Nothing can beat Street Food!

I don't care what people say about Street Food... I'm still its number one fan. One of the very many things that I miss the most about Malaysia is the FOOD! The pasar malam (night market) food... from pan jeng kuih to fried chicken, bubble tea... to fried ice cream and of course that steaming bowl of asam laksa! I miss it all. So you can probably already tell what I usually do during my free time... Eating of course! Eating. Eating. Eating. I have yet to walk the night streets of WangFuJing and stuff my face with Street Food!!! Of course, I'll be careful. I know what street food can do to my tummy. I'll be a good girl and only eat from stalls where there are a gazillion people lining up at. And of course, I won't eat all the weirdo stuff like snake blood, and goodness knows what else.

In the mean time though... here's what I've been enjoying in BeiDa all this while.. and almost every single day.

I seriously cannot get enough of this baozi. Too bad I've never seen baozi like this at all in Malaysia! It's 煎生包- fried bao (??). It's basically a regular meat bao but the underside of it is fried with sesame seeds. So taking a bite out of it, you get a mix of soft bao bread and crispy bao bread with sesame seeds, and seasoned meat... all in one bite!

And of course, there's that sweet potato from the potato stand.. wrapped in brown paper.. all steaming hot. Waiting for you to peal its skin off and for you to sink your teeth into its succulent, soft yellow meat(?).... perfect for a cold winter's day! And the one on the right is the infamous 煎饼 jianbing. I don't even really know what it is. But it's some kinda fried flour mixture, with egg and a crispy center of something... with some greens, a weird brown sauce and cili sauce.

Doesn't this sweet potato look absolutely amazingly delicious? I had it for supper yesterday. For 1 元。So yummy. So cheap.

I still have yet to remember the name of this. Rou something mo... if I'm not mistaken. I just call it Chinese hanbaobao (hamburger)... with steamed saucy pork all minced up and lettuce, and of course I usually get them to add tauge (bean sprouts). My favorite thing to eat when I get too lazy to walk to the cafeteria to get dinner. 2 hanbaobao's and I'm satisfied.

I have now almost mastered the act of eating while walking to class, and talking to my friends. Every one in China has to be able to master that skill. During my 12-12.30pm lunch break, I usually sprint off to the baozi stall, get a couple of baozi(s), start eating it while sprinting back to class, and talking to the person next to me. It really isn't that easy a skill as it sounds. Having to make sure you don't bump into the gazillion BeiDa students all around you, while taking that big bite of baozi and making sure the precious baozi filling doesn't fall out while you take that bite. And then sometimes with that tissue in your hand for you to wipe your mouth.... it's all an act of extreme-multitasking!

Goal for the end of this semester:

Increase my Chinese vocabulary!

For my first Chinese Characters class, our teacher asked us 你认识多少生词（how many Chinese characters do you know). I have to admit that I sorta panicked. I was seriously about to say 100 characters. But then, when I listened to how many characters every other person in class said they knew.. it was like 700, 900, 1000... one person even said 2000 characters. "Umm.. for real? Shyet!!!" - that was what was running through my head. In the end, I decided to say 500 characters... although, really.. I am pretty sure I don't know as many as that. Then for our first class we had to take a test to see how many vocabulary words we know. I finished it in seriously, less than 10 minutes. Because I basically did not know 3/4 of the words on our test sheet. So I just sat there... waited and waited for someone to be the first to hand in their test sheet. I waited...and waited... and could not wait anymore and stare and my practically empty test sheet... so I decided to be brave and hand mine in before everyone else. Right after I did... people started standing up and handing theirs in too. haha. Everyone was also waiting for that one person to make the first move. I was actually that 'one person' for the first time!!

