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.

The lettering on the cart says “Five Spice Hot Dog Meat”. I wish they meant “hot dog” like hot dogs in the states (which they have here too), but they don’t, they mean actual dog meat. (The meat is in the closed container to the left.) I have been told by Chinese people that dog meat is healthy in Chinese medicine, but then again, they say that about everything.

So one day I was putting on a jacket, and I put my hands in the pockets. In my right pocket, I felt something squishy. It was this guy.

I had last seen him hanging out on the wall near my coat rack, I guess he got cold or something. I eventually got him off my pant leg (which he had clung to for like 1o minutes) and put him outside.

Yes, so this is a claw machine filled with cigarettes. Indeed, the only claw machines I’ve seen in China have had cigs.

So… it’s mostly children who play these, right?

Wow, they must really start early in China.

Also, apparently the sign on the machine says that if it gets jammed you can’t get your money back. I am not surprised whatsoever.

Bet you didn’t know China had cherry blossoms.  They were out in April, but they’re gone now.

The bird park in Zhengzhou. Another one of the kind of things that would never happen in the States.

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.

People like to ride around in carts a lot.

The pet market again.

That Kaifeng zoo again.

Kaifeng has a zoo. It’s not as sketchy as you would think it would be.

Heda campus from the fifth floor of the Foreign Language building I showed a picture of earlier.

To prove that the watch is waterproof, they have it in water with the fishies.

This is this guy who was sitting around with his dog at the pet market in Kaifeng. The pet market is a street market that shows up every Sunday morning in order to sell animals. There’s one street that’s just birds, a section for cats and dogs, and a street that’s just rabbits. The rabbits are for eating, but the birds, cats, and dogs are pets. They also have a few chickens that are probably for eating as well, and there was also a turkey, and I don’t know what good I turkey has besides eating.

Well, a lot of people bring their animals to the market just to show them off I suppose. There were lots of people with bird cages strapped to their bikes. And this guy with his dog.I don’t know why the dog has pink ears.