Catch Up - Xian

Message to Parents - the blog is now one day behind due to transfers between Xian and Shanghai - we will catch up on Monday.  Kathryn

August 7

Today we saw an art gallery. Art is much more meaningful to me than many of the other things we have seen in China, because the idea of art during a period comes from a collective of people often very different people with different ideas in mind. Seeing the art museum is meaningful for a few reasons:

- arts transcends the language barrier, so I can understand the culture and thoughts of the people easier
- I was able to learn new artistic techniques and broaden my view on how to draw different ideas.

Chinese art is especially important to me, because it's so foreign.

Next we went to see the Wild Goose Pagoda. It's pretty hot today, so after we climbed lots of stairs we bought drinks and ice cream. You can never really appreciate ice cream until you're suffering a Chinese heat wave!! Next we are heading shopping. Since I didn't know we would be able to buy artwork (which I did!!), I didn't bring very much yuan along with me, I wish I had of brought more!

For lunch Nelle's Belles (my shopping group) ate at Pizza Hut (where I spend the rest of my yuan I had with me), then we hit the market place. There were shops with secret rooms full of treasures (knock off purses) and birds that some choristers fanned in the heat. We saw everything from turtles to crickets to Mao alarm clocks being sold.

A lot of us ate supper at Subway. After so much Chinese food, most of our stomachs had shrunk so much that the foot longs now exceeded the capacity of our stomachs! It's an early rise tomorrow to get our flight to Shanghai. I hope it's as nice as Xi'an.

Sarah O.W.
ps Mom & Dad, I can't find calling cards.