these pics. Hope you enjoyed the pics and my accompanying waffle.

Check out the rap jewelry on this chick - Can't forget the short straws -

I'm going to dump the rest of my pics, of the last stop on my most recent trip, The Kong. Then we can argue the semantics of pollution as much as we want. Honkers is a fucking hell of a town. I can honestly say that I haven't met anyone who's been there than doesn't like the place. Was originally a small fishing port that became British territory after what Chinese culture frames as an unequal treaty in the mid 1800s. It differed with the rest of China by way of language and that it came under UK control and law until it was handed back in 1997 where it was handed back to the People's Republic. Hong Kong is important to China as a gateway for the mainland in many ways. One particular way that relates to what I was saying before about capitalism in China is that much of the foreign investment that happens in China is done based on HK law and any arbitration related to contracts is to be carried out in HK. That's simply because law does not rule on the mainland, power relationships rule and very blatantly so. I understand that this is the case in most countries, some countries, like China, it is brutally so and basically defended as so. HK is barely at all like the mainland, it's pretty much the New York of East Asia. It's a big, international, crowded city with heaps to do and a huge financial industry. It's not a cheap place to live mostly due to real estate cost. There is little space in HK because it's quite mountainous, that means when you build you build up and thus the high costs. However, this trip I realised something, apart from real estate it's actually cheaper to live in HK than it is to live in Australia. That's not to say that HK is lowering in cost but a comment on how fucking expensive it is here these days. Anyway, HK -

IT;s the lead singer of Aerosmith, isn't it? Who's the gil getting molested by the elephants?

To be honest arguing over semantics is redundant as I was just pointing that there was no fog in those pics I posted. Tomorrow, Honkers.

Ah, Smoke/fog - smog. You can see how that works, right?

Oh yeah. I can't emphasise how adversely it effects you when you wake up each day only to see slow death waiting for you outside the door. That pollution is Beijing, it's nowhere near as bad as that in HK and Shangers. Plus, Autumn is the best time to travel as the aircons and heaters aren't running meaning less electricity use and less coal being burned.

Got impatient Maoismo Lizard Mountain by Walid Jumblat's conviction, on Flickr

To split hairs, smog is the mix of "smoke and fog". This shit here (and prob most places in the world that suffer the same problem) is pure smoke, no fog.

This is Shanghai, I didn't take too many pics as I spent most of my time in cafe's restaurants and bars. I kind of wish that I had taken more pics now as it's a clean, orderly, interesting and enjoyable place to be. I've spent the last 10 years of my life putting shit on China for all its faults and the pics that I've posted here largely reinforce the frustrations I have with the place. However I feel that I'm doing you guys and the country a bit of a disservice by way of misrepresentation. Whilst the bulk of China has some serious problems such as underdevelopment, pollution, congestion, lack of hygiene, lack of style and uniqueness within it's own national culture and character, etc., etc. However, that is most definitely not the whole story. There is a mountain of shit that's really enjoyable and interesting. Shanghai and Hong Kong being the pinnacle of interesting places and hopefully the following pics will give you some understanding of that. Secondly, even in the rougher places there is a lot of interesting and fun shit. I mean the wild west may have been dirty and dangerous but it's a lot of fun and unless you're some kind of pansy germophobe pin-dick you can go to some pretty extreme and fringe parts of the world that are a quantum leap away from the existence that you know. Some times you have to take leaps in your life to experience the world in a wide and deep sense. I've taken similar steps in Southeast Asia, Northern Europe, Eastern Europe and to a degree, the US and South America. I think Symbols would agree with me here that taking leaps like that leave you feeling pretty fulfilled and also increases the options available to you in life. Shanghai - That's all I took, but the lack of pics also reflects that it is a normal, modern city that offers no great contrast to where you more than likely live now.

Some more rando shit from Beijing The Great Leap Brewery, a must do for The Jing - A short strawer -

Back in The Jing, most of this is 798 Art District, which used to be really cool. It was an old massive arms making industrial park that the artists took over and you could just walk in there and paint away. Then the Olympics came, shit got paved and scrubbed, corporation moved in, stores selling cheap trinkets and shit pushed out the real artists and the place is just an amusement park now. The real artists moved to Caochengdi, but that got shut down because Ai Weiwei had his base there and he pissed the govt off. However, Beijing is now firmly on the global graffiti highway. When I left 30 months ago the only graf was in 798 and a little bit here and there that was mostly legal and done by a local crew, myself and a French guy. Now the place is pretty heavily bombed with heaps of familiar names that I think most people will recognise.

Little fluffy clouds These two were actually in Qingdao - Drinking games with an 8 year old girl, encouraged by her parents - This is in Beidaihe, a couple of hours drive from Beijing where the Party has their summer retreat and where middle class Russians from Vladivostok holiday. Straight up, it's a fucking shit hole.

^^ Well I'm thinking that could have gone a whole lot worse^^ Still in Beijing The short straw -

Yeah, ran over the marching band and some dude with a candle up his arse on the way there too. Dead to me, do ya hear?!

Haven't clicked them but I assume that's how this spam works, right? Click the pics and you're taken to a website selling shit or you've DL'ed malware. That's what I'm thinking here.

Wow, I been sleepin on RI. Some pretty neat shit in here.