What a great week. I got all of the pictures up from Guilin, I've turned in a paper, passed a Chinese test and had a great weekend. First, Friday night DJ Armin van Buuren, ranked #1 by DJ Mag top 100 DJs, was at GT Banana here in Beijing. All of us at TBC prebought tickets and went all out for this. Personally, I had no idea what to expect from something like this and techno music really isn't my thing but everyone had the time of their life. After a stressful week, this was what all of us needed. Besides the fact that everyone dressed in neon-colors, multiple layers, hats, ridiculous sunglasses and even wigs (Devon & Brittany), the best part of the night was the fact that we didn't return home until nearly 4:30 am. Saturday was spent mostly sleeping and my ears are still ringing from the hours of loud music. (Really, they are.)
Saturday, after sleeping until 1 pm, I woke up, ate and went to get paid. Tutoring really does pay off! Then, I came back to the dorms, we went out to eat and went back to Wangfujing Street to the night market. This time, we made sure it wasn't closed and that we could eat some creepy crawlers. Just wait for some of the pictures. There were kidneys, hearts, livers, testicles, penis, crickets, cicadas, grubs, silk worms, and scorpions. I ate something from that list and to be frank, it wasn't all that bad. I actually had another just to try it again. When the night market was about to close we all got some fresh fruit on a stick and called it a night. I was exhausted from the night before and when I got home, I watched some Entourage and slept.
This morning, I woke up all too early to tutor but in the end I just reminded myself I get paid way too much to talk with a 10 year old about nothing. Today, we went over action verbs to try and get him to form complete sentences, but he wasn't having it really. We eventually got him to say all the verbs with a simple subject (always "I"), verb, and object. We're making a bit of progress I think?
This week, I also dropped serious kuai when I went Christmas shopping. Sean and I headed to some of the largest markets around Beijing, including the Silk Market, and came back with nearly everyone checked off of our Christmas lists. But the homework still continues without end. I have two weekends in December when I'm going to be away from Beijing and out exploring Asia. This means that I have to write one art paper by December and another by the last class. Chinese class is relentless, always new characters to be memorized and learned. Further, my Buddhism class has a 15 page paper due at the end of the semester. School is school. It won't do much to complain but the only problem is that now everyone is scrambling to see Beijing. Many students have procrastinated and a majority of them haven't been to Tian**men Square yet, let alone the Summer Palace, Llama Temple, Olympic Green or Beihai. There are plans unfolding all around me to take a trip to this place or that place, to see this market this weekend or that district this day. As for me, I only have to see the Temple of Heaven, but I might not get around to that. I also planned on going to an acrobat show, which I think we're planning soon.
I'll post pictures of the party Friday and the Wangfujing eatings later on this week. Stay warm. Thanksgiving is in 11 days!
Showing posts with label Silk Market. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silk Market. Show all posts
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
My Second Chinese Adventure
Well, the Silk Market was good. I got some new shoes for Y100 which is about $15. I didn't want to buy anything else but I somehow managed to get some t-shirts for Y30-40. I also got a hat. You will see pictures. After the Silk Market, we went to Wangfujing to get some stuff too. I never found a cheap place for shorts so I ended up going to the mall. The malls here have American prices and I went to Nike and picked up some overpriced shorts. Now I have them so I'm happy. We ended up eating at the Duck Dinner again. Did I mention that at the last dinner we ate turtle? And the girls ordered a special "woman's soup" that had frog ovaries in it. It is supposed to make girls more beautiful. I took pictures, but this time at dinner we stuck to more traditional dishes. After eating we headed out to one of the bar districts. While we were out at Sanlitun, we ran into some people from West Africa. They spoke spanish (surprisingly) and one of the guys was an ambassador's son. They invited us to another club, China Doll, with them and we headed over. I think we got in VIP or something because we took a different entrance into the club. This club also has 6 floors. It was a ton of fun but we were missing a few people from our group so we decided to leave.
