A Great Day

Today has been a great day. This morning I went to McDonalds and had the weirdest breakfast sandwich ever. It was a hamburger bun, rounded-processed egg with cheese, ketchup and mayonnaise. At least it was easy to order- ‘Yi’ (pronounced ‘ee’) which means one…

Then I went to Carrefour, a supermarket, and bought a prepaid mobile. Now I can call the two friends I made yesterday. At 12, after a short nap, I met with Zhou Chenyu and his father, and we headed to the Old City. After plowing around for half an hour with Chenyu, his father finally caught up with us after finding a parking spot. Then they treated me to traditional Chinese cuisine. The dumplings were awesome- you have to bite a hole into them and suck out the juice before eating them, because it’s scalding hot otherwise. Plus it was tasty! Then they took me to another restaurant and fed me this very strange ball. It came in a bowl of hot water, but the ball was this sticky, white wrapping on the outside, and the inside was a sweet black substance. It tasted familiar, but I can’t place the taste. I was the only white person in both of these crowded restaurants, and it felt like everyone was looking at me to see if I liked the food, which I totally did. Then I was asking why there were no drinks served with the meals when Zhou Xiansheng (‘Mr. Zhou’) decided to take me to a traditional tea house. (haha my chair just fell apart underneath me- time to talk to the front desk again). They later explained that when the Chinese government officials take people out for tea, they take them to the teahouse we were at.

When I got back to my room, I had a letter under my door from Corona (Chen Xiao), the pretty girl I met yesterday. Her English is pretty good, but she says that she didn’t understand a lot of what I said yesterday because my ‘pace’ was too fast. So I gave her a call, and we’re going to hang out next weekend.

Oh- and Zhou Xiansheng gave me a list of kung fu schools (‘wushu guan’) in the area. One of them is actually only a few blocks away, so I might be able to walk to the classes if I like that school. Woot!

Time for dinner- and to talk to the front desk about a broken chair, and the other one which is close to breaking… not woot.

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