The Middle-Kingdom and Middle-Earth

I just returned from a month in China. It was an amazing journey! It wasn't all a easy, we had work to do, but things like that draw you closer to people and I loved living with my wonderful room-mates and meeting lots of sweet people. It's hard being home now, with the wind out of my sails, my new friends dispersed, wondering what's next, playing over the past and asking, "what could I have done better?" I think I've learned a lot about myself, but I'm still processing. We'll put all that aside now and have a little fun!

While in China, I found a few things that reminded me of Middle-Earth.

My first weekend there, I visited The Temple of Heaven. I was excited to find a GREEN DRAGON. (Or at least, I assumed it was a dragon...)

Oh, wait, there's like a thousand of them! (And these are dragons beyond a doubt!)

Actually, there are dragons everywhere in Beijing!

This doorway reminded me of Hobbit architecture:

The gates had very large red doors with big gold studs. The door handles were placed so high, I felt like a tiny hobbit. Here I'm on tipy-toe.

And at Beihai Park, I spotted this round green door!

I also spent quite a bit of time in subterranean tunnels built by expert engineers. While it wasn't the Mines of Moria or the kingdom of Dale, but rather The Subway, the trains sped through the tunnels like fierce little dragons. It would be death to fall in their path...

That's all for now!