Nothing much has happened since I last wrote

Yesterday was an especially clear day. You could see the needle and the sky did not look brown. It was nice. With Spencer, Joe and the kids from Quebec, we went to dinner and had some delicious Korean BBQ. Lots and lots of meat. Mmm.

About the kids from Quebec. They live in our building and they all speak French. Quoi interesant. Of course they can speak English too, but their native language is French. Spencer first started talking to them and hanging out with them. I found it funny that my five years of French training in high school is finally coming to use. I mean, I remember going to France and Quebec, but it did not really help in that situation. Now, out of all places, China, I can use my French. Would that be ironic?

The Chinese language classes are getting ridiculously difficult. I am slowly picking up on certain basic characters, but still, my fluency is low. Some of the kids in the class know a lot more because they have studied the language in the past. I am just thrown into it, which is good because otherwise I probably would have never found the motivation or ambition to learn the language.

After classes which typically end around 3, we tend to run small errands and go out. We have not been able to explore the city that much, because half the time we don't know where to go. However, the places near by are fine to explore. Especially the food. The food on campus is kind of bad, however outside it's delicious. The beer on the street for a large bottle is 4 RMB, meaning it's less than a dollar for a beer. Prices at clubs and bars and such are almost the same as in the US, a little cheaper, but expensive compared to the standard of living.


There is a mall nearby the "New Culture Center" which I thought looked very hip. I think the place had more than one hundred (100) clothing stores. Four stories of the same stuff. It made me realize why everything is imported from China to the US (because there's no room for it here). That's a joke. But seriously, I have never seen so much jewelry and clothing all in one place tightly packed together.


Tomorrow we are leaving to go to Beijing to see the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and the Imperial Palace. I would like to also see Mao's body. Here's something I think, did Mao come out with crazy policies because he had Syphilis?? Hmm.

I would put some pictures in here, but the computer is not really allowing for me to do this at the moment. So I will end this post here.

Wo ai ni.