Photos are up...

So I'm doing really well in Beijing. After a bit of culture shock, I feel like I'm fitting in nicely. BOCOG (the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games) has done nothing but make all of us volunteers feel welcomed.

I've been AWOL because there hasn't been much down time with the tourist schedule they set up for us... for three days, they sent us around to: a waste treatment plant, a "future of China" type planned village, the Great Wall (at Badaling), the Ming Tombs, a crafts center, Peking Opera, Peking Duck, the "new" Summer Palace and the "old" Summer palace as well as spread after spread of delicious food. I swear, I will gain 40 pounds by the time I come home.

I've been trying to digest everything I've taken in (both literally and in the tourist sense), but I don't feel like I'm quite ready to break down everything for you. It's all a little new and overwhelming... and I don't want to trivialize anything by a little premature posting. So, I'm going to hold back for now, but I will tell you that I FINALLY have Japan photos posted.

They're here on my Flickr site. I really wanted to get them onto Facebook, but I believe the Great Firewall is preventing me from accessing it. Either that or the application I use has a glitch (also a possibility). Anyways, if I figure out a way, I'll get them there, but for now they're on Flickr.

I will have more blogs - whether writing, videos or pictures - for you tomorrow, I promise.

In the meantime, here's that link again.

Enjoy, friends!

Ceremonial, pre-temple cleansing


Downtown Peeps


Owabi on the grill

I was tickled by this...

I played softball last night for my church's team. We won, 27-18, by the way, in what was probably the highest-scoring game I've ever played in. Being a small, local league, we play on pretty much whatever field is available. So, the game was at a Maine middle school's ball field.

In the school's parking lot, I spotted a Driver's Ed car. Pretty typical, right?



And then I saw the other side of it:


FAIL!

iCamera

In case any of you are wondering what I do in my free time or, better yet, how good the camera on the iPhone is, I present to you my hot-off-the-press, just updated Flickr site.

Check it out. I had a few minutes to kill, so I uploaded about 20 random shots taken from my iPhone over the past couple months.

Enjoy!