'Ho..what?'

I have only 6 more days until I go back to NYC!

我太高兴了！我很想我的朋友和我妈妈的彩！

Last post I left off with paper cutting, that Wednesday we went to teacher's houses to learn how to cook certain dishes. I was with my roomie and Huang Laoshi who is awesome and really sweet. We went to her apartment to learn how to cook. I was suppose to cook Kong Pow Chicken and my roomie was suppose to make 糖酥鱼 but she made steamed fish instead because the other version requires too much boiling oil...

We got into the apartment and Huang Laoshi's mom already prepared the ingredient and I was the first to prepare my dish...First-- cutting the chicken breast was hard! But I did a decent job and then time to roast the peanuts! Then it was time to let my preperation chill a bit. It was Marie's turn to conquer the fish...It's her first time cutting a FULL fish, head and all so she was a little scared. She did a good job, although Huang Laoshi's mom made fun of her because Marie cut the fish with her wrist motion, but Huang Laoshi's mom showed her it needed to be with the shoulder.



After we did all the preperation, we cooked and steamed as instructed. Huang Laoshi was like I'll help eat, my place is outside the kitchen lol...She did help cut the Huang Gua (Cucumbers) xD It didn't take long to make our dishes, and we had other foods as well. There's a pork dish that her mom did that involves wraps, veggies and vingared bean sprouts... It was really yummmy! Huang Laoshi was also nice enough to drive us to the Olympic Park after dinner because she lived very close to it. She was a great hostess.



A few days earlier, this year's language fellow for MHC is our tutor this week so she decided to take Marie and I to Hou Hai at night because that's when it's really alive. We started out pretty late as the sun was setting which was good because it was realllllly hot that day. We went to a Taoist Temple first and was the last people there to look around. Then headed to HouHai district and ended up at a resturant that was named 'Wide Resturant' when in reality its tiny as hell! Wu Xuan (the tutor) wanted to try it because she heard it was famous so we ordered some wings and other little things because they are known for it. We enjoyed our snack before heading out to the bar district. As we headed to a section of Houhai, we saw a donkey as it was being lead by a woman. It was the first time we've seen one so it was def a rare sight.

The sun was setting and it got more crowded. The lake was filled with little boats being paddled by both drivers and regular people. Everywhere we turned it was bars, hookah, bars, food, people! It was a nice change from Wu Dao Kou area. Basically we walked around for a bit and took pics and returned because sadly we had work to do .



This weekend was our last weekend to ourselves and here in Beijing. It's weird to finally come to the conclusion of the program.. This program was not what I expected it to be but in some ways, I did expect other things to happen.

6 more days!
Sim Out.

Funny story of the Day:

~ A foreign exchange student stands up to do a presentation about Chinese History involving the royal system and the government....(Stands up and with confidence says--) " The Emperors had a lot cucmbers....." (pause..... LMAO!) ^^the person said cucumbers instead of concubines^^

* told by WenWen.

'Legit..there's a GOAT!'

Another week has come and gone and now I'm counting down the days until I reach NYC soil! :D After friday's exam I went to Xi'dan w/ my roomie to do some last min shopping for people and for myself..I got myself some ghetto/bootleg sneakers that is pretty sweet. It's brown but has rainbow colors on the side and instead of saying 'Lee' which is suppose to be the legit brand I got the 'Jee' version lol :P Got to love China for all of its faults and beauty... My roomie and I bought two cones of ice cream but once we got closer to finishing it, we both realized---huh, where did the bottom go? There was no pointy bottom!!! They jipped us out of that!!! Geez, they really try to save anything they can....



After Xi'dan, it was back to the room and grab dinner time. Went to Gou Lin near our dorm and then headed out to the Wu Dao Kou night street markets...As we passed by to go to the main street, we passed an old man doing chinese characters in the animal forms. (Like the $20 name signs in Chinatown with like pretty colors and stuff...) He did have poetry on the side which was pretty awesome! Also on the bonus side, it was only 5 KUAI! which is less than $1 USD! After getting both our names we decided to head back to our room because our signs were too precious... After doing that we headed out to actually prawl the night life at Wu... It was interesting, we got really good gummies.




Saturday--

We had to go to 798 (which sounds like 7 bars in Chinese), an art gallery. This place was fun because it showcased a bunch of different style of art and artists. We went into some pretty trippy art gallery opening. I got to drink free (cheap) wine at one of the opening. We took many pictures but the most interesting part of Sat. was at night...We all went out to Hot Pot above Pyro and ordered a shit ton of food. 3 buckets of spinach, 1 cabbage, 4-5 plates of Lambs, 2 plates of noodles and two plates of mushrooms.. This was def a feast! Afterwards, we went back to the dorm to rest and got ready to go out. We all split because some wanted to go clubbing at Mix in San Lu Tan, but the rest wanted a chill night just drinking and chilling... A few friends and I decided to go to Pyro because Lush was being renovated. We started w/ cocktails, I got Tequila Sunrise... then a Kamikaze shot, 2 shot Lemon Shot, more Tequila shots and hookah.. I got 7 shots in total and one cocktail, it was a good night lol Pyro actually had decent music and it was very lively. We didn't come back until 1am. It was def a nice night out w/ the girls.