Meeting all of these people from around the world is pretty cool. You can meet them anywhere, just ask. That night was probably the beginning of my second adventure. Yesterday I woke up and knew that I had to send my dad my broken laptop keyboard. I didn't have a clue where a UPS store was and I tried to look it up on UPS.com. Well, they have 5-6 locations in the Beijing area, I just didn't know which one was closest to me. Looking up a map of Beijing is another thing. If you can even find a decent one, its either going to be in Chinese or it will be incomplete. Most of the smaller areas with small streets are unlabeled. It took me about 45 minutes to find the first location, and I didn't really feel like trying to look up all of the locations so this was going to be the one I'd use. I took the subway there, and when I got out of the subway I was a little disoriented. I had a general idea where to go, but back to the map thing, I wasn't quite sure exactly where to go. I knew I had to walk west of the subway line, which I did, but after walking for a while I knew I should have passed it by now. I turned around to look at the buildlings. Everyone who doesn't know, I like looking at buildings and taking pictures of skyscrapers. A majority of my time in NYC, I orient myself based on skyscrapers and can get my friends and I around the city pretty well. Even in a part of town we've never been too. I turned around and saw the building I was supposed to be at. When I arrived at the UPS store, they spoke enough English to understand what I wanted to do. The only problem was this was a UPS Express store. I didn't want to burn a huge hole in my wallet, but I guess I really didn't have a choice.
The lady working at UPS didn't know how to package my keyboard. I told her it was already broken, it just couldn't break in half. They didn't believe me when I told them a few wraps of bubble wrap would make it sturdy enough, so they tried to put it in a box. It didn't fit in any smaller boxes, so they had to bubble wrap it like I said. Once the package was ready, I started to fill out the paperwork. Apparently, everyone in China needs to have a passport in order to ship things overseas. Well, I don't carry my passport in my pocket so I had to go get it. I caught a cab back to the apartment, got my wallet and took a cab back. I get back to UPS and fill out more paperwork and got it paid. But of course they don't take credit card at UPS China, and I didn't have Y288 in cash. Back out again to try and find an ATM. I took out more Yuan and walked back to the store. Paid and left. Finally. It was a short first part of my adventure but overall really a fiasco. Total time to ship a package in China: 2 hours and 45 minutes. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with this process, but I had to get the shipping done. And now I know where at least one UPS store is.
I was taking some phenonmenal pictures of downtown Beijing and the central business district, until my camera battery died. The cab driver even slowed down when we passed the twisted doughnut building and pointed to it and did camera motions, but I had to point to mine and try and use my 3 yr old vocabulary to explain that the battery died. He got the message I think, and I got a few good ones in before it died. I'll have more time to take others too.
When I got back to the apartment it was already 3:30 in the afternoon. I made some instant noodles for the apartment and took a break. Jimmy and I had basketball semi-finals that night so I had to rest up for the big game. We went all out. When I woke up from my snooze, I was all ready to take a shower and get my face painted. Thats right, stars and stripes on my face, bright red t-shirt, white Nike basketball shorts, and an American flag cape. It was glorious. I looked like Captain American. The only thing was, I didn't want a bunch of white dots on my face for the stars, so I asked Rachel to just do one big star and people would get the point. Yea yea, all of you may know that the flag of Liberia only has one big star, but I didn't know. Although the Liberian flag was on my face, I was decked out in other American apparel. I'm pretty sure people knew I was rooting for America and not Liberia.
