We're not in Kansas anymore...

Dear Family and Friends,

Profuse spitting, smog glazed sky, motionless faces, slopping eating, burping after meals, loud tones of speaking, no English tounge, no traffic laws, spiritual vibes, rare smiles, no crime, values and traditions

comprise the 15 million people of Beijing!

We went to the Llama Temple two days ago and were taking away and completely suprised at what we saw. The temple is actually about 5 temples all in a row and to get to the next one you have to walk through each temple. As you progress through each temple the number and sizes of the buddhas inside become larger. We kept saying, "this is the grand daddy," and then another temple would appear and yet another buddha even bigger! But nothing could prepare us for what the last and biggest temple withheld which was a statue of a buddha about 100 ft tall!! I could barely get the whole thing in a picture frame! The temples all had incents and burning fire pits in front of them and the arroma as well as the people praying painted an unimaginable portrait of peacefulness. After walking through the temple we met an Italian girl named Laura and she was insanely gorgeous! We walked with her to another temple around the corner which was the second biggest Confusious Temple in China! Again, this place was amazing and we got Laura to do a jump shot with Jay, his first one!

Later that night we met back up with Laura and her friend Edmound who was from France. We went to a pretty lively area where there were lots of bars surrounded by a lake and got some drinks. We ate at this place I've never seen before where you dip your raw meat into a boiling pot and it cooks it for you and than you eat it. Not bad I must say, and we continued to talk about this and that and how to say Cheers in all of our languages!

Yesterday Jay and I went to a very lively market with all kinds of hand made goods and arts which was really cool. Jay and I both bought some artwork for really cheap that we are going to send home, pending it doesn't cost too much! Speaking of cost, everything is super cheap here, we have been eating extremely well and spending about 60-100 Yuan or anywhere from 5-13 US dollars total for our meal! Well, we are saying bye to our momma cat and her kittens at our hostel and Ema that works here and taking off for our hotel where we'll meet up with the rest of our tour and venture off deep into China and out of the city...

Gumbai,
Grant