Living It, coz we know it's coming to an end.

I have only about 6 weeks more here in China. Thinking about how my semester here in Beijing is going to end in a blink of an eye, has made me want to do and experience as much as I can. There is no time to be tired and lazy and wanting to stay in. I know that if I didn't do as much as I could possibly do in Beijing, and didn't hang out with my friends here as often as I could, I would regret it once this is over. It's like a person wanting to live his life to the fullest after knowing that he is about to die in a few months. That is a rather depressing analogy... but it's the best one that I can think of. Sure school work still comes first, but that does not mean that I should forgo going out and seeing China and partying because of school work. What it does mean is that I should time-(micro)manage more. Get my homework done as soon as possible so that I can play hard. I don't know when I will ever come back to Beijing.. I also don't know when I will see all these people that have become my family in Beijing again after this semester is over. This semester here has just been really surreal and it's like living a dream. Once I get back to Oxford, Ohio, things are going to be different. That's when my real life resumes its routine once more.

That's why, I'm going to do everything that I can here in Beijing. I'll party till 6 am... (definitely will never be able to do that again ever!), I'll willingly brave the crazy Beijing traffic alone and walk to the hotel off-campus to hang out with friends if I have to, I'll ask friends out spontaneously for meals, I'll eat good Beijing food, willingly go the distance to see a part of Beijing that I haven't. Heck, I'll do 6 hours of karaoke... Celebrate people's half birthdays (even though I know it's just another excuse for people to drink -_-) Talk as much as I can in my classes... Eat as much 鸡蛋饼 egg pancakes, 煎饼 fried pancakes and red bean pancakes as I can... I'll do all those things because I know that I am going to miss it once I leave this place. But enough of being sentimental.

Last week was Yong's birthday. We opened our 6-hour karaoke ceremony with a round of 祝你生日快乐 with a baozi and 21 Pocky 'candles' poked into it.

Who knew we would have become good friends? I definitely didn't.

Ying Jia and Michiyo, beers and singing. Wooooo!

Annika's Belgium friend, Jan came to Beijing for a visit. It was awesome bringing him around. As you can tell, we had a Sweet time.. as sweet as 糖葫芦 and cotton candy.

太阳出来了！很暖和。现在可以在北大的公园一边学习，一边晒太阳。啊，很幸福！The sun peeked its head out last week... Makes studying much more bearable especially when you can sit in the gardens whilst studying, people watch and getting a lil sun in your skin. Then there's activities like flying a kite (yeah, really... flying a kite) and learning how to ride a bike. Not just any bike, but Evelyn's Pink bike, that we haggled for together. My friends decided that it's time for me to face my fear and learn how to ride a bike. So I had Biking 101 last Friday in front of everyone. And now have big blue bruises to show for it.


On Saturday, I got my fair share of a workout by climbing Fragrant Hill 香山。The English name of this place really is a big fat lie. Fragrant Hill is definitely not a hill. It's not just A mountain, more like Multiple Mountains. I climbed about 1000 steps up to the peak and decided not to go any further because it was foggy and brown. No flowers or greens anywhere. The only fun part was my 登山队 climbing group. Haha. We made lame videos, released stress by screaming our lungs out at the peak, ate our snacks, climbed perilous rocks, took a gazillion pictures... good times, good times.

So deceiving.. the "hill" was really pretty at the foot, with flowers and everything.

Then we got to the top, and this was all we could see. Fog and more fog. Brown and more brown. *sigh* The view could have been spectacular.. if we only had a 蓝色天 'blue sky day'.

Climbing down.. we decided to take the road less taken.... yeah.

The Friday night before, Steph, Andrea and I decided to have a girls night out. So yeah.. Andrea and I climbed a freaking mountain on 4 hours of sleep. It was amazing.. WE were amazing! Steph was too much of a 瞌睡虫 sleepy worm to wake up that morning.

One of the many signs at NanJie bar... So encouraging.

And of course, a weekend would be wasted and futile if we did not had good Beijing food.

Yummy, homecooked Hakka food on Thursday night.

烤鸭Beijing Roasted Duck on Friday night. Finally finally tried the famous Beijing must-try. Had the best of the best too at the QuanJuDe 全聚德 branch in 前门 Qian Men. I made bookings online but after having a long conversation with a Chinese person on the phone, we decided to head there early and order our own dishes instead of paying 350yuan for a set meal. There were 9 of us and we each paid 130 yuan each. For a whole lot of 凉菜 and 2 ducks. Must say that I'm glad I've finally tried it.. but the duck definitely did not have that distinct duck taste that I love. I think Malaysian duck still taste better.

Then on Saturday, we finally decided to go vegetarian for Andrea's sake. It was goood.

The girls... that make my days and nights so much more colorful.