Well I got into Beijing safely Sunday evening and I guess since so many of you asked me to bring you back some of the sheep thingies, I'll venture over to the Night Market to pick up a gross (literally!) of them. I'm really surprised some of you said you are going to serve it on Thanksgiving Day, but to each his own!! (OK, enough of the potty humor!) Nice little touch before I left Yangshou. And I swear I didn't say a thing to my guide Amy about my fixations on Buddhas this trip, but she had arranged a car service to the airport for me and so she showed up to see me off. Well before I left she said her and her friends had enjoyed hanging out the night before and as a small gift, they got me a bracelet with all these Buddhas on it! And she said it's for long life and good health! I didn't have the heart to tell her I already had been given 100 years by the Buddha at Longevity Hill so who knows what this will do... 150???? LOL. Nothing real eventful today. Planes were on time. Hostel (I tried a different one in Beijing for just this night) is nice. Probably just going to kick back and relax tonight. My flight on Monday does not leave Beijing until 5:30 PM so I'll have a good chunk of the day to walk around and explore one last time. What's wild about the time difference is that I leave here Monday at 5:30 PM and arrive in Charlotte at 9:30 PM but I will have traveled about 20 hours in duration. Thank God for the "No Jet Lag"pills I've taken in the past. They worked for me on the way over here and on my trip back and forth to Australia. You can get them at www.magellans.com. I swear by them. So since I didn't have any fun pictures from today, I thought I'd share a couple of some of the Chinese animals I met along the way. Both were taken in Shangri-la. One was just a dog with some snow flurries on his coat and the other were some horses with all kinds of Tibetan prayer flags all over them as well as some silk banners that the Tibetas place on things for good luck. So I have to again give a shout out to my Steelers and Panthers! I heard there's a contingent from St. Louis in for the Panthers game so the Big Cat Tailgating should be in prime form! Chug that Panthers juice and go out there and bring back a victory for the Black and Blue (OK, and do an extra shot for the Steelers Black and Gold as well!). Hope everyone has a great Sunday! Jeff PS: I'll be sending one last email tomorrow to finish off my trip (OK, stop cheering!)
The Wandering Italian 