If there’s one thing I don’t think I’d ever get used to in
China it’s breakfast. Breakfast here is basically the same food as lunch and
dinner – just less. So when my teacher surprised my class by bringing in
“breakfast” it was basically our lunch. She brought us meat buns and this
strange twisted sweet bread. The bread reminded me of a less sweet version of
Olle Bollen – the Dutch doughnuts my family makes for New Years – and it made
me excited to get back and celebrate Christmas and New Years!
A few weeks ago when we were traveling to Chengde my
professor and I saw a large group of cars parked on the shoulder of the road.
He told me that they were probably a car club. Car club? Car clubs are made up
of either the same kind of car or made up of people with similar interests. Then, that
club goes out for a day and drives everywhere together. So, if it’s just the
same kind of car they drive around and
take breaks together, if they have similar interests they just all meet and drive
to whatever place to do whatever together.
How do you join a car club? Probably the internet. I wonder if there’s a
Jeep club…
Another fun fact I learned was that the government does
regulate who can drive a car on what day
- the hope is to help with the pollution (hah.). If your license plate
ends in a certain number you can’t drive on a certain day of the week. Example:
if your license plate ends in a 1 or 6 you can’t drive on Mondays. The police
can pull you over and fine you if you drive on a day you aren’t supposed to be.
There’s a place called Nanluguxiang that is a touristy
hutong attraction. The people live in the hutongs and go to the main streets to
sell various food and keepsakes. I had seen some cups there that I really liked
and decided I wanted to buy the next time we were there. Well, we went back
last week and I looked around at all the vendors and didn’t see exactly what I
wanted. Eventually I asked a guy that had similar items if he had any of the
cups. He told me he did, but I had to follow him. Hah. I turned to Micah and
made him follow me follow this guy down an alleyway. All was fine until he
turned down an even darker alley. I stopped and debated whether or not I really
wanted to go in. He came back when he realized I wasn’t following him and
gestured for me to go in. Micah and I went in and went through some smaller
alleys until we found his house. The guy had led us to his house where his wife
was and…. shelves of the cups I wanted! I spent forever looking through
everything and talking with the couple.
The heat turns on November 15 and I cannot be more excited.
This Thursday we went to a museum in memory of the Japanese/Chinese war and the Marco Polo Bridge. The museum was shocking… to say the least.
I mainly took pictures of pictures with captions because the captions were odd and fairly straightforward. You may not be able to read them, but when I come back I can show you.
….
On the right are bones from Chinese women.
Linden bought this mouse pad for her brother in the gift shop… the translation is a bit off, haha.
This adorable puppy hung out with us while we waited for everyone to come out of the museum.
All different kinds of these lions lined the bridge.
I went to a tea market with two Calvin kids and one of their language partners on Friday. It was really fun and we got to sit down with people and try different kinds of tea. Everyone was really nice and genuinely interested in what we were doing in Beijing. On the way back from the tea market the language partner and I were talking and she told me how when she first saw me she thought I looked like Avril Lavigne. Interesting.
So, we actually have 3 more weeks of Chinese class instead of 2. Less than a month and I'll be back! That's crazy.