On the way to the game, we met other Americans from Texas who had moved to China and were now working there. The guys were 27 years old and one was a lawyer in Hong Kong and the other worked in Beijing. One guy said his parents worked for Haier (a Chinese GE), and he had lived in Tokyo for most of his life. They only spent a few years in the states but they spoke perfect English. It was good to meet up with them and hear their stories and we exchanged contact info. So now when we go to Hong Kong we have someone to show us around. Arriving at the stadium was insanity. We were swarmed with people wanting to take pictures of our American group. Me and Jimmy had our faces painted, three of us had American flags on our shouders and all the girls were in either red or white. Everyone wanted tickets. Our tickets, in the 3rd tier, were fetching for about Y4000. That would be a nice chunk of change to have, but I'm pretty sure the memories are worth far more. When we got to our seats, naturally someone was already sitting in them, so we moved down a bit. Well, the only place to move was down because we were in the very last row in the highest section. It was so high up I thought I was going to hit my head on the air ducts or something. (Not really). We watched the Spain and Lithuania game first. It was a good game. I didn't think that Spain was going to win. They have Paul and Mark Gasol, but Lithuania has a huge team. Lithuania had better offense and although their defense was decent, Spain had a hard time breaking through. It was a close game, but every time Spain would score, Lithuania would come back with a matching point. Eventually, Spain worked their magic and pulled ahead. Lithuania couldn't catch up so they play for the bronze on Sunday. Then the real fun began.
When the first game was over, we all went down to the first section to try and bum tickets off of people leaving early. Jim was lucky enough to have a Lithuanian hand him his ticket...which was a behind the basket floor seat. Incredible. Of course, we passed the ticket back and got everyone through to the floor section, but security was too tight to get us any further. We spent the rest of the game standing on the railing watching the US and Argentina game. It was awesome. Not only did I get to see Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, Dwight Howard, Dwayne Wade, and all the other all stars, I could actually see them from a great spot. We were standing next to some big shot guys. They wouldn't tell us what they did, but one lived in Miami and the other in Milwaukee. Of course the US team beat Argentina, 101 to 81 and the whole stadium erupted for America. Within 10 minutes we had a crowd of people lined up to take pictures with us. People were bringing their kids with us, we got a USA chant going and a Meiguo Jiayou chant too. We were interviewed by a German radio station and I got to speak for about 3 minutes about my opinion of this years national team. It was awesome.
Of course, no Chinese adventure would end probably without something typical happening to me. With all of the hub bub and excitement going on, I would love to snap a few pictures of the moments. I was handing my camera to a Chinese lady and somehow it slipped through both of our fingers and fell on the floor. Naturally, the camera was on and now there is a lens error. The camera turns on but the focus is off and it doesn't retract into the camera fully. I'm getting pretty sick of all my broken electronics and I didn't feel like going out to celebrate the US victory. When we left the stadium, it took my friend and I about 40 minutes to try and catch a cab, but eventually we did. We got back to the apartment, and I washed off my face paint. I woke up early this morning to write about my adventure but now I have to go to the same electronics store I bought my keyboard from and ask for a camera. Who knows, maybe they can fix the broken one (which my parents bought for me just about a week before I came over here). Who knows. Hope all is well in America. I'm going to Track & Field finals tonight at the Bird's Nest.
Meeting all of these people from around the world is pretty cool. You can meet them anywhere, just ask. That night was probably the beginning of my second adventure. Yesterday I woke up and knew that I had to send my dad my broken laptop keyboard. I didn't have a clue where a UPS store was and I tried to look it up on UPS.com. Well, they have 5-6 locations in the Beijing area, I just didn't know which one was closest to me. Looking up a map of Beijing is another thing. If you can even find a decent one, its either going to be in Chinese or it will be incomplete. Most of the smaller areas with small streets are unlabeled. It took me about 45 minutes to find the first location, and I didn't really feel like trying to look up all of the locations so this was going to be the one I'd use. I took the subway there, and when I got out of the subway I was a little disoriented. I had a general idea where to go, but back to the map thing, I wasn't quite sure exactly where to go. I knew I had to walk west of the subway line, which I did, but after walking for a while I knew I should have passed it by now. I turned around to look at the buildlings. Everyone who doesn't know, I like looking at buildings and taking pictures of skyscrapers. A majority of my time in NYC, I orient myself based on skyscrapers and can get my friends and I around the city pretty well. Even in a part of town we've never been too. I turned around and saw the building I was supposed to be at. When I arrived at the UPS store, they spoke enough English to understand what I wanted to do. The only problem was this was a UPS Express store. I didn't want to burn a huge hole in my wallet, but I guess I really didn't have a choice.