I had to give an on-the-spot presentation slash discussion in my Speaking class that day. It was pretty nerve-wrecking. I already get nervous talking in front of a class in English.. and now I actually had to do it in Chinese! So there I was babbling in front... about my on-the-spot given topic: 自行车　Bicycles! (Hui, I'm pretty sure bicycle isn't called 自行车 in Malaysia right?) So there I was in front, clasping and unclasping my clammy hands and desperately trying to find something interesting to talk about in Chinese about bicycles. It was awkward and slightly.. just slightly funny.
我不会骑自行车。应为我小的时候，我爸爸没教我骑自行车。 所以我到现在都还不会骑自行车。我的朋友常常要教我骑自行车，可是我觉得很不好意思。应为我现在已经很大了，如果别人看到我学骑自行车，他们一定笑我的。(I don't know how to ride a bicycle because my dad did not teach me how to ride one when I was young. That's why until now, I still don't know how to ride one. My friends keep wanting to teach me how to ride one but I'm too embarassed. If other people see me riding one, they will definitely laugh at me. )
That is basically what I said. Peppered with a whole bunch of "Umm"s and chin-scratching and a lot of “这么说。。？” questions. I should be able to say all that fluently. But I couldn't just because I was really nervous. Die. I should stop being nervous when talking in front of a crowd.

Something random: when a person is snoring, a slight tap or slight noise will be able to stop the person from snoring? haha, well at least it works for me. My roommate tested it out on me last night. And you know, now that we're in China... we sometimes dream in Chinese. For real. It's hilarious! My roommate talked in her sleep last week... she was ordering meat dumplings in her sleep. And I heard it all! "我要饺子。不要肉的。"（I want dumplings. With no meat)

Stepping foot on sacred ground....

First thing, it was Friday Night last night! We had our first REAL partying experience in Beijing. A group of us decided to finally see what Propaganda was all about. Propaganda is one of the many clubs in WuDaoKou... The club was really pretty cool. This is my first experience going into a club that is not in Oxford. So, of course... I was pretty excited. I know, I know... partying and clubbing really isn't a part of the whole Chinese culture. Many of the Chinese people that I know have not even been to a club in China. Clubs and bars are associated with female prostitutes and.. basically very bad people. I also know that I am only enforcing the American stereotype of 'partying' and 'drinking'... (I only got one drink..! Really! oh, and my first tequila shot.. haha) Now that I've been in America for like what.. almost 3 years, dancing (not drinking) really is a form of release and fun for me. So I guess yeah, I am enforcing the American stereotype in a foreign country... but but but (!!!) I definitely do not enforce the American stereotype of alcohol-drinking.

This is AnnikaTheRoomie and me on the bus..

The whole group of us in Room 513 (our room) taken on timer.

We had our CIEE trip to the Lama Temple, Confucius Temple and the Imperial College very very early this morning.
The Lama Temple is really one of the most impressive temples that I have ever been to ever! I felt like a really bad Buddhist when at the temple. I was at awe with everything in the temple, the strong beliefs and intense prayers the Chinese people were making... the statues, the monks, the architecture... EVERYTHING! I kept looking at everything and going WOW!

This is the sign right in front of the Lama Temple, that's written in Manchurian, Mongolian, Tibetan and Mandarin (Chinese). Isn't that so amazing?

This is the entrance into the Lama Temple.

And this is one of the many pictures that I took of the Lama Temple. Did you know that the temple has like the largest wood Buddha statue in the world, it's in the Guinness Book of Records? Standing at the foot of this Buddha was very very humbling. The tree that it was made from was from the border of China and Tibet. I'm only sorry that I could not take a picture of it.

This is the Imperial College and a brief history of it. The Imperial College was a university used in the past for real teaching purposes and for major Chinese examinations.

This is the 'throne' that the emperor used to sit on to give out his teachings to the students of the university.

Wouldn't you like the entrance of your school to look like this? This entrance alone would seriously totally inspire me to go to school everyday!

This is the Confucius Temple. And that's Confucius, with Stephanie and me.

The scriptures of Confucius, in the temple.

Musical instruments in the temple.

北京大学， 冬天。PKU in the Winter...

