Beautiful Gardens

Today was an adventure, we took a van way outside the city and visited some ancient gardens. It was so beautiful and there is just no way to describe it. I will have to post the pictures, because its just so hard to explain. In between the gardens we went to a local zoo and saw some very sad animals. It was hard for me to listen to the sympathy towards the animals coming from others, when there has been so many dead things gobbled up for meals.  It just boggles my mind how humans place values on different animals.  No one wanted to eat the little kitten at the hostel, but its perfectly fine to chow down on some baby duckling. Everyone moans at the dogs at the pet store, but then licks the flesh off pigs feet at dinner.  There is so much artificial love coming from humans,  its hard to comprehend.  I am in no way judging others for the choices they make. Rather, I am disheartened by the fact that the human race has not pushed past our primitive traits. Where is the love? 

Now to rant about something else. Bicycles and lazy Americans. Every city we have visited on this trip is just packed with bicycles. Entire families riding on single bikes while balancing groceries, jugs of water, appliances and home furniture. If the Chinese can do it, so can Americans.  Every country I have visited the people have a better understanding of how useful a bicycle is. Not only is it blatantly obvious that its healthy, but also it costs ZERO money! There is no parking fees, little to no repair costs, no gas, no smog, and in general you feel good about riding one. But for some reason Americans just do not understand. Instead people choose to drive ten minutes everyday to work, or the grocery store, instead of the twenty it would take on a bike.  The stereotype the rest of the world has towards Americans IS true, it is generally a country full of lazy, overweight people.  Can we take a step back and look at our excessiveness, and realize that most of the rest of the world lives with a fraction of the amount we do?  If there is one thing I have learned from my 21 years on this earth, its what goes around comes around, and our extreme excessiveness, materialism and wastefulness is going to catch up with us.  Where is the love for this place we all call home?