The lady working at UPS didn't know how to package my keyboard. I told her it was already broken, it just couldn't break in half. They didn't believe me when I told them a few wraps of bubble wrap would make it sturdy enough, so they tried to put it in a box. It didn't fit in any smaller boxes, so they had to bubble wrap it like I said. Once the package was ready, I started to fill out the paperwork. Apparently, everyone in China needs to have a passport in order to ship things overseas. Well, I don't carry my passport in my pocket so I had to go get it. I caught a cab back to the apartment, got my wallet and took a cab back. I get back to UPS and fill out more paperwork and got it paid. But of course they don't take credit card at UPS China, and I didn't have Y288 in cash. Back out again to try and find an ATM. I took out more Yuan and walked back to the store. Paid and left. Finally. It was a short first part of my adventure but overall really a fiasco. Total time to ship a package in China: 2 hours and 45 minutes. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with this process, but I had to get the shipping done. And now I know where at least one UPS store is.
I was taking some phenonmenal pictures of downtown Beijing and the central business district, until my camera battery died. The cab driver even slowed down when we passed the twisted doughnut building and pointed to it and did camera motions, but I had to point to mine and try and use my 3 yr old vocabulary to explain that the battery died. He got the message I think, and I got a few good ones in before it died. I'll have more time to take others too.
When I got back to the apartment it was already 3:30 in the afternoon. I made some instant noodles for the apartment and took a break. Jimmy and I had basketball semi-finals that night so I had to rest up for the big game. We went all out. When I woke up from my snooze, I was all ready to take a shower and get my face painted. Thats right, stars and stripes on my face, bright red t-shirt, white Nike basketball shorts, and an American flag cape. It was glorious. I looked like Captain American. The only thing was, I didn't want a bunch of white dots on my face for the stars, so I asked Rachel to just do one big star and people would get the point. Yea yea, all of you may know that the flag of Liberia only has one big star, but I didn't know. Although the Liberian flag was on my face, I was decked out in other American apparel. I'm pretty sure people knew I was rooting for America and not Liberia.
On the way to the game, we met other Americans from Texas who had moved to China and were now working there. The guys were 27 years old and one was a lawyer in Hong Kong and the other worked in Beijing. One guy said his parents worked for Haier (a Chinese GE), and he had lived in Tokyo for most of his life. They only spent a few years in the states but they spoke perfect English. It was good to meet up with them and hear their stories and we exchanged contact info. So now when we go to Hong Kong we have someone to show us around. Arriving at the stadium was insanity. We were swarmed with people wanting to take pictures of our American group. Me and Jimmy had our faces painted, three of us had American flags on our shouders and all the girls were in either red or white. Everyone wanted tickets. Our tickets, in the 3rd tier, were fetching for about Y4000. That would be a nice chunk of change to have, but I'm pretty sure the memories are worth far more. When we got to our seats, naturally someone was already sitting in them, so we moved down a bit. Well, the only place to move was down because we were in the very last row in the highest section. It was so high up I thought I was going to hit my head on the air ducts or something. (Not really). We watched the Spain and Lithuania game first. It was a good game. I didn't think that Spain was going to win. They have Paul and Mark Gasol, but Lithuania has a huge team. Lithuania had better offense and although their defense was decent, Spain had a hard time breaking through. It was a close game, but every time Spain would score, Lithuania would come back with a matching point. Eventually, Spain worked their magic and pulled ahead. Lithuania couldn't catch up so they play for the bronze on Sunday. Then the real fun began.