I actually took a walk around campus on my own on Thursday last week. I am so proud of myself for being able to get lost on my own without completely freaking out and bursting into cold sweat! It's the winter time, it was freezing cold on Thursday, and I decided to take a walk around campus and around Wei Ming Lake to 拍照　(take pictures). It was a very awkward walk of me and my camera. Everyone else around the lake were either families or couples. There were so many guys taking pictures of their girlfriends, and quite a few families trying that hand at creating their first snowman with the snow on the iced-over lake. And then, there's me. And my camera. Taking pictures of... Scenery. When I realized how sorta out of place I looked, I started pretending in my head that I was a professional photographer. Somehow, I guess in my head, I thought people would look at professional photographers in a different light, than that of a single girl walking around with no one to take pictures with, or no one to take pictures of her. Honestly though, it's not like what I think of in my head is going to show up in my physical appearance to others. Umm, sure, maybe I tried to make my photography actions look slightly more professional.. but who am I kidding... I wasn't even using a professional camera!
But anyway, here is how Beijing Da Xue 北京大学 or Peking University (PKU) looks like in the winter when there's snow on the ground. It is really very pretty.

This is 北京大学图书馆- PKU's library. It is the largest university library in the whole of Asia. Pretty impressive huh?

This WeiMing Lake all frozen over, coated with a layer of snow. And the Boya Tower in the background. Wei Ming means 'no name' because no one could find a name good enough to match the beauty of the lake. Boya Tower is a water tower built a long time ago to solve water problems on campus.

This is the lake itself and people on it. See that snowman to the right of the picture?

PKU has many gardens and such. These are the steps in one of the gardens.

These are classrooms. Don't you love how Chinese the buildings look? I do!

Chinese use bicycles as their main mode of transportation.Every Chinese person has at least one bicycle, if not more.

This is one of the many shops in PKU selling food and groceries. This one sells fruit... and see those rice cookers? One of them has baozi in it and the other has dumplings in it. And next to the ricecookers, there are plastic containers of soy bean milk. I just learned that sipping warm soy bean milk, on a cold winter's day while walking to class is the best thing ever!

The paths (actually, they're more like roads) around campus are usually filled with people, especially in between class hours. On both sides of the roads around campus, there are always many many trees lining them.

This is the building that I live it. ShaoYuan Guest House, Building 9. I just recently learned that Building 9 is the best Shao Yuan building of them all! We have pretty good and nice 服务员 (service people) who clean our rooms (not usually very well, but better than not cleaning at all), elevators, individual bathrooms for each room, a tv, airconditioning, and only 2 people share a room. In other buildings, up to 6 people would have to cram in an even smaller room than ours, 1 floor only has 1 common bathroom that everyone has to share, there is no airconditioning in the rooms and there are no elevators in most of the buildings.. so living on the 5th or 6th floor would certainly be crazy.

Oh, and this is the view from my window! If I'm not mistaken, that road right out there is called Suzhou Jie, but I might be wrong.

It's Still Snowing!

Damn... I should have brought my camera along with me when my tutor brought me to walk around Wuming Lake. It was sooo pretty. The lake was all frozen over and people were walking on the ice hand in hand, slipping and sliding. It was such a pretty sight. People were playing with the snow and everything. Everything had a layer of white snow on it. People were all bundled up in warm jackets. There were people riding bikes around the lake, some guys had their girlfriends sitting behind them on their bike, holding tight to their waists. Couples were walking hand in hand everywhere around the lake. Very 浪漫 langman (romantic). 和自己的心上人尽情相处。。 真得很浪漫！Enjoying to the fullest with the one you love... so romantic! Haha.. that was one of my sentences in my book.
I had a really good time with my tutor today. We talked about our tastes in music and how she finds speaking English very difficult. She will be taking her Toefl exam at the end of this month, and is very nervous about it. She really wants to go to University of Maryland for Graduate school. So this exam is very important. We talked about how she has bad impressions of the American culture. From what she knows, Americans like to drink a lot and go to bars. She said that she's not that kind of person and wonders if she will be able to get used to life in the United States if she does end up going to grad school there. It's sad that that's the one thing that non-Americans associate with the American culture. We also talked about the American education system and how students are really open with talking and giving their opinions in class. That is so different from the education system in Asia, that is more passive. She asked me how long it took for me to get used to the education system there, and to feel comfortable in a different culture. I had to think for a little bit. In the end I told her that it took about a year，maybe even more. Even now, I sometimes feel like I still don't fit in with the American culture. But I am definitely much more comfortable now. I definitely also feel more comfortable with Not fitting in with the culture. With the passing of every year, I do find myself being much more 'American' in terms of socializing and speaking my mind. Sure I still occasionally tend to hide in my shell, but I now come out more often and I am less afraid of doing it.

