Dave’s Wagon

For those of you who have been in China long enough to acquire some useful local knowledge, might I suggest you head over to Wikitravel and contribute your gems of wisdom.
Wikitravel is a wiki-based (i.e. user-contributed) travel guide website, and while there is already some great information on China and its major cities on the […]

Wal-Mart’s big box empire is now the largest in China.
The retail giant recently moved to acquire Trust-Mart, the Taiwan-based superstore chain with some 100 or so outlets in Mainland China.
If you’re like most Americans, your reaction to this news is probably something along the lines of: “How terrible! Now the Chinese as well will suffer […]

Behold! The Forbidden Blog Entry!

Forbidden entryway!

Forbidden banners!

Forbidden basketball court!

Forbidden photography!

Forbidden ornate roof carvings protected by what appears to be a system of lightning conductors!

Forbidden smoking!

Forbidden (Starbucks) store! (Their words, not mine!)

Forbidden renovation!

Forbidden panorama!

Forbidden reentry!

Okay, I’m finished.

It’s a bad sign when it takes you longer to blog about a trip than the trip itself took, but I will finish this Beijing recap.
Pictured above: Tiananmen Square, known for its grand scale and iconic right-of-way violations.
Next post: the surprisingly-accessible Forbidden City.
Stay tuned, Wagonians!

If you haven’t already heard, the Chinese government has apparently unblocked Wikipedia here.
I failed to notice this initially as I’ve been viewing the encyclopedia through a mirror, but when I saw this article in my Slashdot news feed today, I punched up the site, and it loaded without problem. Not surprisingly, certain “sensitive terms” still […]