The edge of the world, kung fu fast food, and the secret to good posture

I've got mixed bag for you today — one artist's conception of the edge of the world, photos of a real-life kung fu-themed fast food restaurant, and a soldier's secret to maintaining perfect posture.



I predict property values here will soon plummet.


—Mellow Monk

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Eclipse over the Great Wall of China

From the NASA Web site — a photo of a solar eclipse over the Great Wall of China.





—Mellow Monk

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Photos from Toronto's Chinese Lantern Festival

Here's another page that's perfect for a green tea break: ArtsOnEarth has dozens of photos from the Chinese Lantern Festival held at Toronto's Ontario Place.


The festival is scheduled to run through October 12.



A "twin dragon" lantern display.


—Mellow Monk

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China's tea growers too busy to watch Olympics

Yi Feng is a tea grower in the Chinese farming village of Fan Sheng. Two-thirds of China's 1.3 billion people live in farming villages like this, and like most of them, Yi Feng is far too busy with everyday chores to pay attention to the Olympic events going on in Beijing, to the north.

"The Olympic Games?" she asked, apparently perplexed that anyone would bring up such a subject at harvest time on these prime tea-growing slopes in coastal Zhejiang province. "With all I have to do these days, how could I pay attention to the Olympic Games?"

Carrying bags of freshly picked tea leaves down a narrow lane in Fan Shen.


—Mellow Monk

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China's changing neighborhoods (slideshow)

Preparations for the upcoming Olympics didn't launch the transformation of Beijing's traditional neighborhoods — it started long before — but they are definitely accelerating those changes.


An excellent film depicting these changes in China is "The Shower," about a family-run bathhouse trying to stay afloat (pun intended) in an old neighborhood as the juggernaut of modernization comes rolling unstoppably into town. Highly recommended. Joe Bob — I mean, Mellow Monk — says check it out!


[Okay, how many of you got that "Joe Bob" reference?]



"Sure, it blocks the sun, but the Sunday buffet there isn't bad."


—Mellow Monk

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Chinese ice bar and Japanese mint insoles

At an ice bar in Harbin, China, everything is made out of ice—right down to the chairs, glasses, and tables.







An entrepreneur in Japan hopes that a new type of odor-eating insole laced with natural mint will boost patronage at traditional Japanese restaurants, where diners often take off their shoes before stepping into a tatami room. Research showed that more and more people were avoiding such restaurants because of a reluctance to unshoe their less-than-pleasant-smelling feet.





—Mellow Monk

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Documentary "All in This Tea"

Here's a trailer of the documentary "All in This Tea," which chronicles the journey of an American tea buyer through small villages in rural China.




—Mellow Monk

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World's scariest teahouse?

It's not actually the teahouse itself that's scary; it's the steep cliffside path you have to navigate to get to it.


These online photos are probably as close as yours truly will ever get to this mountaintop shop, which is located somewhere in China. If anyone knows exactly where this is, please use the comment feature to let us know.



Ah, to be young and fearless.


—Mellow Monk

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Shaolin monks threaten Japanese ninja ... with lawsuit

Modern-day Shaolin monks don't resort to violence when they've been slandered or insulted. Instead, they call a lawyer.



"Now that Johnnie Cochran is dead, you are powerless against me."


—Mellow Monk

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Panoramas of the New Seven Wonders of the World

Here you can see amazing 360-degree panoramas of the "new" Seven Wonders of the World.

These Quicktime shots may take a while to load, depending on your Internet connection, but they are well worth the wait.


For a reminder of what the "old school" Seven Wonders of the World are, click here.


Call me old fashioned, but I still think that the Great Pyramid of Giza, which was one of the original Seven Wonders—and the only one still standing today—should be on the new list. But then again, the new list of Seven Wonders was decided by vote, so as Tony Soprano would say, whattaya gonna do? Then again, there is some controversy over the voting process.



Click on the photo above to see a 360-degree panorama of the inside of the Great Wall, or click on the link at the top of the page to see panoramas of all seven wonders.


—Mellow Monk

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Doctor fish—a new Asian health trend

"Doctor fish" is a nickname given to two species of small fish traditionally kept in Turkish-style baths in the Middle East. Able to live in hot water, the fish also nibble the dead skin of bathers and so have been used as a folk remedy for skin conditions such as psoriasis. (The fish nibble only dead skin, not live skin.)


The "doctor fish" phenomenon has now spread to Asia as a kind of natural exfoliant. The fish are increasingly popular in China, and last year Japan's Yunessun hot-spring resort, in the city of Hakone, became the first in the nation to set up its own doctor-fish bath (although the fish aren't mentioned on the resort's English-language site).


The Yunessun site even has a movie of a group of young bathers experiencing doctor fish for the first time.



Ah, there's nothing quite like having a school of fish nibble away at one's dead skin.



"Cleaning now underway" reads the text in this image from the Yunessun site.


—Mellow Monk

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Whiskey and iced green tea

The Scotch Whisky Association is poised to announce that the world's top-ten whiskey-consuming nations now include China, where a popular way of imbibing is adding the whiskey to iced green tea.



In China, whiskey is a popular "boost" for green tea.


—Mellow Monk

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Chinese descendents of long-lost Romans?

In Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, many locals have unmistakable "western characteristics — green eyes, big noses, and even blonde hair — mixed with traditional Chinese features."

Right now, DNA tests are being conducted to test a theory first proposed in the 1950s: that these residents of Liqian are descended from Roman soldiers.



I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.


—Mellow Monk

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China's teahouses infuse the ancient with the modern

Teahouses that combine the traditional with the modern are making a comeback in China. In short, tea, after years of being highly uncool, is becoming trendy, particularly among the country's young, affluent crowd.

—Mellow Monk

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Splendid China pics!

Photographer Gil Azouri posts some of his beautiful travel photographs online, including a gallery of photos taken in China.





—Mellow Monk

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China pics

ChinaPictures.org is a site chock full of—you guessed it—pictures of China. There are hundreds of pictures, all organized by topic. One topic is festivals, an example of which is shown below.

—Mellow Monk

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