I would say we had a pretty intellectual conversation don't you think? She asked me what I need help with in terms of improving my Chinese... and I said my vocabulary. So she offered to take me to the bookstores after her Toefl exam to look at cheap books or poems. She said she wants to read with me Journey to the West 西游记 .. which is one of the Four Great Classical Novels of Chinese Literature. So I'm excited. I saw the Cantonese drama for it a long time ago when I was younger.. now I can actually attempt to read the story. I don't know how I will fare. So we'll see...

I am so so hungry. My roommate dumped me for a nap. My stomach's making grumbly noises. Need to get some food!

What what what??!!

Yeah that's how I feel most of the time during my classes. Almost everyone in my classes have been studying in PKU for more than a semester. Practically every single one of them has a better vocabulary than I do. All of them have that 中文收心 zhong wen shou xin（Chinese frame of mind)- that's one of my new vocab words, which I really don't. I find myself making sentences in my head in English and trying to translate it into Chinese, and that just takes up like 10 minutes of my time. Either that, or for some weirdo reason, I find myself thinking of words in Cantonese instead of Mandarin. It's pretty frustrating. Other than all that, classes are great. haha. I do like my 老师 (teachers) and usually I can understand them pretty well. Chinese classes here are really different than Chinese classes back at Miami. At Miami, when explaining the 生词 (new words), teachers usually explain the meanings of each word in English. But over here, 生词的意思 （meaning new words) are all explained in Chinese. The teachers explain the meanings really well though, and in much simpler Chinese. So understanding the meaning in the end is really not a problem. I really had it easy in Miami... I had only 5-6 听写字 (dictation words) every lesson. Now, I have like 15-20 听写字 almost every lesson! Thinking about my 听写 now, does make me nervous! I still find it difficult trying to convey my questions or my meaning in Chinese.

I guess it just means I have to 耐心一点和努力练习 （be a little patient and practice hard). I think I'll be okay. I mean I just have to put in more effort than others... but who said it was going to be easy, right? I'm only just learning the 课文（passage) of the first chapter, but already my book is filled with writings of pinyin and the English meanings of words. Because I don't know at least 1-2 words in each sentence, or I have absolutely no idea what a sentence means.

I'm just freaking myself out. I'll be fine. I know I will be.

Oh oh oh! It snowed in Beijing today. It actually snowed! 2nd time this Winter it snowed. Not much of it is left on the ground though.