When the first game was over, we all went down to the first section to try and bum tickets off of people leaving early. Jim was lucky enough to have a Lithuanian hand him his ticket...which was a behind the basket floor seat. Incredible. Of course, we passed the ticket back and got everyone through to the floor section, but security was too tight to get us any further. We spent the rest of the game standing on the railing watching the US and Argentina game. It was awesome. Not only did I get to see Kobe, LeBron, Carmelo, Dwight Howard, Dwayne Wade, and all the other all stars, I could actually see them from a great spot. We were standing next to some big shot guys. They wouldn't tell us what they did, but one lived in Miami and the other in Milwaukee. Of course the US team beat Argentina, 101 to 81 and the whole stadium erupted for America. Within 10 minutes we had a crowd of people lined up to take pictures with us. People were bringing their kids with us, we got a USA chant going and a Meiguo Jiayou chant too. We were interviewed by a German radio station and I got to speak for about 3 minutes about my opinion of this years national team. It was awesome.
Of course, no Chinese adventure would end probably without something typical happening to me. With all of the hub bub and excitement going on, I would love to snap a few pictures of the moments. I was handing my camera to a Chinese lady and somehow it slipped through both of our fingers and fell on the floor. Naturally, the camera was on and now there is a lens error. The camera turns on but the focus is off and it doesn't retract into the camera fully. I'm getting pretty sick of all my broken electronics and I didn't feel like going out to celebrate the US victory. When we left the stadium, it took my friend and I about 40 minutes to try and catch a cab, but eventually we did. We got back to the apartment, and I washed off my face paint. I woke up early this morning to write about my adventure but now I have to go to the same electronics store I bought my keyboard from and ask for a camera. Who knows, maybe they can fix the broken one (which my parents bought for me just about a week before I came over here). Who knows. Hope all is well in America. I'm going to Track & Field finals tonight at the Bird's Nest.
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| Orphanage and Downtown |
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| US Basketball Game |
Monday, August 11, 2008
A Weekend Around
The past few days have been a whole lot of fun. Saturday we decided to go out to lunch after our meeting. Of course we think it is a great idea to take the subway to a random stop, get off and find a restaurant. Well that may sound like a great idea, we should have remembered the some stops are in business areas and some are in shopping districts. Well, naturally, we choose one of the stations that is in the middle of an industrial park. We get out of the subway to look aroudn and see nothing. A small landfill dump and a nearby factory were pretty much the only things besides some office buildings. I asked a girl if she knew of any good places to eat nearby and she was able to point us to a street that she said "had a lot of restaurants." When you are hot, sweaty, and hungry, the last thing you want to do is walk aimlessly trying to find a place to eat. Especially a place that doesn't have some weird food. After walking for a while we found a restaurant. They took us to the basement where we had a private room. We sat a huge round table, ordered 5 dishes and feasted. It was one of those delicious authentic Chinese meals. We had bak choi and musrooms in delicious sauce, bak choi and meat stuff w/ another delicious sauce, a peanut-something spicey dish (not my favorite), some sweet red bean squishy things, and some cooked bamboo w/ delicious sauce (again). All that may sound good but the best part was the fish we got. I took pictures of it. I think a few people were apprehensive about being served a whole fish w/ the head and tail and everything, but I assured them. 1. We aren't going to find a place that doesn't serve the head and tail. 2. It will be delicious. And it was. After we were fat and happy for $4 a person we walked back to the subway stop. On the way, Jimmy bought a sweet bike that folds in half for storage. I think it was around $30-40 USD.
Saturday night we went out again to the bar district. I was pretty tired from the whole week so we didn't have too much fun. It was good to just have a low key night. When we woke up on Sunday we had to have a meet at 11 am to go to our assignment. I was paired up with Jim and Bill, two of my roommates, and we thought we were going to the orphanage. Apparently the orphanage doesn't take volunteers on Sunday's so instead we were doing a survey for the International Olympic Committed (IOC). We had to go out to a tourist attraction, (ie Silk Market, T--nanmen Square, etc.) and find English speaking people to see if they knew anything about the IOC. The way it was presented to us was very laid back. If you get hungry, eat, if you want to shop around, shop around. We got the jist and headed over to the Silk Market. Jimmy hadn't been yet. After this trip, I'm pretty sure I'm putting myself on Silk Market intervention. I'm not going to let myself go there because you can't leave without buying stuff. I magically ended up with a button down for Y100 and a wallet for Y40. Total purchase: $20. Also, walking back to the subway I went into a Chinese CD/DVD store. Picked up a few Chinese hip hop CDs. Tracy, a Chinese roommate of mine, said that she doesn't think they are authentic but it doesn't really matter because it comes in a pretty official looking case and everything. Overall, I'm glad I got to go back to the area and get some stuff. This doesn't even count the stuff that I decided I had to purchase before the end of the trip. I'm glad I didn't bring any winter clothes because there are really nice sweaters and coats for really cheap.
