one more gripe. i detest going to touristy places. we went to a famous buddhist temple and since everyone was on vacation, half of china must of been there. it rained in the morning so my white pumas were getting sloshed with mud and the half billion chinese people pushing didn't help matters any. we kept on getting caught up in crowds of tour bus people, along with their guides. who tried to outscream each other. like opposing peppy cheerleaders. you should of seen the parking lot at the rest stop. it was the rome of tour bus cities. and everyone was waiting to use the bathroom. or just the nearby road. whichever one you felt was more sanitary.



there are only so many buddhas a man can see carved into rock, before they all start to look like a murderer's row of chubby granite faces. and imagine the stampede of people rushing to touch a certain monk's bed when it was announced that it had life elongating qualities. the sea of outreached hands (and sharp elbows) made it seem like britney spears was on that bed. naked.



i could really go on forever here. but i won't. we did go to a chinese garden which was pretty cool. the crowd was thin and the rocks there invoked lions. and so, the garden, loosely translated, was called "lion's garden." you lose so much in the translation. it's saddening to realize that i know nothing about chinese architecture. but yet i know about every other civilization's architecture. that might be a bit of an overstatement. but humour me. i can only appreciate the traditional sweep of chinese roofs so much before everything starts to blend together. and then i'm reduced to using trite words like. "nice" "pretty" "ummmm" instead of really understanding what i'm looking at. but i guess beauty should be appreciated. and not educated. although i get bored quickly with just the appreciation part.