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.