Like usual, walking down the isles was intense. People love bargaining and I like practicing my Chinese so I got prices down easily. It is funny to see their reactions when I speak a little Mandarin. Most likely they ask if I'm part Chinese. They must not think American's are cool because if they have to guess a western country they choose Canada or England. I had a lady argue with me that "surely you must have some Chinese!" to which I responded and then she pointed to her eyes, touched her index to her thumb, and pointed at my eyes. ha-ha. I had forgotten the Chinese word for Mexico until now. I always say my dad is "Mo xi ge" which means Mexican and my mom is "Fa guo" or French. I don't even think my mom is French but its one of the only countries I know how to say and I don't want to spend another 10 minutes explaining I don't know my countries.
After coming back from the market, everyone took a much needed nap. Our roommates Kelly and Rachel went to go see gymnastics. The orphans get to attend the games with us, so they had a little girl and boy. Everyone enjoyed it. When we woke up, we got a quick bite to eat and realized it was our roommate's birthday. We decided to go out. Somehow a huge plastic bottle of "bai jiu" ended up in our freezer...which is a Chinese liquor. I don't know what it is, but I'll just say a little goes a long way.
Today, which is Monday, I had volunteer duty again. Jimmy, Giro, Bill, Devon, Andrew, and myself met at 11 am to get our assignment. Since I had survey duty before, I didn't have to do that again. Instead, I got to go to Wang Fu Jing Shopping district to work at an internet cafe for something. Well, when we got to the district we all wanted to go to the official Olympic flagship store. It is the biggest in Beijing. I got some refridgerator magnets and a t-shirt for myself and my dad. The line was so long that the group must have moved on while I was in there and there is no way I could find them. So I decided to give myself the day off and take a look around. I went to the Adidas store and got another shirt (Y180) and I found a local type store that had nice shirts with Chinese writing. I got a really cool one with "xiong" on it. I think it has something to do with gymnastics maybe because there is an upside person kinda drawn on it. Well, it wasn't that exciting. I got bored really fast and went to find a place to eat. I found this back alley with tons of food and got a dish that was called "nu mian" nu is beef and mian is noodle. It was kind of like Vietnamese pho. Hopefully I don't get sick from it, but it kinda looked safe enough. Sorta. I really want to try these Chinese candied fruits. They are dunked in a sugar glaze or something. Once I'm more established I'll have plenty of time.
I just got back to the apartment and no one is home. That's probably why this post is so long and it actually makes sense. I'm waiting to go to a "Traditional Chinese Dinner" tonight with CCI. That will be a story for next time.
Saturday night we went out again to the bar district. I was pretty tired from the whole week so we didn't have too much fun. It was good to just have a low key night. When we woke up on Sunday we had to have a meet at 11 am to go to our assignment. I was paired up with Jim and Bill, two of my roommates, and we thought we were going to the orphanage. Apparently the orphanage doesn't take volunteers on Sunday's so instead we were doing a survey for the International Olympic Committed (IOC). We had to go out to a tourist attraction, (ie Silk Market, T--nanmen Square, etc.) and find English speaking people to see if they knew anything about the IOC. The way it was presented to us was very laid back. If you get hungry, eat, if you want to shop around, shop around. We got the jist and headed over to the Silk Market. Jimmy hadn't been yet. After this trip, I'm pretty sure I'm putting myself on Silk Market intervention. I'm not going to let myself go there because you can't leave without buying stuff. I magically ended up with a button down for Y100 and a wallet for Y40. Total purchase: $20. Also, walking back to the subway I went into a Chinese CD/DVD store. Picked up a few Chinese hip hop CDs. Tracy, a Chinese roommate of mine, said that she doesn't think they are authentic but it doesn't really matter because it comes in a pretty official looking case and everything. Overall, I'm glad I got to go back to the area and get some stuff. This doesn't even count the stuff that I decided I had to purchase before the end of the trip. I'm glad I didn't bring any winter clothes because there are really nice sweaters and coats for really cheap.
