Xiangji Temple

Finally, I am going to post pictures.  Doing a blog is so new to me, I am still figuring out how to work it.  It takes me forever to get motivated.  I have tired to figure out how to post video's but no luck there.  I wish I could use You Tube, it would make things so much easier.  I found a couple of sites but they only allowed me to upload two video's, which seemed like a waste.  So no video's.  The internet here, at their apartment, isn't always very reliable.

Two weeks ago on Thursday the weather was really nice.  The prefect day for a bike ride.  Katie, the girls, and I went to see a Chinese Temple.  The temple was really neat.  We were only allowed to take pictures outside.  I wish I could take pictures inside, they had really cool giant statues of buddhas and cannons.  Some were craved out of wood, but the largest and most fearsome character was golden. They had to have been 12 to 20 feet tall.

Here are some pictures of the ride over and around the temple.

I love the look on Sariah's face.

We found out later that building is a restaurant boat.

The Xiangji Temple.

This is the courtyard of the temple.  It had about eight different building and each has a giant statue in it.

Showing that the doors are taller and me.  Unlike in Japan.

Since I wasn't allowed to take pictures inside I thought the best I can do is take a picture of a picture.  This is one of the statues we saw.  It's gorgeous and the colors of this particular one are so bright. The tiled background was especially impressive.  It is incredible.

My beginnings in China

I have been in China for a week now but it feels like its been a lot longer than that.

I have some sad sad news.  Yesterday Katie and I went to the junk market, which was pretty cool, but when we were leaving I lost my camera.  I don't know if it fell out of my pocket or if someone pick pocketed me.  I took a picture of Katie and the girls and I can't remember what I did with it next.  We had only walked about 500 meters when we came up to a store that made customized sweaters.  I thought I would take a picture of all the choices of yarn.  That's when I realized it was gone.  I emptied my pockets, my bag and the bags of things we purchased.  We quickly retraced our steps.  I knew we weren't going to find it in a city of 8 million people but I had to try.  No luck.  Katie even called her friend Sarah to ask how to say camera in Chinese.  Katie went up to different people to ask if they had seen the camera. But they had no idea what she was asking.  Most of people thought she was asking where to buy one.  They all pointed in different directions. We looked for almost an hour.

It's funny I didn't really feel too sad.  Earlier that day I had a feeling at different times that I not keep my camera in my coat pocket.  I also felt like I should maybe not take it out of the house.  But of course I didn't listen to those feelings.  Even at nights I thought I should put the pictures on my computer but I was to lazy and tired.  Which is so not like me.  I had the same feelings before I lost my Ipod's.  So the whole time we were looking I thought to myself that I haven't learned my lesson.  I am not letting myself get too sad about it because it is what it is.  There is nothing that I can do about it.  I try to not think of the pictures I had taken.

After our search, we decided to go catch a taxi.  That was impossible. That time in the afternoon most taxi companies change drivers and if you aren't going in their direction they turn you down. Every taxi that stopped for us, Katie would tell them where we needed to go (Baochu Bei Lu).  They all said no.  It was pretty frustrating and the girls were tired.  Sariah felt so discriminated against.   She asked "Why do all the Chinese get a taxi?  Why no us English people?"  Eventually we decided to walk to the bus stop to catch a bus.  The good thing about that was there were seats for us to sit because a lot of the time the bus's are so full we have to stand.

Sariah has a lot of faith that my camera will be returned and she said the most sincere prayer regarding my camera. It would be great if the person with the camera looked through the pictures and saw the name of the university where we live and brought the camera to me. I know that is not likely at all, but it would be nice.

The pictures I was going to post were from going to West Lake, shopping at the junk market, riding bikes in  around town, shopping on a historical street, a giant buddha, people coming up to take pictures of us but mainly the girls, Sariah sitting on my feet while waiting for the bus, the vegetable market,  and lots more.