good morning to you from beijing. i just purchased my plane ticket to hong kong for wednesday so it looks like my days in china are numbered. yesterday was a good day spent relaxing and checking out some of the finer things in beijing. we went to the temple of heaven in the morning which was the location where the emperor would go to open the winter and spring seasons. the temple was the location where he prayed to heaven to make sure the harvests were fruitful. very cool stuff. because the area was smaller than the imperial palace or the great wall-- the tourist trap nature of the place was a bit more evident.

in the evening we attended a decent dance performance called 'heaven & earth'. although the show wasn't great it was fun to see the beijing social scene come out to support its own event. we got a free upgrade to our seats-- to the 7th row, center... so that was kind of nice.

today, i've got a meeting with a web ticketing company out here. i think it will be very interesting to see how they run their operation. hopefully both i and the company will be able to learn from one another. alright. hope everybody stateside had a great weekend! talk with you all soon.