After my adventure with Jimmy it was pretty hard to go back to normal life in Beijing. I got to sleep in the next day because I had nothing planned for the day (again). Jimmy and Rachel had tickets to water polo, so Devon and I went down to the Olympic venues to see if we could scalp tickets for something good. There weren't any really awesome tickets, so we just settled for some more volleyball. Actually it's Olympic Volleyball, so it was really awesome. We saw Brazil and Russia and Serbia vs Poland. It was great to watch, but we were volleyballed out. The major plus is that not only do Chinese people not form lines, they also don't care where their official seat is at a venue. This means that during breaks, everyone moves around until they get moved. After the Brazil/Russia game (which Russia won), we moved really close to the court. So close that we got to see the Serbia/Poland teams come out of the locker room. The Serbia/Poland teams are HUGE. You can see by the pictures most of the guys are over 2m tall. Which I assume is around 6' or over. After the second game of Poland and Serbia, Devon and I called it quits. Too much volleyball.
We left the venue and it was pouring. It has rained a few days here and there is one thing we learned. If it rains, you'll see the sky tomorrow. But it's not that great when your in flip flops and a t-shirt. We ran around in the rain trying to find the subway station but the directions we were given we apparently didn't understand to the fullest. We asked someone else and took a bus to the subway stop. When we got off we saw a huge mall and decided to check it out. The malls here are nice but really expensive (for China). Although you'll pay American prices, you can find some pretty cool Chinese brands. I'm really into the whole Chinese brand. I'm probably one of the only people in our group that hasn't eaten KFC, McDonalds, or 7-11 food. I'm eating some American snacks, but I try to avoid the name brand American meals. I really like their fast food noodle places and I think they're really good.
At the mall, everyone loves foreigners. You can't go into a store without someone following you around asking you to try everything on. And since I'm a good lookin guy, OK really good looking guy, haha, all of the girls want me to talk to them for a little while. When I was checking out, one of the workers, who I wasn't even talking to, just said "Dong dong." I was kinda confused because she said it kind of loud and I thought I was doing something weird. I looked at Devon and she didn't know what was going on either. Our confusion must have shown on our faces because the girl I was talking to let me know what was going on. "Her name is Dongdong" I thought it was pretty funny.
When I got home, we ate and went out to the Houhai bar district. I really liked this place. It is a bit expensive but it overlooks a small lake. You can look out and see all the bar lights reflecting on the lake. It's a good vibe and the people are fun.
The next morning we all woke up and everyone had stuff to do except for me, Rachel, and Kelly. I made an American breakfast (eggs, toast, and ham) and we decided to go out and explore a different part of the city. We planned on going to see the Olympic gardens, but instead we ended up at Wangfujing street market. Kelly ended up having a pretty bad day and it all started when we got on the subway to go the Wangfujing. Getting on the subway, Kelly's flipflop hit the door step and it got kicked into the crack. It was lost forever and she had to walk barefoot through the subway station and through the street. She finally got another pair in one of the stores but no one really likes to walk barefoot. It was pretty funny and she got some stares. When we got there we met up with Andrew, Monica, and Devon. Some people bought things at the official flagship store and afterwards we ended up just poking around. The weather was the best it has ever been here. It actually looked like a normal city in the world. You could see clouds, the blue sky, and even airplanes. Further down on the Wangfujing street market there was a carnival ride. Y100 to go on one of those rides where you sit in a ball on the ground and it bungees up into the sky. I took pictures but it was amazing. Rachel was hilarious. Right before we were about to go she asks, "How safe do you think this ride is? 10 being American standards" I would say about 7 or 8. When Rachel asked to get her seatbelt tightened, they said no. It was a fun 10 minute ride and by the time we launched we had attracted quite a big crowd. So many people were watching us that people had to cross the street to walk on a sidewalk.
After our ride, I headed back. I had nothing to do so I slept for a bit and then we went out as an apartment to dinner. We of course had a good dinner. Ate some duck feet. Nothing special. Everyone let me order dinner and of course everything looks good when you're ordering off a picture menu. haha. Other than being really spicey, the duck feet had 3 toes and the small bone/cartlidge in the toes felt like undercooked rice. The ankles had a lot of bones and weren't good. The webbing was the best part. Look at the pictures.
When I got the apartment, I was reading some e-mail and I had just poured myself a nice glass of cold Coke. With my luck, I break cameras and cell phones and all of that so naturally my computer had to have something happen to it while I'm here. You can probably put the two together before I tell you, but someone bumped into the table and the Coke sloshed out of the cup and onto my keyboard. It short circuited the keyboard. After that happend, I went to bed. I knew I wasn't going to be in the mood for anything exciting. This morning, I went out with Kelly to the computer store and bought a keyboard. We also got more eggs and some bacon. We made breakfast and it was delicious.
Today, August 16, I was supposed to go to the Temple of Heaven, but Jimmy met some Chinese guys who are going to UIBE (The Beijing Center) with us this semester. They are volunteering for the Olympics and get tickets to events. From what Jim understood he had three tickets to basketball, but what he really had was three tickets to different events on different days. I wished I would have seen the Temple of Heaven, but Jim reminded me that we're here for a while. We have time. Plus, Devon said it was awesome, but she doesn't need to go again. Which is just like T--nanmen square.
Tonight is Hotpot dinner. We'll see what surprises come from that.
