hello!! or namaste as they say here in nepal! (cheesy.......)

we arrived in Kathmandu last night and spent today exploring the city! matt got up early and watched the sunrise from the roof of our building with a couple of the locals doing the same from theirs while i slept in... we ate breakfast in the garden of our guest house (hostel/hotel) and then took off toward Durbar Square (old kings house, the living goddess, market). all of the children here take their studies in english so they're all VERY eager to say "hello!!" to Americans... we asked two boys for directions and they spent the entire day giving us the most amazing tour of Kathmandu! we went to Durbar Square, but didn't want to pay for tickets so they gave us the Nepali alley tour of it instead. then took us to their "mall" where they wanted to show us these amazing rides called escalators! they gave us instructions on how to use them and told us to be very careful--it was very funny! then we headed for the Monkey Temple. on the way, an older lady spoke to the boys and asked if "they knew these Jims", which is apparently their slang for Americans--they thought it was hilarious that it was my fathers name! anyway, we headed to the Monkey Temple, climbed the 365 stairs and saw the view of the city from the top, as well as some amazing temples/prayer flag strings/statues. we went back down and saw the largest prayer wheel and then headed back to our Hotel Ganesh Himal. the people here are very nice, but the city is DIRTY. trash everywhere, stinky river, no toilet paper (unless you bring your own, which thank buddha we did!)... all in all it was a great day!

we're leaving for Pokhara tomorrow on a bus at 7AM to meet our trekking guide. until then.... love!--cat (& matt)