This really is the other side of the world

You flip the light switch down to turn on the light and up to turn it off. Hmmmm....

Chinese people stare at you on the street. So did the Indian people, but the Chinese people stare you in the eyes. I strongly recommend dark eyewear. It helped with the staring but not the 4 million people who tried to strike up conversations in English while I was walking to the Forbidden City today. I'm sure not all of them were trying to take my money, but after yesterday, I either didn't react when people talked to me or when they asked if I was American or if I spoke English, I shook my head no. Sad. I would have liked to talk to people, but several of them used the "artist/art student" scam my book mentioned, which definitely kept me walking. Acting like a deaf mute also appears to work. Unfortunate.

The Forbidden City rocks. It's massive - I walked from the South Gates to the North Gates and it took more than 2 hours and I didn't see everything. I skipped a couple of galleries because there was a massive tour group right behind me and there's nothing more annoying than when you're trying to look at art and you're surrounded by a tour group. (I'm sure that individually they're lovely people, but en masse, they scare me.)

I took lots of pix and will post them if/when my internet access allows me to hit that site. For some reason, my picture site and the NY Times site only work sometimes from my hotel. Keep checking cause between the walk to the Forbidden City and the Forbidden City itself, I think I got some really nice shots.