smoke gets in your eyes

I'm in Xi'an! And I finally got to take a train ride and the scenery is amazing! I've been waiting years to take an overnight train. The only drawback is that I now feel dizzy ten hours later from the ride. Xi'an is such an interesting place. I thought it was going to be a small little town the size of Myton but it turns out to be larger than downtown Los Angeles! It's just a lot cleaner with a few more Asians.

Today we visited the foster home and got to hold cute little Asian babies. It's so sad to hear about the conditions in the state orphanages. I guess fifty percent die before any get to leave, and they have children up to age 14 living there! There are enormous fees for adopting and the process requires going through a state agency which is supposedly really restrictive.

On a lighter note, after we left the foster home we ate lunch. I had blood soup (YUK!) and what I thought was ribs. Yeah, it wasn't ribs. Liz's uncle joked that it was rabbit, and I was actually okay with that. It's turns out I was eating little toto (well, I supposed by the size of the bones). I guess all I have left on my list of things to eat is monkey brains! Haha.

I'm in an internet cafe now trying to access articles that are in a adobe pdf format but no one in China seems to use the software! It's so smokey and dingy in this place that I am even dizzier and my eyes are burning to the point of watering. It's kind of fun though, heeh.

Well, the next time I get to write I should be in Shanghai! Love you all and miss you!