back in beijing... and thanks to all of you loyal readers who send me emails! (arv, jt, ian, jeanny, mon-- you guys rock!) today and yesterday were a mixed bag in china. some things were very very cool like seeing the terra cotta warriors in xi'an and washing my own laundry by hand... others weren't as cool--- most notably losing my wallet on a bus. =( doh!

for those of you who don't know me that well... i hate to lose things. i often obsess over a misplaced set of keys or a pen that i am trying to find. i had realized that my wallet slipped out of my shorts probably 5 minutes after departing the bus. thankfully, i never keep any money in my wallet-- so the only damage that was done is that i'll not have access to my credit cards until i get home. that and i'll probably have to stand in line at the dmv to get a new driver's license. it could have been much much worse. i usually keep my passport and money on me-- or in my backpack so i wasn't too upset about the loss.

today was a much better day. we flew in from xi'an this morning and relaxed for a bit in our hotel room in beijing before checking out some of the neat shopping districts. i'm still working on my 'chinese' bargaining skills but hopefully i'll be able to get some good deals before i return home. so far i've spent about 600 bucks in 12 days in china including a pair of plane tickets and a pair of train tickets. not too shabby but i've still got to pick up all of those gifts!

i think tomorrow we are going to a theatre performance in beijing which should be very cool. hopefully we'll also get to attend some of the world university games that are also taking place in town. i can't think of anything better than seeing yao ming and the rest of the chinese national team in person.

alright... that is it for now. still have lots of emails to write and its after midnight in a smokey internet cafe. oh, just an fyi-- i'm not married yet and i haven't really talked to any cute natives. sorry for letting you all down. the closest that i've gotten to a wife were the prostitutes in xi'an that were constantly calling our hotel room. it got so 'bad' that i had to unplug the room phone. =) see ya.