Like usual, walking down the isles was intense. People love bargaining and I like practicing my Chinese so I got prices down easily. It is funny to see their reactions when I speak a little Mandarin. Most likely they ask if I'm part Chinese. They must not think American's are cool because if they have to guess a western country they choose Canada or England. I had a lady argue with me that "surely you must have some Chinese!" to which I responded and then she pointed to her eyes, touched her index to her thumb, and pointed at my eyes. ha-ha. I had forgotten the Chinese word for Mexico until now. I always say my dad is "Mo xi ge" which means Mexican and my mom is "Fa guo" or French. I don't even think my mom is French but its one of the only countries I know how to say and I don't want to spend another 10 minutes explaining I don't know my countries.
After coming back from the market, everyone took a much needed nap. Our roommates Kelly and Rachel went to go see gymnastics. The orphans get to attend the games with us, so they had a little girl and boy. Everyone enjoyed it. When we woke up, we got a quick bite to eat and realized it was our roommate's birthday. We decided to go out. Somehow a huge plastic bottle of "bai jiu" ended up in our freezer...which is a Chinese liquor. I don't know what it is, but I'll just say a little goes a long way.
Today, which is Monday, I had volunteer duty again. Jimmy, Giro, Bill, Devon, Andrew, and myself met at 11 am to get our assignment. Since I had survey duty before, I didn't have to do that again. Instead, I got to go to Wang Fu Jing Shopping district to work at an internet cafe for something. Well, when we got to the district we all wanted to go to the official Olympic flagship store. It is the biggest in Beijing. I got some refridgerator magnets and a t-shirt for myself and my dad. The line was so long that the group must have moved on while I was in there and there is no way I could find them. So I decided to give myself the day off and take a look around. I went to the Adidas store and got another shirt (Y180) and I found a local type store that had nice shirts with Chinese writing. I got a really cool one with "xiong" on it. I think it has something to do with gymnastics maybe because there is an upside person kinda drawn on it. Well, it wasn't that exciting. I got bored really fast and went to find a place to eat. I found this back alley with tons of food and got a dish that was called "nu mian" nu is beef and mian is noodle. It was kind of like Vietnamese pho. Hopefully I don't get sick from it, but it kinda looked safe enough. Sorta. I really want to try these Chinese candied fruits. They are dunked in a sugar glaze or something. Once I'm more established I'll have plenty of time.
I just got back to the apartment and no one is home. That's probably why this post is so long and it actually makes sense. I'm waiting to go to a "Traditional Chinese Dinner" tonight with CCI. That will be a story for next time.
Friday, August 8, 2008
Out and About
Alright. I've been in Beijing for a whole day now. My friend Jimmy came in last night while we were at dinner. The menu at dinner had shark fin soup, octopus, donkey meat, and a special "mixed meat" dumpling. We got pork and celery dumplings and chicken skewers. There was also an awesome pineapple pork dish we had which was AWESOME. Whoever said the food is gross, they were wrong because I'm eating tons of great stuff. It really helps that almost everyone speaks English so my Chinese can at least meet them half way. I've decided that I'm going to have to become an expert chop sticks user. This is because there are no forks. And you have to pay for napkins.
