Beijing 6/29/08 - 7/7/08

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Sunday June 29th 2008
• Hungover out of my fucking mind.
• Sat through alumni introductions..soooo many people now..125!!!! It was the first time we were all together in the same room
• Ate at the “best” peking duck restaurant..it was like freaking 6 stories high…we took up half a story. It was pretty good.
• Hungover.

Monday June 30th 2008
• Spent 2 hours washing my clothes in a crappy washer and handwashing them. It sucks. I miss machines =(.
• Went to noodle loft again with some 6th floor people…tried all the different sauces…SOOOO GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD argh!!!!
• Went bar hopping again at bar street. Took a picture with one of the performers. Cool.

Tuesday July 1st 2008
• Chilled, caught up on ABDC etc. youtube. Etc.
• Lol there are 9 different levels of classes for the intermediate program, its fun seeing who got the top level…and the LAST level haha
• Noticed that the construction workers on campus..live on campus..in tents..and its their home. All they know is work and co workers right now. I wonder if they have kids or anything. =(
• Had to handwash and dry all my clothes..I MISS WASHERS ARGH AND DRYERS everything is big now haha

Wednesday July 2nd 2008
• Went to HOU HAI! Took a thingy where 2 people are brought around in a bike carriage thingy haha..it was cool…saw some old buildings and shacks where people still live and met some locals and learned about some history. Walked around a prince’s mansion etc. etc. met some fobs etc. etc. Pretty awesome.

Thursday July 3rd 2008
• LOL ok so I wanted to go to a super ultra nice restaurant that would normally cost an arm and a leg in the US. So I started planning a trip for dinner and bar at this place called “People 8”. A lot of tourist things recommended it and the thing about this place is that it is supposed to be SUPER nice and SUPER modern and there are 8 of them in the world so the Beijing one is the last one to be built. Its built by a guy called Santori or something and he is very famous for his restaurants and designs.
• Supposedly you have to solve a PUZZLE to even get IN the restaurant and its supposed to be really cool and flashy. Like Indian Jones style or something..drop a rock In the water to hit a switch some door opens, get a key blah blah iono!
• THEN they said the bathrooms are hard to find ON PURPOSE because you have to see them to believe them, they are just the nicest things you’ll ever see or something.
• So since this place was gonna be 300 yuan ($45) only 7 of us went. So we got lost on the way cause it was pretty far and the taxis here are stupid. But we eventually found the building it was at in Downtown and I asked a security guard where it was. He pointed at an empty building and said that the place had SHUT THE FUCK DOWN
• I stared at him in disbelief for a good 5 minutes and asked him if he was kidding in Chinese. I was looking forward to the puzzle ALL DAY. So I eventually came back to my senses and everyone thought it was funny cause we got ALL dressed up and didn’t even get to go to the place I hyped up haha.
• But since our group was cool, we just picked another place on our tourist thing and went there.
• Got Lost again.
• We go in and it doesn’t look very nice and eveyrones staring at us because the girls are in heels and dresses etc. haha.
• So I guess they saw us dressed up so they took us to ANOTHER room TWICE the size we saw, and it was a realllly nice and unique like jungle theme. It might not be ultra modern, but it was fine for us and we got our own “shack”.
• Drank some beers, ate some good food.
• Decided to go to Stone Boat Bar after which is in the middle of a park and surrounded by a lake. So we GET to the outside of the park and we’re like uhhhhhh..there aren’t any lights. I asked the security guard if the place was in there and he said YES……so we walk into this like Blair Witch Chainsaw Massacre type park and the girls got scared etc. haha.
• We ended up in the middle of the park and its all gladiator status with gates and arches on south north west east etc..and in the middle theres like a freaking sacrificial pit or something and a platform..and there were bats EVERYWHERE haha No lights, no people, scary.
• The girls wanted to go back but I wanted to keep looking for it, so we went west hoping to find it, we end up seeing 3 like shacks with just pulsing dark blue lights come from all of them. YA. We ended up just bolting out of there once we started seeing random figures in the distance haha.
• So ya, we didn’t do anything we planned to do, but it was still fun!
Friday July 4th 2008
• Went to watch traditional Chinese shadowplays, plays, and other things while eating dinner. The guys are really good at making scenes using the shadows of their hands..like birds humping and stuff..haha.
• It started pouring FREAKING hard outside, but we still decided to all go to Hou Hai bars haha..12 of us went it took us like an hour to get there cause its impossible to get taxis in the rain.we were all soaked ^_^
• Bar hopped, played some games, 4th of july!!! We were pretty much the only ones outside in the rain, haha.
• Sooooooooooo fun though

Saturday July 5th 2008
• Woke up late for obvious reasons
• Dumplings. Yum.
• Went shopping at wong li fong or something haha SO MANY NATIVES THERE whoaaaa and its really nice like a huge south coast plaza.
• We walked around for like 5 hours with me cindy and steve
• I bought something super expensive but I got really desperate…
• Went to Bellagio, best fucking Taiwanese place everrrrrrrr desserts were amazinggggggggg and food was amazinggggggggggggggg =)

Sunday July 6th 2008
• Slept. Studied. Lots of characters. Die.

Monday July 7th 2008
• Study.
• Went to silk street AGAIN bought some stuff with steve haha..we are a good bargaining team..he does the Chinese American thing that doesn’t understand Chinese and gets really stern with them, I’m the nice Chinese guy that can talk to them and be nice, and then suddenly turn on them karkar
• Went to this place called LAN in a sweet ass building across Silk Street..the place was SOOOO NICE like a vintage style/European French thingy and its super high class people were at the elevators waiting for us blah blah blah tons of waitresses EVERYWHERE doing nothing but will help you with anything..we weren’t going to eat there and we were definitely not dressed for this place either..go look at the pictures on facebook cause my descriptions can’t do it justice
• Super expensive (Chinese prices) food, crazy décor, bar, club, lounge, restaurant ALL IN ONE..fucking crazy presentation on the dishes too. We are DEFINITELY going there a Friday night.

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