Then Two Days Inside

When we last left our band of intrepid adventurers, I believe it was after the acrobatics show, right? It better be, because I just checked. The last few days haven't been incredibly eventful, but they've still been interesting. They've followed very much the same format: Classes in the morning, lunch, something for a couple hours in the afternoon, then dinner and sleep. Those "somethings for a couple hours" were really great cultural experiences, though, so here are the stories.
The first afternoon was calligraphy. It's a very interesting art form, a lot more deep and meaningful than Western calligraphy, because each Chinese character holds so much more meaning than letters or words in the West. Brush painting was the day after, and it was a similar experience. I put a couple pictures on Flickr of both. The night after brush painting we watched Hero. If you haven't seen it, do so, it's spectacular.
Then today we had the opportunity to meet and talk with Wang Bing, the writer of Hero and several others directed by Zhang Yimo. I don't know why I wasn't flipping out all over the place, but it was amazing to sit right across the table from someone involved in a project like that and ask him whatever questions we wanted. Unfortunately at that point I forgot the ones I had thought of to ask, but it was still neat. Got a picture and an autograph, so that's pretty sweet :)
Tomorrow we get to visit a middle school and Tai Chi class, then the day after we leave for Xi'an. Already, I know! I can't believe it's going so fast... I'm not sure how long it'll take to get internet set up or worked out, so after tomorrow posts may be a while. See you in Xi'an!