Oh, and speaking of Endangered Species...

I always used to like to look at bugs under glass. You know, the little shadow boxes that you can see at the State Fair with the way cool iridescent beetles that are as big as your fist? (Okay, they were at the Wisconsin State Fair about ten years ago, anyway...)

Then I ran into this booth in the Chatuchak Market in Bangkok...



The booth was about twenty by twenty feet, and was piled floor to ceiling with bugs in plastic. Framed bugs, encased bugs, mounted bugs, you name it. And underneath the display shelves, more and more stacks of boxes. Full of bugs.





Now, I'm no expert in the beetle keychain industry, but I've got to wonder - how sustainable is this, exactly...? And for what purpose? (Besides still looking cool in a creepy kind of State Fair science geek Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of way, that is.) And what will the archaeologists think a couple of thousand years from now? Ah, the dilemmas of our modern rain forest-straight-to-WalMart existence...

Fortunately, there will always be pictures of lenticular puppies once the beetles go extinct:

Landed!

Okay everyone, I'm officially back, as of yesterday. Had a great time showing my mom around Beijing and Xi'an last week and am now Officially Done Traveling. Well, no airplanes on the schedule for the foreseeable future, anyway...

(a note: Officially Done Traveling doesn't necessarily mean Officially Caught Up With Everything, so I'm sticking with the randomly selected photo from the archives for the time being...)