I spent a little time poking around the mall in Beijing on Wednesday after lunch at McDonald's (oh yes I did eat McDonald's). A few things I thought were interesting:

• A Reebok ad for Pump running shoes read, "Like nothing you've ever worn that wasn't ribbed for her pleasure." That's just not the right association for so many different reasons.
• "Motel Vacancy" printed on women's tee. Call me crazy, but I read that as cheap and available.
• All models and mannequins were caucasian, except lingerie models.
• All t-shirts with text were written in English.
• The mall had a store selling business casual clothing for middle-aged men called "Valued Squirrel". You just can't beat that.
• Pepsi makes / markets / sells a line of sportswear.
• I only noticed one Yao Ming ad, and I was looking. The ad was in the window at a Reebok store.
• Bonus: in Chengdu, a small clothing shop along a run-down street had a t-shirt for sale that read, "100% cashmear, Dryean Only" in a large typeface across the front of the shirt.

Photos from the trip Jonas and I took to Tibet will be posted shortly.

Jonas and I are in Tibet. Ah, the smell of clean mountain air and yak butter. Good times, all around.

It's toward the end of our third day; tomorrow we fly out. We've spent the majority of our time in and around Lhasa, the capital city. The most grand of all the places we visited was Potala Palace, the 13 story structure built as the political and spiritual center of Tibet. It also served as the palace for the Dalai Lama until he was booted in the 50s. Way cool. Huge. Puts anything you've seen on Cribs to shame.

We also visited the Jokhang, which is the holiest place for Tibetan Buddhists. There are lots of treasures here (and at Potala) but the big attraction is a gold statue of Buddha that was touched by the first Buddha. Around the Jokhang is Barkhor Square, which is the mother of all Tibetan bazaars. They sell all kinds of stuff. Of course, the Chinese have invaded the Barkhor too, so they sell stupid crap like cowboy hats and tacky t-shirts with misspelled English words. Barkhor is still very cool, however, as it's all these winding roads and alleyways just crammed with all sorts of stuff. The old, Tibetan neighborhoods that survived the Cultural Revolution are in this area.

The mountains in this country are out of control. Just huge, steeper than steep and everywhere. It's more than a little lame that the Chinese are carving some of them up for their cement factories and mining operations.

The food sucks. Like, really, really bad. I tried most of the stuff, but I wouldn't eat pork after the med student on our trip told us about all the brain-damaged people in the Beijing hospitals who got some pork affliction. And I also wouldn't touch the fish after our guide explained on the drive in from the airport that the Tibetans practice water burials, and really have never eaten the fish. That, and the fact that the fish arrived on the table in some thick-barbecue lookin' sauce with eyes and fins pokin' out, discouraged me. So, I ate a bunch of rice, drank bottled water, ate the fried potatoes they put on the table, and scarfed some roasted peanuts.

Last night, after four consecutive meals at the same crap restaurant, Jonas and I decided enough was enough, and told the guide we were going to eat elsewhere. So, we went to the Lhasa Hotel and overpaid to eat yak burgers and fries. So good. Tonight we might try Lhasa's only French restaurant, just because we can.

There's more to type, but there's also more to see, so I'm gonna go outside now. Later, dudes.