上课了！

It's the first day of class tomorrow. I have my first 汉语 hanyu language class tomorrow at 8am in the morning! I have not had an 8am class since my first semester of Freshman year. Class blocks are 1 hour and 50 minutes each.. so unlike the 50 minutes class blocks that we have back in Miami. I am either going to be half asleep throughout class or awake and alert throughout it. I'm hoping it's going to be the latter. I was just having a corridor conversation with a bunch of my program people, and one of them is a CIEE student from last semester. Her Chinese name is Hua Mulan.. Yeah, Mulan from the Disney movie. She's this really charismatic African American from California... and boy is she Chinese. No... she is really Chinese... She knows all the happening places to go to at nights, she knows where to get really good street food, she has no qualms about jumping queues and elbowing other Chinese people to get in line. Her Chinese is a combination of African American slang and Beijing slang. It is awesome! Never have I seen, or heard anyone like her before. Totally perfect amazing mix of two of would seem like very opposite cultures. I wonder if I will ever actually become familiar with Beijing as much as she has. One of the past students told me that the best way to get to know local Chinese people is to just randomly talk to them when standing in line or when in a bar. That is how the made friends with the locals. How am I ever supposed to do that? I don't even feel comfortable enough with randomly chatting with people in America or even in Malaysia for that matter! Will I be able to get to know how to move around the city by myself, will I be able to point out to other people which restaurant is better to eat at, or which street food vendor has the cheapest food? That would be so amazing if I could be an 'almost Beijing-er' at the end of these few months.. then when my mum comes over, I can actually be her tour guide and show her around.

Annika (my roommate) and I met with our tutor for dinner today. It was pretty awkward. I have not experienced communication breakdowns due to language barriers in a very long time. The one that stands out most in my memory was when I was on the plane to Dayton. Hui, Joliana and were all sitting on the exit aisle. It was my first time flying alone and my first time sitting in the exit aisle. You know how before the plane takes off, the stewardess comes to ask you if you are willing to help others out of the exit during an emergency landing...? And if you are unwilling, they will switch your seats? Yeah.. the stewardess asked me that.. and I could not for the life of me understand what she was saying. The American accent was just completely above me. I kept shaking my head and saying no and she kept asking me if I wanted to change seats, and I kept saying no and shaking my head. I don't think Hui and Joliana realized what was happening with me since we weren't sitting next to each other. In the end the stewardess just gave up and decided to let me be. It was only halfway through the flight that I randomly picked up the safety card and started reading it that I understood what she was asking me... That was my first communication breakdown in America. Today I had my first one in China. Actually, it isn't my first one. I've had quite a few, duh. But this one was really long and intense. It was pretty difficult trying to have even a decent conversation when you have absolutely no idea what words to use to convey what you wanted to say. Luckily she could understand a little English, and so Annika and I could mix it up a little to make ourselves understood. It was truly an experience. Oh and we had dinner at one of the cafeterias and she brought me to her favorite stall that had Guangdong and Fujian food.. (Yes daddy, Fujian food). And I was like.. 啊我是福建人！(I am Hokkien) I have to admit, I got rather excited with eating Fujian food, not like I could really differentiate it with other Chinese food.... and it wasn't like I really knew what to order or how to read the menu (as usual). Decided on the conventional 牛肉面 beef noodles in the end. But still, I was excited.

Okay, time for a shower, a cup of hot water (yeah, I've gotten used to drinking hot water from my red Chinese flask every night and every morning), an attempt at reading through my first chapter of my book and then off to bed!

Tianamen Square and The Forbidden City

Today we had second CIEE trip to Tianamen Square 天安门 (Gate of Heavenly Peace)　and the Forbidden City 紫禁城．It really felt surreal to have been there. Standing where the Boxer Rebellion events took place, where the May 12th Tianamen Square incident took place. It felt very surreal. I've always only ever looked at pictures in books of these two places, never have I ever imagined actually being able to step foot in these places. Both places were brimming with an unimaginable amount of tourists! Coupled with the typical mentality of push and shove to get the best look of things, it was really really very very crowded!

Walking through the inner walls of the Forbidden City.

The infamous Mao picture at Tiananmen Square. And a soldier guarding it.

Security was pretty tight in this area. And there were soldiers in green and policemen as well as plain-clothes policemen walking all around.

This is the Mao-soleum that Chairman Mao's preserved body is kept. Yeah, I did not know that Mao's body has been preserved since his death and it is for exhibition in the Mao-soleum for the public to see. In my guidebook it says that every night, the body is kept back into a refrigerator. If you look closely to the left of the picture, you will see the many people queuing up to view the body.

