Day 1 Adventures

It's 2:30 pm on the 19th here right now. Yes- it is my BD and yes I am old. Thanks for your BD greetings:)

We got out of bed and ate a great breakfast. It is interesting to have rice, dumplings, a wide variety of fruits and vegetables, pastries and even California rolls. I basically ate lunch rather then breakfast.

The day is foggy and gray, pretty cold- maybe 30-35- and it doesn't seem like it has rained here in a while because the snow on the sidewalks is all covered with dirt- like eastern Washington gets in the winter. The city has the appearance of being dirty when it may not be. The fog gives the appearance of being smog- but I think it may be just socked in???

The smells remind me of a cross between India and Ethiopia- kind of diesel mixed with kerosene. I was really hoping for the food to be wafting out into the streets but they may be locked down tight because of the cold.

We went with our guide to see the Temple of Heaven and took a tour.





It is a huge expanse- I think he said it was around 600 acres. The locals and non locals come out between 6a and noon and visit, sing, pray-maybe- and visit some more. Apparently when you retired this is a place to hang out and visit with your friends. They are doing things like line dancing, waltzing, a salsa like thing and playing hacky-sack with something that looks like a birdie. We jumped in and the old people are way better than we are- they had a good laugh.









We went to lunch at a dumpling place and are stuffed. Compared to what we ordered the locals must not have to eat for a coupe of days. They ordered at least twice what we did, finished it all and we left a good batch of ours. I am way bigger than the next closest person in the restaurant- so size is not the issue here.










I think we are going to take a nap- as you need to keep up on your rest in situations like this or you add to the chance of getting sick and I don't want either of us to be sick. So we'll catch up on some reading and rest- that's something we don't do a lot of. I wore my sling today because yesterday with all the airport stuff I left it off and I was pretty sore.

BTW- we miss all of your spiritual conversation. It is difficult to not have that type of conversation- and we are on day one. History is fine, learning about past rulers and why they built this temple and use this color and that number just doesn't have much interest to me. I am not being disrespectful- I guess I am just wanting more eternal things.

Why did He choose to save some and leave so many in darkness? Why was I not born here? Why do we get to have "Vince" but so many kids will remain here? So many hard question that I have no answers for.

Living on unseen things. Tomorrow is the day. Couldn't go today- we tried.