Happy new year!

Forgive me father, for it has been two weeks since my last blog post. I just returned to Tokyo yesterday from my trip to China, where (surprisingly) internet cafes were a little hard to find. But anyways, happy new year! I spent new year's eve with some fellow travelers in a bar atop the Marriott in Shanghai (which was a block away from my hostel). Most memorable.

The world really does seem to have converged on English as a universal language. Navigating the major cities in China turned out to be pretty easy, because of all the English signs. Many of the travelers I met in China had jobs teaching English, and they said that demand for teachers is now far exceeding supply. I wonder what Asia will be like for travelers 30 years from now.

I still need to update my last post with pictures, which I plan to do once my laptop stops blue-screening. It has gotten so bad that even the "restore your laptop to original factory state" function is blue-screening. The good news, I guess, is that my laptop is still under warranty. The possibly bad news is that I have to rely on Lenovo's Japanese tech support. To be continued.

Once my laptop gets fixed, I will post some pretty cool pictures from the second half of my trip to China. Honest.

Jan 19 edit: And now, some photos!

My victory pose after conquering a (small) section of the Great Wall of China.

A picture of the Great Wall without my ugly face in it.

The National Stadium in Beijing, site of the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

The Terracotta Warriors, just outside Xian.

I wonder if they realize how ironic that sign is.

Atop Big Wild Goose pagoda, in Xian. That's not fog in the distance, it's pollution.

Flying past Mount Fuji on my way back to Tokyo.