day 3 - kung fu and big sleep in

wow - a good long sleep is always a welcome thing on a fun-packed holiday in a foreign place!

last night we saw an amazingly elecrifying and energetic show called the legend of kung fu. amazing choreography and sound track. very professionally done and we had a great time. after the show we walked through the rain, jumped on a local bus, caught the subway back to the hotel then went in search of a massage place for jane. didn't find any. instead we found a local public gym in the street and we did a little workout there at 11pm. moira, one of the girls on our tour group, came with us.

some impressions of china:

• a land of contrasts -- dirty and messy in some parts (eg, some back streets), ordered and clean in others (eg, subway)
• strictness and casualness mixed together

i'm trying to learn a little bit more chinese -- but often it's so much easier to just let jane do the talking since she has some language.

today's our last day in beijing. planning to vistit the "beijing normal university" and the "temple of heaven". plus catch up with some friends and encourage them. tomorrow we're off to the great wall -- a big 2 days with some hiking. that will be the first long stretch of time we have with our group, so some storming and norming of group dynamics are in the works.

"where is duff?" i hear you ask. (duff is the greek textbook we've taken along so jane can study for her greek exam right after we get back). well, he's been with us -- yesterday he was photographed at the beijing national theatre (aka "alien mother-ship landing on water") and he was also seen in a hutong. watch this space for some pics (when i can manage to get them off the camera).

something else interesting... we can't actually see our blog from here because that website is blocked by the great firewall of china. :)