Where to begin??!

There is soooo much to write about, and I only have 45 minutes before I'm being picked up to go to the hotel I'm staying at with Mom, Dad, and Becca. So this will only be a portion of what I would like to write:

Tangshan was a very interesting city. It is a mix of peasants who work very, very hard for the little money they earn. We had a laborer working for us almost every day, very happily making about $13 or $14 dollars a day. He worked for us for about 3 weeks nonstop and made 2000 yuan, which is about $330. That is a lot of money for him, and he was very happy to be able to work so much for us. His name sounded like Joshua, but I know it was nothing close to that. Here is a great picture of us together. He spoke no English, but we worked very hard to communicate anyway. He was a very nice guy, and definitely enriched my experience!
I can't write much about what we did (or did not) find, because this is an ongoing and unpublished research project. Suffice it to say that the work was very tedious, but I learned a lot by doing it. We were also handed MANY challenges in the form of dealing with local bureaucracy and not being able to dig where we had hoped/planned. Overall, I think the experience turned out OK.

While in Tangshan, I was able to see a bit of the city. The earthquake memorial was very pretty, but I could not get it out of my head that it looked Sauron's tower from Lord of the Rings:

Here is the plaque commemorating the 1976 Tangshan Earthquake, and the town's resiliency throughout the arduous rebuilding process:
I also visited the Tangshan Department Store Group on one of my two days off. It is a giant department store with HUNDREDS of vendors. The most notable thing to me was how incredibly creepy all of the mannequins were. For example:

Despite the city's residents consisting mostly of peasants, there are also many wealthy people living in Tangshan. Therefore it was not strange to see many rickshaws and bicycles side-by-side with luxury VW's and Audi's, driving down VERY dirty streets. Tangshan is very polluted and very dirty. There are a lot of heavy industry businesses in town, dominated by coal and steel factories. LA air and streets seems pure in comparison. The picture will give you a little insight into how the term "street sweeper" got coined:
For the most part, we ate in two restaurants. The second was my favorite, as they actually had a menu, and much more selection.

Another favorite part of the journey for me has been the bath house! The people are all very curious and nice there. It was AMAZING to take a very hot shower at the end of a long day's work. I will actually miss it!


On the drive back to Beijing yesterday, I particularly enjoyed all of the road signs. I hope to post more later, but my favorite one will have to do for now:


OK, I think I need to wrap up for now. Hopefully we will have internet at our new hotel! It is right near the Forbidden City! Thanks for reading this really long post!

Zaijian (goodbye)!