we'll be going on a mega 5-month bicycle journey following the path of the great wall, probably leaving next week. so, i won't be able to update the blog all the time. maybe once in a while when i get access to an internet cafe. i'll try and update my photobucket as much as i can though.
meanwhile, here are some more photos from our most recent trip to a city called ji'an and to a place called changbaishan mountain.
me and andy standing in front of the view of north korea, in the city of ji'an. the river behind us is the border between china and north korea. excuse our horrible apparel combination of three types of green. you just don't care when you're backpacking.
changbaishan mountain. very beautiful, probably the most beautiful place we've ever seen in our lives. but, unfortunately we didn't get to see "heaven lake" - a gorgeous lake on the top of the mountain, due to china's insanely inflated tourism prices and some information that was lost in translation. we didn't have enough money to see it in the end.
the sixth biggest city in north korea. it actually looks a bit like an amish village to me. 
a billboard message on the north korean mountains (written in korean) facing china. i have no idea what it says. but it has an exclamation mark at the end, so it's probably either something funny or damning.we also went to the changchun zoo, but i didn't get any pics cos my camera died. there were some pretty horrific scenes there of animal cruelty. andy got some photos though and i'll put them on photobucket when i get a chance. while the large enclosures where mostly fine, there was a small building where you had to pay an extra entry fee to enter. we paid ten yuan each and were greeted by a range of animals trapped in tiny cages, some of which were chained up. there was a small bear in a small cage, losing his mind, running around in circles non-stop. we were probably in this small enclosure for about 2 hours, and the bear didn't stop running once. he was obviously traumatised. i have a feeling that is all the bear does 24 hours a day. at the monkey enclosure, there were empty water and soft drink bottles strewn everywhere. the guy next to me threw a bottle of fanta into the enclosure. a monkey went to the bottle, unscrewed it, and tipped the fanta onto the ground. he licked it up fiercely. one minute later, the woman on the other side of us, threw a bottle of sweet ice tea into the enclosure too. the same monkey drank it. then he started chewing on the bottle lid. i can't believe how stupid these people were. they had no idea that feeding them sugary soft drink could make them sick, or even kill them. it really made my blood boil. and in the reptile house the first thing we saw were two large turtles in a small aquarium, flapping around wildly. poor things. they wanted to charge us extra money to see the rest of the reptile house. we refused and walked out.
click on my photobucket link to see more photos from the ji'an / changbaishan trip
