Does it Look Like I Need a New Coach Handbag?

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Ok, this site is finally working. On Oct. 8th we fley into Beijing, the flight was 17 hours long, but really wasn't that bad. Our hostel was in a section of Beijing called Lamp City, which is actually the largest home improvement store in the world. The first day we were there we tried to use the bus and got lost and just walked around the city for hours looking for the Temple of Heaven. We finally found it and had our first experice with the getting ripped off by the government. They made us pay twice to visit the temple, but whatever. They temple was kind of a disappointment becuase they just remodeled it for the 2008 Olympics and it looked like it was built last week, but apparently it's really old. The next day we went to Tiananmen Square, and I did a cartwheel to prove to my fiends that I would do it. Tiananmen square is actually quite a festive place complete with neon lights and dancing fountains that go along with music. Actually they are putting up neon lights and dancing fountains everywhere in China. I guess it has something to do with a desire to be like Las Vegas, I don't know. We also went to an unrestored section of the Great Wall and did some hiking. Scott almost picked up a deadly centipede, but realized what he was doing at the last second. Oh we also had to pay three times for the Great Wall. We then decided we had had enough of Beijing and spent our last day at IKEA and the mall. We gladly left Beijing and went to Pingyao which is an small ancient city in a coal mining and farming area. It was really interesting, the city hasn't changed much in the past 500 years and they still have a city wall. we spent a few days there with our friend Nina who moved to China from North Carolina and has been living here for the past 4 years. I don't know what is wrong with her. I thought I was a masochist just for visiting this place. Actually I was offered a really good job here making a lot of money and I thought about taking it. So I guess she's not that crazy. We also went to a 1200 year old temple in the area, which was dead, because Chinese people don't seem to be very religious. Except for the Christians and Muslims. They are very religious. We also went to Mount Mienshan which is supposed to be a sacred daoist mountain, but it was actually just an odd place with a 500 foot fiberglass snake and a walkthrough Hell cave on top of a mountain. It was really weird but we enjoyed it. We wen't to Xi'an for a day which is actually a very nice, modern city with every thing we have in America. They even banned carhorns in most of the city so it is very quiet. We then cought the new sky train to Tibet, after filling out a lot of paper work and running around to different offices and paying alot of money. The train was really cool, and they gave us oxygen masks for the high altitude sections of the train. Oh on another note the air in China is really dirty, they say just breathing is equivalent to smoking 20-30 cigarettes a day. but we are in Tibet now and the air is very clean(and thin) it is very beautiful here and the people are really nice. Lhasa, the capital of Tibet is surrounded by huge snow capped mountains. We visited the holiest temple in Tibet this morning and it was really amazing to see the devotion of the pilgrims, we are about to go to a really big monestary outside of town and tomorrow we will go to the Potala Palace. We are also trying to find people to go to Nepal with us, because we will have to charter a land rover for about 4 days to get there and it is quite expensive, so I am walking around with a sign on my back that says, "Need People for Nepal" hopefully it will work.

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