Currently wearing it

Day 4,

Its only the fourth day and I am already a day behind. My goal was to post last night after I got back from clubbing, but that, lets face it, was obviously not going to happen.

Yesterdy I forced myself out of bed at noon and went, along with my hangover, into the city with the intention of going to see the llama temple. (I say intention because things did not work out that way). I also say forced since going anywhere in this city is a huge struggle between you and the evil thing that is the subway / beijing traffic. first you have to walk 2o mins to the nearest ditie (subway stop), then ride the stupid thing until you have forgotten where you were even going in the first place, get off, remember where you were going, then walk around aimlessly for another 20 minutes in the scorching heat until you find it, if you are lucky. To compound this, many places in the city require both a cab AND the subway, so then you get to deal with traffic and drives who try and take you

in giant circles as well.

Anyway...

After this epic struggle against public transportation, I arrived at the llama temple, tired to buy a ticket for 25 Kuai, and realized that I only had 15 due to my monster breakfast from four in the morning the night before. Trying to find a bank in china is about as bad as public transport. By the time I found one I had to go meet Alex at Yashou, a big market where you can buy everything under the sun for a few Kuai. The area around the llama temple was really beautiful

though, and actually had TREES, a rarity for beijing. There were groups of old me sitting under the trees playing majong, and countless stores selling incense and other buddhist wares. It was a really nice change from the modern section of the city.

Went to Yashou and engaged in a battle with the sunglass sellers to get a pair of hot pink Kanye sunglasses which were a big hit at the club later that night. We went to Banana, the dance floor bounces, so it is a little strange, but the sound system was great and they had some interesting entertainment... (cage dancers of both sexes.. it was strange). I ended up talking to an Iranian athlete for a long time about Sharia law, which was really interesting, but then I managed to drop my glass and break it all over him, so he was not happy and that was the end of our convo.

I'm going to go back into the city now and actually try and make it to the llama temple this time.

Ciao

L