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I’ve always been a big fan of the Houston Rockets but became an even bigger fan when they were able to recruit Yao Ming!  The team’s top players include Tracy McGrady (aka T-Mac) and Yao Ming.  Its amazing how big these guys are in real life!

Below I’ve managed to take a few classic shots including Yao Ming going for a block, T-Mac ready to dunk,

The Rockets play at the Toyota Center which is one of the state-of-the-art stadiums in the NBA.  The only reminder of their prior facility (the Compaq Center) are the banners that float overhead.  They’re also reminders of the championship years of 1993-1994 and 1994-1995.  Matt Bullard (player from the Championship years) was also there and I took a quick picture of him observing the game.

China is not a country - it’s a whole different world. From shop-till-you-drop metropolises to the epic grasslands of Inner Mongolia, with deserts, sacred peaks, astounding caves, and imperial ruins in between. Thank Buddha, management recently stopped destroying temples. Now they rip down mountains and poison rivers instead. But there’s still plenty to see once you’ve mastered the art of bulldozing your way through crowds and decorating footpaths, buses and restaurants with spit of every color and consistency known to humankind. Unless you have a couple of years and unlimited patience, it’s best to follow a loose itinerary here, such as Beijing to Tibet via Xian’s terracotta warriors, following the Silk Road route, sailing down the Yangzi River, or exploring the Dr. Seuss landscape of Guangxi Province.

The third-largest country in the world, China is bounded to the north by the deserts of Mongolia, to the west by the inhospitable Tibetan plateau and Himalaya, and to the east by the East and South China seas. China’s 22 provinces and five autonomous regions are governed from Beijing, along with some 5000 islands. Hong Kong and Macau have now returned to the fold as Special Administrative Regions (SAR). Disputed territories are dotted near and far around China’s south-east coast. Taiwan - which is bound to be next on China’s shopping list - is the best known. Then there’s the oil-rich Spratly Island group which every country in the region wants to suck dry, the Diaoyutai Islands (known as Senkaku to the Japanese), the Paracels (or Xisha, if China gets its way), and the Pescadores (or Penghu).