I took too many pictures of the Forbidden City to put up. There were too many halls and living quarters to keep up with... Hall of Supreme Harmony, Hall of Central Harmony, Hall of Preserving Harmony, Palace of Heavenly Purity, Hall of Union, Palace of Earthly Tranquility, Gate of Divine Might... The place was seriously really really huge. The architecture was absolutely beautiful. I kept having images of Chinese dramas that were set in palace headquarters running through my mind when walking through it all.

This is one of the many thrones of the emperor. I think all in all, I saw about 4 thrones... I am sure there are way more than that that's not opened to the public.

This is the sides of the Empress' wedding sedan, that has the 喜喜 chinese character on it. It is the character for double happiness and it is supposed to be good luck to touch it. I was amongst a crowd of Chinese people who literally wiped their palms on this symbol on the sedan. I mean I touched it, just for good luck. But I could not help but think of how clean the walls of sedan were.

This is one part of the beautiful garden of the Forbidden City that the emperor's concubines used to walk in.

The exit gate of the Forbidden City.

Adventures of a Tourist

It was raining in Beijing the whole of Thursday. Crossing the streets with umbrellas with everyone else carrying umbrellas was really not an easy feat! Having to avoid greenish brown puddles of water on the street only made it harder. By the time we found a new dinner venue, my jeans were soaked halfway up my calves! Beer and meat on skewers (kebabs or satay) make excellent dinner on a cold rainy day, Ｉ must say. Oh and chicken hearts on a stick... so so so yummy!

Our beer and kebab/satay dinner...

Yesterday, we looked into our guidebooks and decided to get a traditional 中国按摩 Chinese massage. Mum and dad, don't get all worked up at the price of the massage.. it wasn't that expensive. But yeah. We decided to go to a place called Bodhi that's near the Worker's Stadium. It was quite a feat for us to figure out how the Beijing subway system works. But we did a good job in the end. First, we could not find the subway station near PKU, and ended up getting these 2 very nice Chinese girls walk us all the way to the subway station (which was in the complete opposite direction). We had to transfer trains twice to get to our stop.

Trying to make out the subway system

A view of one of the subway stations.

This is my very first massage, and boy do I have the most awesome massage story to tell! Stephanie and I both got male masseuses (did I spell that right?) Never have I ever had a guy touch me at so many places in my life! (that sounded so wrong, but it's true!) First things first, my massage bed was creaky, so with every pressure point of my body that he massaged, the bed creaked. I swear that my masseuse was actually mounted up on me while massaging my back. I mean it (the massage) felt good, but it was really rather awkward. And it became even more awkward when he massaged my umm... butt. And kinda did this patting motion up and down my butt. You must already be laughing by now... I felt like laughing when it was happening. haha. Partly because I could feel my fats jiggling with every pat he made and partly because, you just have to laugh you know. Right now my shoulders are really really sore and even a soft pat on them hurts. From what I gathered from my masseuse, my shoulders are really tense. And I could really feel that my right shoulder muscles hurt a lot more during the massage than my left. Oh, and during my massage, my spa uniform top kept riding up my back, and my poor masseuse kept pulling it down for me. Which made me feel extra bad, because I kept wondering if I should be pulling it down myself. In the end, I just let him pull it down my back just about 10 times throughout my 1 hour massage. haha. He also did this little lifting up thing with my legs... practically half my body was lifted off the bed. And he also did it with my upper body. Poor guy, I could feel his heavy breathing during my massage. My tension in my muscles must have needed too much strength to massage.

That's Bodhi's in that turn of the alley

And that's Stephanie and I on our massage beds in what looks like jail uniform. The place was really 'zen-like' and tranquil. It was cool! My first massage...!

Then we decided to continue walking on down to Sanlitun 三里屯 to walk around. That place is really a hub for foreigners. There was a huge outdoor mall there that architecturally surpassed outdoor malls that I have been to in the US. This mall had all the American brands that you could think of.. Apple, American Outfitters, Northface, United Colors.... everything!

That's the mall. Doesn't it look cool?!

