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Published: April 1st 2010
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April 1, 2010
The good news is that I woke up early this morning without a wake up call. My body seems to have finally adjusted to Beijing time. And something else wonderful has happened. . .the sky is blue and the sun is shining brightly. It’s amazing to me that the weather affects my mood so dramatically. I feel so hopeful and energetic. On our way to work today, I could picture how lovely this area is in the Spring and Summer when the leaves are on the trees and the flowers are blooming. The hotel I’m staying in is very close to a river and some wetlands. I think many birds make their home there because a lot of the trees have large nests perched high in their branches. Maybe Saturday I will have time to walk around the riverside and see what kinds of wild life I see. Actually since the weather has improved so much I may do my marathon training (16 miles) outside on Saturday. Oh! And because the air is clearer, I now can see that Beijing is surrounded by mountains. I will have to get online and see what mountain range(s) they belong
to.
Today at work I found out that the plans have been finalized for our trip to the Great Wall for Sunday. Also the lab group has decided it would be fun to go to a karaoke bar next week. (Evidently, karaoke is as popular in China as it is in Japan). They want me to sing. I told them it will probably take many, many, many beers to make that happen. After that statement one girl, Lavinia, asked me how many beers I could drink without falling over. I said probably six Chinese beers. I think I might be asked to prove it (me and my big mouth!) Oh! And for those of you from NDT, Xinghe said he would get up on stage and sing a song or two. I’ll take some fun pictures and video of our evening out.
For this blog entry I took a picture of a local restaurant that we go to for lunch every day. The wait staff recognizes me now and they laugh and smile and wave. I wish I spoke more than three words of Chinese (hello, thank you, and yes) so that I could thank them properly for
being so welcoming and kind. The food there is wonderful and there is a particular seafood noodle dish that I order almost every time. . .some of my co-workers now call them ‘Wendy Noodles’. They have joked that they are going to try to get the restaurant to change the name of the dish officially to “Wendy Noodles” on the menu.
Oh my gosh. . .I just had a funny moment in the bathroom. You know how if the toilet paper runs out in one of the stalls in a ladies bathroom a lady in the next stall will readily pass toilet paper to you? Well the first stall I went into didn’t have any toilet paper, so I moved to the next one over. Right afterwards a Chinese girl went into the first stall. I tried to pass her some toilet paper to be helpful. I’m pretty sure she thought I was some kind of pervert or freak. And I couldn’t explain to her what I was trying to do! Finally I think she realized my true intentions. She smiled at me afterwards instead of calling the police so I think everything turned out okay. Yes, yes. .
View Outside of Hotel
See how blue the sky was today? .I know I always seem to get myself into the weirdest situations by trying to be helpful. :P
I’ve included some additional pictures with this blog entry. A couple are taken in the lobby of my hotel. It’s very nice here. Two other pictures are of these types of motorcycle carts that are used to ferry around both people and goods. I think it would be fun to try driving one. Alright. . .gotta go. . .I’ll blog again tomorrow. Take care!
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Camha Nguyen
non-member comment
Why so dark?
Why are so dark in the pictures?