Knicker Snickers

Hello from Lanzhou! It is polluted and hot here, but we were expecting that. It isn't helping my cold though. We are killing time, waiting for the train to Jiayuguan.

Lanzhou is okay, not great, just okay. There isn't a whole lot to see around here and the city is kind of ugly. We did make it out to see Binglingsi - another big Buddha carved on the side of a cliff type of thing. But it was a cool ride out there - mini bus and speed boat. This one was better preserved than some of the other sites as its remote location spared it from the Red Army during the Cultural Revolution which sadly destroyed many of China cultural relics. You can only go out to see it when the water level of the Yellow River is high enough.

Other than that, we attempted to go to another Provincial Museum and like before we were denied. I think there must be something going on at all of the provincial museums, everyone we have tried to go to has been closed. The city museum was okay, but not too exciting. There was a cool little pagoda, but there are many cool little pagodas in China. We were thinking about taking the chair lift up the mountain, but the smog is so bad we won't be able to see anything anyhow and might as well save the money for something worth while.

But, I must tell you all, I have some very bad news. It seems that, sigh, knickers are the "IT" wear for the summer season here. I can't even begin to tell you how stupid they look and how mad I get when I see them. Seriouly, unless you are 3 and don't know any better or a little dutch boy, knickers really don't have any business on anyone. Now, I know my mother would like to tell you all that even I had a pair of these maddening, blooming short pants (I think they were purple). Yeah, I know. But, I must point out that in my particular case this fashion faux pas falls into the youthful ignorance category rather than the delusional, "this is a hip trend" one. I wish that I could even begin to describe just how absolutely ridiculous they look on adults. Really, I do. But I just don't think that my language abilities allow me to capture all of the angst this particular fashion is causing me. I am not the biggest fan of capri pants either, but they never really made me angry. Yes, these pants actually make me feel anger and, well, sometimes they make me laugh/cry because they're dumb.

What else...

I think prostitutes have been calling our room. Yup. We had been getting calls between 7 - 11 PM in our hotel room. All women. All would say a super sugary sweet, "Ni hao!" before I said, "hello, what do you want?" in English. They - giggling. Me - hang up phone. Matt told me about how some prostitutes will call rooms at random for business.

Anyhow, I know it's summer and you all have a ton of other things to do besides sitting at the computer, but drop me a line or a comment sometime - we're a little e-lonely. And sorry for typos and misspellings, I am back to internet cafes and Chinese programs.