Sunday--

Study, study and nap time!

Monday--

We had paper cutting today! And Wang Laoshi came back today from Shanghai so we're all back to going our normal selves now... I'm def counting down the days now! 9 more weekdays until I'm back in the city! <3
Sim Out!



Epic Quotes for the Week:

1) " There's a 'Gou' there..." ---" Wait, there's a legit GOAT!'
2) " This train is going to take forever!" ---- "No its not...It's like an orgasm, it comes and goes!"
3) " You're allergic to PENIS!" (instead of saying Peanuts)
4) " We're being violated by a pang pang $30 Kuai stuffed Panda..."
5) " I swear I had my left shoe! I remember it and feeling it on my left foot!" --- "Urm, you don't have that shoe..You only have the right one!"
6) " Wait, does your ice cream cone have a bottom!?!!" --" No way, they cheated us out of our ice cream cone butt!"

Zao Gao Zao Gao, Qi Pao Qi Pao

So today is a typical day in my life here in Beijing...I went to the hospital (again...Fourth time now...) and then came back to the dorm to get some sleep. At the doctors I was wearing a panda shirt that had pandas doing the 24 forms of Tai Chi on it. The doc was like:

Doc- I didn't know pandas did tai chi!
Me- yeah, all the time...didn't you know?

Got some lunch then zonked out! I slept from 1:30 till about 6pm. I guess I really needed sleep. After I woke up I decided it was dinner time so my roomie and I headed out to the mall where on the 5th floor there was a lot of different restaurants to choose from. We chose a new place that had decent food and good price range and it was tasty.. It might be a choice for my bday dinner.. I had baked potato w/ bacon bits and it had cucumbers in it..it was a nice mix. After that I got a large rose milk tea that was yummy and a pancake snack thing.As my roomie and I were sitting there eating and chatting there's a bball game machine next to us and the guy who 1/2 runs it was like throwing the bball into the hoop more or less in all the time..He had more ins than outs... That gathered a lot of people the area just watching him do it.. it was crazy. His score was like 700s.. Everytime he made the ball into the hoop it had a noise that sounded like 'Zao Gao! Zao Gao!" which means 'Oh no, oh no!' lol I was cracking up bc I know it couldn't have said that..

After the chowing and drinking we headed into the mall to get OJ for the sick people. However to kill more time we headed into Benko and Art Box to get little things :D We got little things but it was just funny xD because my roomie's bag was filled with Benko and Art Box things. After coming back we passed by some Westerners wearing Qi paos ...it was quite a sight.

Random point---The group of us girls was trying to cross the intersection to get back to the dorm but cars were everywhere (because it is Beijing...) and so I had this great idea of instead of crossing one to get to the other street, I just stopped in the middle of the intersection and walked up to where we had to cross and just walked onto the street we needed to get to..It was like making an Z at the intersection lol :D

Now that is aside--- I'm going back to study now for our daily quizzes...

Sim Out/Sick.

Clean air and in need of a massage!

I just got back from the Ming Tombs--but I shall get to that later on a bit. This week has passed by fairly quickly due to stamp cutting and excursions. Friday after the weekly exam, I stayed a bit after class to make-up quizzes I missed during the time I was sick. Afterwords, we all went to Silk Street because we all needed to get stuff.. this shopping adventure only reaffirms my dis-like for shopping! I got some stuff for people but it was not fun... After that it was Saturday and we had excursion time to see acrobats! It was really cool, but the weather was cruel--it decided to pour like dogs! The highways were flooding a bit so it took us a while to reach the theater but we made it. We got our seats which was on the 3rd row which was on the left side of the theater but really close to the stage.. The show was awesome! Although I have a sneaky suspicion that some of the girls were like 7 or so of age..It was really interesting to see acrobats doing their stunts...Afterwords we grabbed dinner and I uploaded pictures to Facebook :D





So today is Sunday and my day started really early because a few friends decided to meet up at 930am to head out to the Ming Tombs because it was near the Great Wall so it takes a while to get there by public transportation. We reached the place with not that much a hassle and went on to first see the Sacred Way. The area was really breezy and clear because we weren't in the city so ha--take that pollution! We took goofy pictures and then took a bus to the first open Ming Tomb. I'm so happy we have student IDs because if not it would have been realllly expensive! Our tutor/MHC's language Fellow for 09-10 had a fake student ID which we found hilarious. You would think you'd get a fake to be older, and not younger but I guess in China it's the other way around lol After we toured around the first tomb we headed for the second one which wasn't as long because that tomb wasn't open for the public. After walking around for most of the day we went back to our dorm. We took the most expensive bus I've ever been on in China--it was 4 kuai! And we hit traffic which caused us to be on the road for 2hrs! I was playing frogger in the subway by speeding pass people! It was insane! Im sooo tired now...It's going to be a new week so .... sigh

P.S.--got sick again..got a runny nose and I keep sneezing... Just when I thought I was okay...

Sim Out.