My Way or the Highway!

In search of adventure, there's no place to which the minions of Ming will not venture! Since Ming himself is far too important to leave the Palace for a weekend jaunt, his considerate subjects send him snapshots from their own adventures ranging through mysterious lands both far-flung and unexplored! So far, Ming's minions have sent in exotic images from the forests of Southern Formosa, a forgotten land the local tribes call "Minnesota," the bustling, giant-insectoid-filled byways of the Gold Mountain, and the rocky Mohonk Preserve in upstate New York!

Upstate New York, Summer 2002

That Friday night had seen a thunderstorm. The next day, Haniel and his brother Sig came across a small fire at the top of a mountain in the Mohonk Preserve. How marvelous!

Vertical
Sig bitched and moaned about how steep it was until the mutant radioactive squirrel lunged at his only bag of trail mix. "NOOOOOO BAD squirrel!" What followed was like South Park, Mortal Kombat, and the climax of North by Northwest all at once.
Breather
Han's tripod had long telescoping legs and declared: "Throw me anywhere and I will stand." The safest way up had been marked with yellow paint.
Survey
Some day, all of this will be mine.

Medievalist Times

Kris and John's further adventures in Minnesota.

Wedding
"Don't get all bitter again about how I did it on your birthday." Preposterous! The Ever-Imperturbable Ming knows not the meaning of the word bitter! And he never sulks either!
Signs
". . . hiking in the still very cold Minnesota spring (the ice is still on the lake and the trees have not yet budded. It was early June)."
Suburbia
"Keep in touch and we'll keep you posted on our further adventures in home improvement, cold climate gardening, and bringing down the property value in the neighborhood."

Cali, Summer 2002

Sig had a conference in Long Beach and Mimi had an old friend in LA, so two cousins from opposite ends of the earth decided to make their way to the Gold Mountain!

Cookies
"Hey, Andy, thanks for letting us stay at your place, man! YAAAWWNN! Guess I'll just get comfortable here . . . What, your cookies? I think Mimi ate them."
Flik
Sig's cousin caught up with her big ant, who said, "Aiya, how'd you get so small, you must not be eating enough! And are you depressed over something? You don't look blue at all!"
Mulholland
Mimi: Was it really that good a movie?
Sig: Yes! Can we come back after dark and bring flashlights?
Mimi: No! Can we go shopping now?
Wen
Wen and her family took Mimi and her strange cousin to a great Korean restaurant. The food was dangerously spicy, but the LA Fire Department did an admirable job and got almost everyone out. I guess those sirens were kinda loud for the baby though.
Hair
At the time, Sig thought this was gonna be the greatest picture ever!
Path
Right off Mulholland Drive, there was a neat hiking trail that overlooked Laurel Canyon. Sig reports: "Right after we took this picture, a bear appeared, but he wandered off after I smote him."
Mi Piace
Some more of Mimi and Sig's friends in that strange western realm, Elsa and Andy appeared quite normal on the outside. But among their many odd ways was a diet which almost exclusively consisted of TV dinner's and martini's.
Quake!
Ever the daredevil, Sig even took this dramatic shot of an actual California earthquake which, they found out later, had registered a whopping 9.9 on the Richter Scale! Will nothing frighten this intrepid photographer? Time alone will tell!

Taiwan, Summer 2002

Kris modestly reports: "The nature was very obliging, so I take little credit myself for the quality. My liege."

Eternal Spring Temple
If Sig had found this place back in 1992, would he have stayed in Taipei and shaved his head?
Hornbill
This dignified hornbill in its native valley reminds Ming of his magnificent Gyaos.

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