China - Semester 2

I got back to China a little over a week ago - on a turbulence free flight - thank goodness. There was no sleep to be had so I watched probably 4 movies. Once in Beijing it was apparent that the Spring festival was in full swing. Fireworks were going off EVERYWHERE which then would set off car alarms ... KAPOW! beep beep beep... it was a pretty noisy welcoming.

This semester I'm living off campus in one of Beijing's huge apartment complexes with five other Chinese girls. Three are still home for the New Year so I've only met two of them. One is really sweet and the other seems scared of me. Understandable. I have the only single room. There's a room with three beds and another room with two beds. This makes me a little self-conscious... I also only get Chinese internet in the apartment which means any site not created in China is pretty much off limits with the exception of google (and gmail). Aside from that, internet surfing will consist of watching movies on tudou.com... Another major difference is the shower. It's not really a big deal but the bathroom is a wet bathroom so you just kind of stand there - in the middle of the bathroom and take your shower. It makes everything wet but it's fine. Oh, you also have to turn on the hot water and wait for it to warm up - although these differences are quickly becoming habit.

We spent a couple of days in Chengde a small, dirty city outside Beijing and went to to Great Wall; which never fails to impress, and a couple of temples. It was all really cool except the city itself which was super dirty and sad. The river was frozen though so a lot of folks were out ice skating or doing this ice sledding thing where they propel themselves on little tiny chair/toboggans using ski poles - or something similar. It's pretty funny looking. We couldn't find where to rent them so we didn't try it but it looked fun.

Just started classes on Friday which will probably be difficult. My Chinese class is using a new book that has about 60 english words a chapter - the definitions for the 60 new words in the chapter.

Yesterday I went to Tiananmen Square because my friend and I realized that we've never just walked around the square. It's big. There's a pretty gigantic mausoleum for Mao right in the middle which distracts from its size but you can still see that it is big. I took pictures and will put them up on picasa tomorrow when I have internet.

Happy Niu Year! (The Chinese can be a little corny... niu is how you say cow in Chinese - so it's everywhere)