Thanks a lot for reading! Thanks for the tips as well. I am new to forums in general, and do a bit of work writing for travel magazines, sometimes linking to my blog, so I have been unfamiliar with the ride report posting format. In the future, I will post them as you said, as they are much easier to read on the forums. Pardon the newb linking!

As a side note, anyone can see all of the pictures on the picasa link at the top of the blog post. Thank you to everyone for reading. I hope to do a bit more writing for you guys when I get back to the middle kingdom!