Beautiful Things

(circa "YOU'RE INVITED! My China Vacation Spring 2008" style)

• The train whistle sounded just like the stereotypical Indian (aka. Native American) war cry.
• beekeepers working on the side of the road
• looking through to the light between rows and rows of skinny trees tightly packed together
• the paper parasols in the street vendor's booths- stacks and stacks of thin multi-colored butterflies.
• mom and dad under the lover's tree in the garden of the Forbidden City
• all the red Tiananmen Square
• picking up pebbles for Vince
• The beggar who applauded us when we came out of the Forbidden City, smiling large toothless smiles because he enjoyed that bottle of water.
• Hong Kong. Period. The End.
• purplish pink leaves in amongst the green green green trees
• fog (ohhhh the mysterious fog)
• billions of bicycles, falling apart, tied to trees any other stationary object (don't stand still too long in Bejing
• the British boys (Bonnie didn't think so. Humph) who hiked the Great Wall next to, behind, in front of us
• finishing Leaves of Grass while in another country (nothing like sensual American literature to stir that patriotic lust for freedom)
• the mix of French and Chinese culture at the last restaurant in Guangzhou that tried to poison me