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?