On the way to Sanlitun, guess what we managed to spot? Hooters China!

Our most amazing feat of the day... our dinner venue! We are so good at finding the most delicious dinner places... I am so proud of us! haha. We had dinner at a Noodle Bar that we found in some obscure street near the mall. Actually, we found the window to the place along the obscure street and had absolutely no idea how to get into it. The shops on both sides of it had these stair-ladder things leading to it but this shop did not.

See how there's kinda like a little door on the left of the window? We contemplated climbing the steps of the shop next to it and then climbing over the baricade between both shops but it turns out that the 'floor' leading to the door was too flimsy. We ended up calling the number on the window and saying, "对不起．我们在你的饭馆外面可是我们不知道这么近去．" - "Sorry, we're outside your shop but we have no idea how to go in" The owner ended up looking out the window and pointing to us the directions to walk around the shoplot to the back. Then he came out the back alley to show us which entrance to go in to. Turns out, our 15 minutes of standing outside the noodle bar and staring at it while scratching our heads and pointing was well worth it. The food was delicious. Sure, as usual we had no idea how to read the menu and could only understand half of what the 老板 (restaurant owner) was saying but all that we ordered.. SO SO SO YUMMY! We ate in a truly authentic family-run, tiny restaurant that people only know by word of mouth, or stumbling-upon-luck.

This is the entrance to the noodle bar. We actually had to walk through a tiny L-shaped kitchen to get to the eating area. It was truly an adventure.

A very very productive touristy day indeed...! Oh and on our way back.. guess what we saw... a guy peeing by the side of the street into the bushes. He wasn't even peeing facing a wall, nope.. he was peeing into bushes facing the street with his back facing a restaurant. A busy street that people were walking to and fro. Definitely not a pretty sight, not something I wanted to see either.

Here I am, in Beijing, China

Because of the China censorship policy, I am unable to open my Xanga blog... I have blogged for so long now that it seems unfathomable to me to not blog about my life in China. So I have resorted to starting a Blogspot blog. Don't ask me why Xanga is any different from Blogspot. I really have no idea.

It's already my 4th day in China and I am still loving it. It is raining outside now and the view fromy window is rather dreary. Everything is grey and there's a layer of humidity in the air which is very much welcomed, at least for me. It is so very dry in Beijing, I find my lips feeling all sore after an hour being outside. I have woken up every night since I've been here to gulp down water because of my dry, scratchy throat.
But enough about talk of the dry weather... You have no idea how good it feels to be back in the big city. I've missed the hustle and bustle. Of course, Beijing is like the city of all cities. Kuala Lumpur cannot even be compared to Beijing. First few things that struck me the most.. shit, the amount of cars and people and bicycles! I mean, duh China has like over a million people, but seeing people everywhere roaming the streets on foot, on bicycles, in cars, on buses, in the trains.... is really a big big change from ol' little Oxford. Crossing the roads in China... I cannot even think of what to compare it to. The pedestrian lights and traffic lights really don't serve its purpose. People start crossing the roads at any opportunity they can. Cars speed up when they're about to pass a light or a pedestrian walkway. What my newfound friends and I do is to walk when the locals walk. We squeeze close to them and walk alongside them and learned to just look straight ahead when crossing the roads. Looking at cars when they are driving towards you while crossing the road will only freak you out because cars just speed up and look like they are about to hit you. Ox-people, you would have a fit crossing the roads of Beijing.
My friends and I have very bravely ventured into a few Chinese restaurants so far, not knowing what to order. Menus are all in Mandarin and none of us can really read enough to be able to know for sure what to order. It's worse when the menus don't have pictures in them. We are usually only able to make out if the dish is chicken 鸡, duck 鸭, tofu 豆腐, pork 猪, fish 鱼... and whether they are oily 油, fried 炒, soupy 汤 .... yeah, that's pretty much it. So you can imagine how fun it is trying to decipher a menu. "Oh here this is a chicken dish, but I don't recognize the other characters.. I know this means fried but that's about it..." and so it goes. At the end of it, we just play the guessing game and hope that all that we order turns out tasty.

