包了... 很包... 太包了!

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We went to the night food market a couple of days ago. They didn't have any Dog (it turns out that eating Dog isn't as popular here as it's made out to be in the West - I still haven't found anyone here who says that they eat it). But I tried Scorpions, Snake and had some deep fried Ice-cream, so good! Scorpions actually taste just like fried chicken! Seriously!

We went for some Karaoke, apparently a very Chinese thing to do. Even made an attempt to sing 朋友, the song our class is meant to 'perform' at the closing ceremony. Came back at like 12 to make our 8am Mandarin class... the next day there was only ONE student in some classes. It's embarrassing for us... putting the UK in such a bad light. It's annoying how many people are regularly not bothering to go to things the Chinese have taken so much effort to arrange for us. That along with the dusty and dry air here are the few things that I'm not liking, along with not having my own space - I'm not enjoying having to share a room for three weeks, especially with how loud the snoring is (OK I just found out that my room mate has a medical snoring problem :· and people thought I was exaggerating. The one where you're meant to wear something over your nose so you don't snore... cos it's super loud. But he doesn't. hahhaa. It's been ok recently though, I think I'm used to it now). Apart from those things though, I'm having an wonderful time though, and sad that there are only seven days left! Just as I'm getting settled...

Met up with a couple of Chinese BNU students yesterday at a Cafe (雕刻时光 'Sculpting in time') near campus to study together. It quickly just turned into a cultural and language exchange! We went to a Kung Fu themed restaurant where they spoke some classical Chinese and dressed in Kung Fu outfits. Then we walked through some Hutongs and I tried some traditional Beijing foods and snacks, some very nice, some horrible thing that hardly even any Chinese eat! Was great to see the 'real' Beijing, not that it's hard to find here, with so little foreigners or tourists.

I get super excited if I ever hear a British accent here; we went to the British Council the other day and I was like woowwww, even though there were only three British people in an office of 50 Chinese... because you need to be bilingual. Shame on you Britain! We can't even fill the office of the British Council with some white people.. haha

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Photos

Night market
Snakes!

Beijing food
I don't think anyone even eats this... maybe old Beijingers... so smelly! I'd rather drink a whole bowl of this than eat a whole Durian though :·