I didn’t have as good a camera as I do now, so looking at this picture sort of makes me cringe at how blurry it is, but it’s the best picture I have of how beautiful downtown Kaifeng was at night.

This is the small south gate (xiao nan men) of Kaifeng. It’s not actually the most south region of the city, it’s just where the bottom of the city used to be. I’m not sure if the gate is from the Song dynasty or just a recreation of the one that was there durring the Song.

This is the 27 Tower, an important historical building in Zhengzhou. Why, I don’t know. Candy didn’t really say. I like the clock at the top.

The high detail in certain parts of the pic make it look blurry when down-sized, but when you zoom in, it’s in focus.

People in the US don’t really realize there are a lot of Muslims in China. At least, I had no clue. However, there are a lot of Muslims and mosques here. They’re generally really pretty.

This pond is only a few meters from my apartment.

I teach two classes on the fifth floor of this building.

So, while walking around the back lakes in Beijing (which are amazing, btw), I noticed that some people were swimming in one of the lakes, despite the sign explicitly saying not to swim. I soon noticed that they were all a bunch of creepy old dudes in speedos who had to hose themselves once they got out of the lake. This guy pictured decided he needed to sing for a while at people before he jumped into the lake. Weird.

The tower in the background is about a ten minute walk from my apartment. It is called Tie Ta, or Iron Pagoda. It is thirteen stories, though I hear more of the tower is actually underground. See, Kaifeng has been burried several times in flooding by the Yellow River.