More news from my (20 yo) "baby" in China...

Hey daddio, I'll let you forward this to everyone else. :P

I'm in Xi'an and absolutely amazed by the history here! It is astonishing. Xi'an has a 600 year old city wall, which is not at all old in comparison to ruins from 1,500+ years ago. I am really excited to go out and see all the sights... including the terracota warriors.

I'm sure you heard about he 5.8 aftershock that hit earlier. Xi'an did feel it, but no damage. I was actually in the air when the aftershock hit. So all is well :)

So I have to say, nobody mentioned how hard it would be to climb the Great Wall. That thing climbs into the mountains, and there are portions of it where it feels like the steps are going straight up. I had to brace myself on the slippery rocks a few times :P But the view is spectacular, I got a little emotional because I was just so excited to finally be there.

Oh, and Tianamen Square is not all its cracked up to be... it just has a 15 foot picture of Mao (I took lots of pictures). It was interesting though because when we all got there, people wandering around stopped and gathered around us because I don't think they are used to seeing so many foreigners in one group. One old woman actually stood in front of our circle and had her picture taken.

After Tianamen Square we went to the Forbidden City. the history of that place is simply fascinating, and the architects put so much thought into how to properly construct it to show respect to the emperor and his consorts. It is absolutely huge; they weren't lying when they said it had 9,999 rooms.

Ok, so after we did all our stuff in Beijing, we went to this little village about 4 hours outside of Beijing called Gengcun. this village is famous for its storytelling. When we got there, the villagers were all waiting for us and the women of the village started dancing for us. It was a pretty easy dance so many of us joined in, including myself. It was a blast. The villagers were all so welcoming, and all the little children were so excited to see foreigners. It was funny though, we were split up into separate groups to go to different households with interpreters to hear the villagers stories. These stories were so amusing and inventive. I'll tell them to when I get back. Now the funny part was that after the women had told a few stories, they asked us to tell a story. We could not think of one and decided to tell The Three Little Pigs. It seemed like they enjoyed and politely clapped afterwards. Later our interpeter told us, the villagers already knew the story. We were completely owned :P Oh and when we were leaving, a little old lady came up to and said "huai lai" repeatedly, which means "come back." The people here really are beautiful, and really any people who can come back from the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, and still have so much spirit.... truly amazing.

So I get to look forward to digging for artifacts (maybe), exploring the history of Xi'an, and then going to Guilin. Oh it'll be so much fun.

I miss everyone, and can't wait to get home. Hope all is well.