Pictures and Shouzhou and Proof plus a little Breaking and Entering

It is often said that a picture is worth a hundred words. Or a thousand words...or something. I don't know. I can't really remember. But I do know that some people think the exchange rate of words to pictures is extremely high. And I think that I mostly agree. Except, it has occurred to me that this blog is composed almost entirely of pictures at this point. Which is like...a shitload of words.

And anyway, it has also occurred to me that my blog may or may not be the cyber equivalent of a person who comes home from a trip and suckers their unknowing friends and family members into an agonizing hour-long slide show of all the places they visited.

So yeah...I'm not trying to talk your ear off with photographs. But...I probably am. This is my formal apology. Sorry. Now here are some photos I took of Souzhou!

Souzhou is a canal town which dates back to the 6th century. It may be one of the most breathtaking places I've ever seen.

I know, right?

Sometimes when I go to places like this, I shove my camera into the hands of an unsuspecting Chinese guy or a buddy and force them to take my picture. I feel like I need hard evidence that I was actually in these places.

So...this shot is a little less scenic. But I wish I could explain what was going on when it was taken. First and foremost, it should be noted that Chinese museums and galleries are completely anarchic. People step right up and touch the famous paintings, they take pictures of everything, they climb on the statues. These places have such free reign that often times, people will cross the red velvet rope between themselves and the exhibit. They will stand next to or sometimes on top of the Qing Dynasty era knick knacks and get a better look. Maybe take a load off on an emperor's throne or something.

The picture doesn't show the rope in front of us but Rachel and I are actually in the exhibit. We saw a bunch of little kids climbing on the ancient, hand-carved relics and decided we could do that too! What's more amazing though is that nobody said anything! No alarms went off, no security cameras beeped, no baton-toting security guards tasered us! We left the scene of the crime completely unmarred and a little bit closer to 16th century magistrate, Wang Zianchen.