During the day yesterday, my friends and I explored a bit of the city. We took the subway two stops and ended up at the Silk/Pearl market. This place is like Wal-Mart on steroids with a bit of Macy's. Everything you could ever imagine. Hand painted scrolls, paintings, hand carved masks, fabrics for custom tailored suits, shoes straight from the factory (Converse, Diesel, Nike, Ugg, and others), jackets, shirts (Polo Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Puma, Tommy Bahama, etc), silk for dresses, toys, games, trinkets, plates, hand carved stamp sets, and everything else you can image. I got a 5 polos for $12. And they are really good quality. I probably won't be able to tell the difference when I get home.
After the market, we went to eat, came back to our apartment to find our AC was broken. Again. But no worries we were ready to head out anyway. We went out to San Li Tun (one word) Bar street. This place was full of foreigners. Russians, Brazilians, Americans, Australians, Britians, and the works. We went out had fun and took a cab back to our apartment. When we returned we picked up some stuff from a store (it was probably 3 am!) and outside while we waited I started talking to one of the workers who was sitting outside playing a game with his coworker. He was eating something, so I asked if it was good. He said yes, and I asked what type of meat it was. He said "ya rou" which I thought was duck. Then, he told me to try it! I said no, thank you but nope. My curiosity was taken as hunger so he repeated that I try some. I finally gave in, and he took out a chunk of meat (a little bit of cartlidge and bones still in it). I said what the hell and took a bite. Delicious. It was actually spicy, which I wasn't expecting. Then, this is the best part, Devon asked to have a bite! She is the one supposed to keep me from eating random food from strangers on the street at early hours in the morning. Well she enjoyed it too, and neither of us are sick. Yet.
The weather here is like a sauna. Extremely hot and very very humid. The smog is so bad you can look at the sun and see it as if you were looking through a cloud. My roommates are cool. One is from Miami. Small world but when I went to visit a friend at University of Miami, my friend lived next door to this guy. I wouldn't be surprised if I was introduced to him and just don't remember his face. Crazy right?
During the day yesterday, my friends and I explored a bit of the city. We took the subway two stops and ended up at the Silk/Pearl market. This place is like Wal-Mart on steroids with a bit of Macy's. Everything you could ever imagine. Hand painted scrolls, paintings, hand carved masks, fabrics for custom tailored suits, shoes straight from the factory (Converse, Diesel, Nike, Ugg, and others), jackets, shirts (Polo Ralph Lauren, Burberry, Puma, Tommy Bahama, etc), silk for dresses, toys, games, trinkets, plates, hand carved stamp sets, and everything else you can image. I got a 5 polos for $12. And they are really good quality. I probably won't be able to tell the difference when I get home.
After the market, we went to eat, came back to our apartment to find our AC was broken. Again. But no worries we were ready to head out anyway. We went out to San Li Tun (one word) Bar street. This place was full of foreigners. Russians, Brazilians, Americans, Australians, Britians, and the works. We went out had fun and took a cab back to our apartment. When we returned we picked up some stuff from a store (it was probably 3 am!) and outside while we waited I started talking to one of the workers who was sitting outside playing a game with his coworker. He was eating something, so I asked if it was good. He said yes, and I asked what type of meat it was. He said "ya rou" which I thought was duck. Then, he told me to try it! I said no, thank you but nope. My curiosity was taken as hunger so he repeated that I try some. I finally gave in, and he took out a chunk of meat (a little bit of cartlidge and bones still in it). I said what the hell and took a bite. Delicious. It was actually spicy, which I wasn't expecting. Then, this is the best part, Devon asked to have a bite! She is the one supposed to keep me from eating random food from strangers on the street at early hours in the morning. Well she enjoyed it too, and neither of us are sick. Yet.
The weather here is like a sauna. Extremely hot and very very humid. The smog is so bad you can look at the sun and see it as if you were looking through a cloud. My roommates are cool. One is from Miami. Small world but when I went to visit a friend at University of Miami, my friend lived next door to this guy. I wouldn't be surprised if I was introduced to him and just don't remember his face. Crazy right?
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