Okay, my feet are starting to hurt!

Kristin and I have been trekking all over Beijing. Yesterday we went to the World Museum of Art. They were displaying sculpture from Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Unfortunately, all the information on the sculpture was in Chinese. I knew a lot about the some of the works of art, but it would have been nice to be able to read the info about it.

On an aside note, I have found that museums and malls don't take VISA. I have no idea why and it has been a bit of an inconvenience. What can you do?!?

After the museum, we went to the zoo. This seemed like a good idea even though the Lonely Planet did say it was very prison like. It was what you would expect for a zoo, except that the water in some of the attractions was filthy dirty. As well, after I went to see the tiger's, I wanted to cry. The animals were in these prison-like cells, in a dark lit room. People were taking pictures and the flash from the cameras made the animals seem like they had a permanent twitch. I agree with the Lonely Planet's assessment of this zoo, it does have areas that are very prison-like.

We headed back to the hostel after that and had a shower and dinner and then foot massage. Something to that extent. We have met some great people. Zack and Niki were very helpful during out first shopping expedition. We are going back to the same place on Saturday. As well, I met Tertius and his girlfriend, who her name escapes me at the moment. They were very nice and we had a good chat about their trip and mine and things in general. They taught me this great card game and it was fun to socialize with other people. Then I met Sean from Manchester who is back packing by himself so we hung out for a bit. We both had to get an early start so we finally called it a night.

Today (Friday), we spent the day at the Forbidden City. I really should say in the Forbidden City. It was HUGE!!! We got a audio tour guide and that was helpful, but a lot of it is under construction, which was not factored into that tour. We walked and walked and walked some more. We eventually called it a day and headed for the Temple of Heaven. We saw the Echo Wall and a couple of other places whose names escape me at the moment.

We staggered back to our hostel and showered the filth off ourselves. It's been pretty smoggy here. It's a lot closer to the ground than Seoul. At the moment, I am trying to upload my pics to safe them in 2 places, but it's taking FOREVER. Oh well, I have taken a lot of pictures, of which I will post eventually.

Tomorrow we are going SHOPPING. YAY!!! Right now I need to figure out what to do for dinner. Laters.