We had to wake up at 4:30am to be at the HK International airport by 7:45. No one should ever have to wake up at 4:30 in the damn morning. This is going to be a LONG day. The HK airport is cool, has free internet terminals at either end of the top floor. Since it was so early, there was no one competing for them, so I delved into the familiarity of cyberspace for 30 mins while waiting for our tour group to congregate.

I thought that Thailand was hot, but this place makes Bangkok look like Toronto on an autumn day. I didn't know that there were so many ways to be so frikkin' hot that you want to die.

Xian used to be the capital of China, I think. It's part of the Silk Road and has the Terra Cotta Warriors.

Before we go on, let me warn you that I was totally lost for most of this trip. I only understand 80% of what is going on normally, when someone speaks in Cantonese, but throw in a thick Mandarin accent and that plumments to about 15%. Thus, I have no clue where we are or what I'm taking pictures of. But hey, if you want a history lesson, go read an encylopedia.

Air China had a crash just last week. This plane seems sturdy enough, but you never know. We might easily have ended up in that nice, fertile Xi'an farm land you see below.

Here we are in our tour bus. Gotta get used to this in a hurry, cuz we're going to log a whole lotta hours in this baby over the next 7 days. That's Mr. Chiu, our guide, in the front waving. This guy has got it down, man. He knows shit about ancient China that the ancient Chinese didn't know. Too bad I can't understand a word of what he's saying because of his accent.

My uncle waiting for the guide to stop talking so he can wander off into the shade.

My aunt, keeping tabs on my uncle. These two are so great. I'm glad they decided to come along with me to keep my company.

This is a mosque, if you can believe it. I didn't think that the Chinese government would be too fond of something like this, but apparently, it's been here for a while. The biggest of its kind around these parts.

It's indistinguishable from all the Buddhist temples that I've seen so far on my trip through Asia, but there was a certain disinfectnant smell coming from everywhere. Mr. Chiu says that they clean this place on a consistent basis. Weird.

Away from the mosque now. This is my uncle and I standing in front of a famous tower, amongst other Chinese treasures.

Here's a close up of the famous tower...though why it's famous still eludes me.

This is cool. Ancient Chinese texts, inscribed in stone. Only the most priviledged scholars got to study these, back in the day.

This is some cool stuff. The roots of the Chinese language lay on the surface of these monoliths.

Old Chinese writing used to be squiggly like what you see here. It's evolved somewhat into more angular characters. The penmanship is incredible, how did they do that? I have a hard enough time writing on a chalk board.

There are just heaps of these tablets. This place is called the Stone Tablet Forest, and it really resembles a forest. Must have been a bitch to have been a librarian back then.

You may or may not know this, but China is full of city walls. Obviously, the Great Wall is the most famous, but each major city has one. In fact, wall building became so synonymous with cities that the word for "city" and the word for "wall" in Chinese are one and the same. (thank you Discovery Channel for that fact).

Dinner was something special. We were given plates and plates of raw meat and in the middle of the table was a big pot of boiling soup. The inner pot had all sorts of insanely hot peppers and the outer pot was milder.

Along with the dinner came a show. These ladies came on and performed some traditional Chinese piece that was lost on me. Nice costumes though, if not a little revealing.

This little girl was part of the variety show. Click the pic to see what else she does with this tube (or right click and "save as" to download the movie clip).

This bike was part of the night's draw. You paid some amount to our nice MC and she would let you punch a hole in the board to see what your prize was. I think they have this game on the Price is Right.

And that's it for my first day in China. This is a shot of my hotel room, which I had to share with a stranger who snored like there was a hive of bees lodged in his nostrils.