A Series of Near Disasters

Question: Why call it "a series of near disasters?"
Answer: Because it seems to me that everything here in china is kind of like a near disaster. People are running around all over the place, cars are honking, construction is going down, taxis are cutting across traffic to pick you up... but somehow things work out. I have not yet seen a single accident.

Yesterday, Will and I went to a part of Beijing, not far from Will’s place—maybe 25 min walk? We tried to take a taxi but the traffic sucked—called Hou Hai. It’s kind of like a little lake district. Will was talking about renting a paddleboat but when we got there we realized that (of COURSE!) the lakes were frozen over. So instead of a boat we rented ICE BIKES. That was fun, we biked around for a little bit. Then we walked around the hutongs (old architecture instead of the new big crazy buildings) and went into a tea shop and played pool, ate tea and popcorn and stayed warm for a while. Then we took the subway to Tiananmen square at night. It was all lit up… we thought we would be able to go inside the gates but we couldn’t ☹ Sorry daddy, no good pictures of that yet since we couldn’t get very close. It was SOOOO Cold that night so we only walked around the government buildings for a little bit before getting dinner at this place called QuanJude which is the most famous place to get Beijing (or Peking) duck. Pretty much the only things on the menu are duck related. You can get pretty much any and all parts of the duck. But we got the whole duck, which they bring to your table and slice up for you. So rich. We also had some really tasty mushrooms and bamboo shoots, as well as some sort of eggplant. A bit pricey, but the best of the best… supposedly. It was really really good, but not something I would eat every day. I think our meal cost 300 Kuai, which is about 45 bucks. Compare that to the noodles that we had a couple of days ago: 8 Kuai, $1.15.

We have been outside doing various errands and sightseeing, but it’s SO cold that a lot of the sights I think will be a lot more enjoyable in a couple of months. We also go out to meet some of will’s friends: we have had dinner at his best friends’ house, they cooked soup for us. Damjan and his fiancé Annalies (Damjan went to ECHHS with me) made us brunch this morning. I think tomorrow I am going to talk to the Chinese girl I met about moving in with her. I like staying with will but I don’t like being dependent on him to come and go. I also think that if I wasn’t with him all the time I would go exploring a little bit more. I have to walk to do that though since I’m not quite sure I could handle a taxi yet. This girl seems like a good roommate… she used to work at the restaurant that Will was running (but before he worked there). Will and I went to have dinner with her to meet her and stuff and he said that as far as a Chinese roommate goes, she would be a good one because she seemed pretty open to western culture—a lot of her friends were foreign, she wanted to practice English with me, could help me with my Chinese, wants to go to school in DC.

Tomorrow I am going to go to a school, www.frontiers.com to take a placement test and get these Chinese classes under way so that hopefully I CAN take a taxi by myself! I did an interview at an English school the other day also… they said they would pay me 130kuai/hr (about 20 bucks) to just sit and CHAT with someone. No lesson plans, no books really, just talking. Sounded pretty good to me. They said people pretty much just want to practice speaking English, not so many people are worried about passing tests.