Day 19

I spent the day in Beijing doing a little site seeing and some small things I needed to get done. Geoff and Belinda took me to the Temple of Heaven, which was built in 1420 AD. It was surrounded by nearly 600 acres of grass, trees and walking paths. It was impressive to see the old architecture again! The main building was nearly 120 feet tall! It had several covered corridors and some very wide raised paths. A brick wall surrounded the entire thing. It blows my mind on how much work must have gone into building such vast and magnificent buildings and structures. Another thing that interests me is how many elderly people sit around playing games, often cards or a game similar to chess as far as I have figured out. I also always enjoy talking to Geoff about his experiences here in China. He has done a lot of things here. He has traveled almost all over China through the college or private work. He also took me to a 6-story “mall” that was filled with small vendors who sell everything from clothing, scopes, shoes, personal tailored shirts and suits to electronics knock off watches and knick-knacks. It is always enjoy able to haggle with them although some of them are just not going to hear any of it and get crabby because the white person will not pay more than what it is actually worth. They always start with an exorbitant price and you have to start at nearly 5% of it. Then you joke with them and slowly they will come down. As soon as you are within about 40 or so RMB and they are not moving, you simply turn and start to walk away. The price often drops quickly then. I managed to get a 16 GB memory card for my camera for 40 RMB which is about $6 I paid $15 for a 4GB one in Wal-Mart before I left thinking that would be big enough for this trip. :P I was wrong I have it full after 3 weeks.  I have once again packed for a week of traveling. I managed to hang dry all of my cloths in my room so that I would not smell so bad. It is still super hot here and I am headed farther south again!  It is raining extremely hard here tonight so it is kinda fun to look out my window and enjoy the rain pounding on the roof of my room!