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Published: September 30th 2009
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yuck
black water that came out of the shower one day The last few days have been really fun; I have quite a bit to write about for such a short time.
On Friday we went to La Bamba at 6 o’clock. La Bamba is the restaurant above Propaganda, which is the most popular bar/club in our area. As I’m sure you figured out, it is Mexican food, which is a big deal in China because all the Chinese people I have asked have never even tried Mexican food. It was exciting to find somewhere to get it. On Fridays before 7 they have burritos for 10 yuan! ($1.50) They are big enough to fill you up too. They were delicious and came with fresh salsa so I soaked mine with it. Unfortunately no tortilla chips though.
After La Bamba we took a taxi to the Kro’s Nest, which is a pizza place/bar I’ve talked about before. There were a lot of people from my program there, probably almost half. I have a few pictures posted of that. I ended up playing foosball most of the night. Amanda and I played against two guys from MN. They went to Gustavus and are in Beijing for some kind of graduate program.
fierce
nail things at sanlitun market We also played the owners, and beat them at their own game. They demanded a rematch and just barely beat us. Amanda and some others want to go there tonight and I will probably go. It’s fun and pretty laid back, and we’ve never stayed there past 11, so it’s a good chill place to go since I have class tomorrow morning.
Back to last weekend, on Saturday we slept in and then Lihau, Monica, Howie and I did some homework as usual. At about 7 we went to Wudaokou, which is the district about half hour walk from campus. We went to a Korean BBQ restaurant; I have pictures posted of that. I didn’t eat much of the actual BBQ but I had some really good soup. After that we did some street shopping. The vendors are technically illegal so when the police walk by they all grab their goods and hide in the alleyways. The police can obviously see them, so it’s not like they are really enforcing anything but there must be a reason they hide. We saw puppies being sold on the street as usual, but we also saw a whole bunch of other pets this
matt and monica
they got some scary shirts time (see pictures). We went down a hutong, which is like an alleyway that has little food shops all over and the people who run the shop live right behind it usually. It’s a very traditional Beijing thing; the food is ridiculously cheap, even for China, since their cost of living is so low. We got some really good food and headed back to campus. That concluded my nice relaxing Saturday night.
Sunday was also an exciting day. Nikki, Emma, Will and I went to the Tea Market. I’m not sure where it was in Beijing, but it was about a half hour cab ride to get there. The street with the tea market on it was all tea shops. The place we went to was a large 4 story building with a bunch of tea shops on each floor. It was like the silk market but instead of every shop being different, every shop had tea or tea accessories, usually both. When you enter a shop they ask what kind of tea you are looking for and have you sit down at a big fancy tea table. They let you smell some varieties of the tea you chose
and start making you tea right away. There is an intricate ritual that they perform to make the tea just right. It includes rinsing the tea leaves with one batch of water and pouring that water over a small statue of a lucky frog-type animal with a coin in its mouth. Then they pour the second round into very small cups for you to taste. The tea was very good so I guess they know what they’re doing. I have pictures showing the tea table, so check those out. The first place we went to we bought some oolong tea, which is my favorite kind. After that we walked around, which resulted in some funny pictures of giant tea towers and other things. We sat down at a couple more tables and bought some jasmine tea as well. I have yet to make the tea for myself but if it’s half as good as it was there, it will be great. The prices weren’t too bad, not dirt cheap but better then Chinese tea in America. After going home we got cold noodles and I did homework, nothing too exciting…until…
Midnight! When the clock hit midnight it was officially
my birthday and a bunch of my friends came in singing happy birthday and gave me a cake. It was really fun and the cake was good, I have pictures up, courtesy of Emma. After that excitement I went to bed and got up the next morning for class. I had a good birthday and a lot of people wished me happy birthday but I had two classes, Monday is my busiest day. I had Chinese 9-12 and Rural Economics 1:30-4:30. I had to give a speech in econ so that wasn’t exciting but after class was. The program bought me a big delicious cake; it was like angel food cake with really light whipped frosting and fruit. It was fun and in China they have these firework candles that you have to light and they basically burn your face if you’re not careful. I blew out the candles and they put me to work. Apparently in China you don’t get to eat the first piece of cake, you have to cut everyone else there a piece and then you get your own. It was amazing and after that party I headed up to Lihau and Monica’s room where they
were waiting with another party. I have pictures of the second party, or technically third. The cake they got me was a smaller version of the one the program got me, so it was delicious. They also got pizza for dinner and some 啤酒 . It was fun hanging out there, but unfortunately Howie, Lihau and Monica all had class from 6:30-9:30. Will, Zach and I went to Emma’s and hung out for a while until they were done with class, which happily ended early. The people that came out with us for my birthday were: Lihau, Monica, Will, Zach, Anthony, Toni and Matt.
We walked towards Wudaokou with intent on going to an Irish Pub. When we got there it was closed. Some think it is because the national holiday is coming up. They had some very anti-Communist propaganda hanging in their bathrooms, which is not okay in China. There is a real possibility that it got shut down. We weren’t discouraged and kept walking. We decided to go down a Hutong, which I talked about earlier. We went further down this time and met a crazy old Chinese man. He was really excited that it was
my birthday. That’s about all I could understand since his Chinese had such a bad Beijing accent. However, he did buy me a beer so we decided to hang out there for a while. We got some food and it was delicious, and so cheap it might as well been free. It was really fun just hanging out in old school Beijing and having a good time. It was a good change of pace from going to loud American style clubs and bars. After hanging out for a couple hours however, we decided to go dancing before heading home. We went to Propaganda as usual; they carded us to make sure we were in fact students, which was crazy because that’s never happened there. Usually they see white people and let us right in. After we got frisked we were let in to dance. It was fun but very smokey. After dancing we got in a cab to go back to campus. The cab driver was very entertaining. He had a CD with American dance music on it so he blasted it and we all sang and he sang with us it was very funny. All in all it was
a very good birthday.
Nothing too exciting has happened since then; I leave for Inner Mongolia in four and a half hours. We are very excited to go and when I get back I’ll write a blog as soon as possible!
I’m out for now! Peace and God bless!
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Sheri
non-member comment
Chipmunk...
I don't think that they use the chipmunk as a pet...