P offered a simple breakfast of granola bars and we sat around chatting again. For some reason, we started talking about calligraphy. It gave him an idea. He suggested I can go visit Guo Zi Jian(国子监）. According to P, this is the highest level of education one can receive from the Qing dynasty imperial court. I think of it as the Qing dynasty grad school:) P figure there might be some stone tablets of calligraphy there which I will enjoy.
Guo Zi Jian is right next to Kong temple(孔庙） which I had visit on my previous trip to Beijing. I must have arrive on a bad day, since everything at Guo Zi Jian is under construction. Much to my disappointment, there wasn't really much to see. The only stone tablet I found was one by Zhao Men Fu(赵孟頫）. I am not even sure if it is an orignal, since the stone tablet is not protect at all, someone had taken the liberty of carving some random lines onto the stone tablet:( 
After about half an hour at Guo Zi Jian, I am pretty much done! P had suggested having lunch at a vegetarian place across the street from Guo Zi Jian call Xu Siang Zhai(叙香斋). An excellent choice! They were serving a buffet lunch of all vegetrain items, with various faux meat and fish. I regretted not taking any photos, but the food look so real! The buffet had almost 50-60 varieties of food, including sushi, congee, dumplings, soups and deserts. The food is not overly season, which is a rarity in Chinese vegetarian cuisine and I enjoy it very much.After lunch, it was time to head home to P, and from there, catch a cab to the airport for my flight home.
This silk road trip is definitely a blast. The highlight were the terracotta Warriors and Dun Huang Murals. During the couple of days where we traveled with the tour group, we certainly did not eat as much good, local food as I would prefer, but overall, it has not been to shabby too. Our tour guides and the locals we met were all very friendly and I had a really good time.
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