China - Day 4

May 16, 2008

Last night was the best night of sleep yet - I woke up around 4 and finally got up around 5. We had breakfast and headed out for the day. Our first stop was to see the Olympic Stadium. They are really excited here for the Olympics -there are countdown signs everywhere. There are billboards talking about how it is a civic duty to make these games a success....Two suggestions I have for that....get rid of the smog and the traffic. That is all it will take. Oh wait...make that three suggestions - how could I forget about the bathroom situation?

We were only about a mile away from the stadium and we could barely see it - the smog was so thick.

We then headed to the Lama Temple - a buddist temple. We saw large buddah statues and many people praying to them. It was very peaceful - except for all the tourists.

Next stop - Temple of Heaven. This is where I would hang out if I lived in Beijing and had no job. It was a big park - with people playing games and signing and dancing. Everyone seemed to be having so much fun. It was really humid today. That was making me really tired - we have a big day tomorrow and I don't want to get too tired out - so we took it kind of slow and just relaxed.

After this we headed back to the hotel. Trevor and I decided to play it safe - there was a Pizza Hut right next to the hotel and while we don't normally eat there at home, it seemed like a safe bet here. It turned out to be good - we ate almost a whole pizza and had a yummy ice cream sundae for dessert.

Tomorrow will be an early day - bus leaves at 4 am. We went to the room and were in bed at 6 - our intent was to just watch TV - instead, we were fast asleep by 6:15...sweet sleep.