Day 16

Today was a little bit slower for me as most of the day was spent in meetings. I gave a presentation on some of the differences between the swine industry and the barns I had been in the last week. It was cool to see how everyone had such an interest in learning about how to improve their operations. This afternoon we drove back to Xian. We spent some time at a Buddhist monastery. The monastery had a tourist attraction site connected on it. It was huge not as interesting as the monastery though. Although the monastery did not show the actual historic relics which was very disappointing. However, this seems to be common in China. It is interesting to see the difference between our religions. It is saddening that people could be miss led to believe as they do. It was interesting to drive through the countryside again though. They had orchard after orchard of apple trees where we went. The province, Shandong, produces 60% of the worlds apple juice supply. They actually cover every single apple with a bag to detour insects. I was once again reminded of the amount of construction going on in China. We saw high-rise cranes for mile and miles today. They are mostly building apartment buildings that are around 50 stories high. For dinner today, we had several pork dishes. They were mostly cooked on a stick. They all were very spicy, so right up my alley. Tonight for supper we had several beef dishes. It was similar to a HuHot but they cooked the food at your table.