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Myself and Meryl at Tianamen Square, with our good friend Mao in the back ground. This is the picture that was oh so famously hit with ink during the 1989 demonstrations.

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These gift shops were everywhere we went during our first week of being tourists. Here you could purchase almost anything your heart desires as long as it was cheaply made, colorful, and had Mao on it.

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The Forbidden City from a nearby park with Buddhist Statues, also featured is the lovely smog which coats much of Beijing.

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Yes Great Panda's are just as cute in person as they are in real life.

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Street massages were a new thing for most of our group. In this picture Joe receives a shoulder rub, while others negotiate prices.

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On Steph's birthday we visited a noodle restaurant where among other things Meryl and Zeb got extremely spicy noodles, we celebrated Steph's birthday, and had watermelon!

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Amazing old trees at the Summer Palace, some of which are rumored to be over 800 years old, which obviously makes for some really cool trunk textures.

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The crowds in Xi'an taking pictures of the Terra Cotta Armies

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We had a demonstration from a traditional Chinese Painter and he whipped out this little Chinese cowboy scene

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Meryl and I discovered that one can indeed find chocolate cake in China, although it cost an outrageous (by Chinese standards) 6 kuai

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This is from an evening JD, Zeb, Meryl and I spent with our Chinese friend Candy, her boyfriend, his friend and Candy's non-English speaking friend. It was a marvelous evening and an amazing meal.

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This picture captures my first adventure with hotpot that I experienced with my host family, the neighbor girl Rachel (who speaks really good english, and a former student of my host father on the far right.

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Sarah, Luke, Meryl and I outside of the irrigation system. The peace sign is a frequent fixture in most Chinese picture, so of course we had to try it out.

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This is a shot taken on QingCheng Mountain on our raining day hike.

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Although horrible quality due to shakiness of the bus, this picture accurately depicts the exhausted nature of our group after our day long field trip to the irrigation system and Daoist mountain

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Me on my bed, making some unknown hand gesture with my new asian hairdo

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Myself, Hillary and her cousin/sister at a temple in Guanghan that we visited over national holiday.

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A view of part of downtown Guanghan and their new super big department store.

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Meryl and Sarah in front of the Mao statue in downtown Chengdu, lick that flag Sarah!