CIEE people have been truly amazing and I have met some very interesting people. (Not to mention, some very good looking people (guys, ahem!) - but that is really not the point) I am still getting to know most of the people and I have yet to feel confident walking around campus alone. We had our first campus tour today, in the rain. And I could not get my bearings straight as to which way was the north 北, south 南, east 东 or west 西 gate. I am so bad with directions. And I'm the type who is always afraid of getting lost, I get all panicky and really start hyperventilating when I don't know where I am. Definitely not the type that enjoys getting lost and going out exploring on my own.

So far, I've been to Wudaokou 五道口 which is a street full of shopping, fast food and bars that is about 10 minutes away from PKU. I have yet to fully explore 五道口 yet, and I have yet to step into a bar or club here in China. There are a few kids here who have been to a different bar or club every single night since Sunday. Personally, I do not see the point of it.. but I guess it's the "thing to do". Instead, the group of girlfriends that I have made, have been nursing our messed up sleeping schedules due to jetlag, and been trying out new eating places everyday. Yesterday we had a CIEE trip to Hutong 胡同 which had tourists galore. 胡同 means narrow alleys or streets. At both sides of these narrow alleys, there are residential areas of families. These residential areas rarely have bathrooms in them. Usually there is one communal bathroom that the whole neighborhood shares. I am just going to let my pictures do the explaining.














This is our rickshaw driver, who was so very friendly in giving us a commentary on the sights in Mandarin. I could understand most of what he said, and if I didn't I just played the guessing game. That's Matt in the rickshaw with me, his Mandarin was so bad that I had to translate for him! haha. Our rickshaw driver mentioned that Chinese people love the NBA and how his favorite player is umm.. Johnson or something.














This is a snapshot of the very many rickshaw drivers for the purpose of driving tourists around. There really were so many of them!




























These are restaurants and bars alongside the river.














This is the courtyard of one of residential houses that we had the opportunity to enter. The owner of this house gave us a demonstration of how to make dumplings/jiaozi 饺子. Her husband is the Picasso of paper cutting. Surrounding the courtyards are rooms for the people of the house.
Do you know that these houses with courtyards now cost up to about 1 million USD?














This is a hutong, and on both sides of it are residential areas.



















This is the door to one of the houses. Depending on the status of the owner of the house, the door is different and the two stones on either side of the door is different.




























In the picture on the left, you can see one of the many tourists groups that were in Hutong. Everyone on this tour guide had on matching blue caps! On the left, is one of the buildings that some person of high position in China in the past used to live in. I never get tired of Chinese architecture. This building is actually one of the many rooms that make up the residence of a person with a position in the Chinese government. During the Cultural Revolution, this residence area was seized and made headquarters or something to CR activists.














This was so cool. I just had to have a picture of this wall. Look closely and you can see the remnants of the writings on the wall from the Cultural Revolution, wordings of Mao. Well, that was what our tourguide told us anyway.














And this is one of the many man-made rivers that were around that area. This river was frozen over. If you look closely, you can see three worker men standing on the frozen river trying to crack the ice with these sharp sticks. And you see people all crowded around at the edge, watching them.



















To end our tour of Hutong, we had the chance to enter a teahouse and learn the traditional Chinese tea ceremony. I'm Chinese and I never knew all these rituals about tea. We were served Wulong tea, Jasmine tea, Lychee tea and Cherry tea. Lychee and Cherry tea were my favorite. Definitely going to get some and bring them back home. The tea lady in this picture is holding up this special tea cup (that I really want). The picture on the tea cup changes when you pour hot tea in it. It was so amazingly cool being able to watch the picture on the cup transform before your very eyes with the heat of the tea.














This are my new found friends and I, having dinner together in a Chinese restaurant. From the left, that's Stephanie, Annika who's standing (my roommate), Evelyn and Valerie.