We had our first lectures today, both of which were very long and somewhat boring. We had two, one in the morning and another in the afternoon, which meant we wouldn't have time to shop or walk around downtown Beijing. Our meeting room was up on the fifth or sixth floor of the building, and from the windows you could see the city¡that is, about a half mile of the city. Smog blocked any building farther away than that. It was almost pretty, somewhat like fog, but it definitely didn't smell like fog outside. Beijing is the most polluted place I've ever been; you can feel yourself inhaling dust, exhaust, and all sorts of other crap every time you go outside. Add to this the fact that it¡¯s HOT¡in the 80¡¯s almost every day¡and it's not a good breathing combo. It's funny to watch bikers ride around the streets (there are just as many bikers on the main roads as cars and they have their own special lane¡its called the curb) with little surgical masks on their faces.
We met two girls attending the college next to our building who took us on a tour of the natural areas of campus. It was beautiful¡ I wish State were a bit more like this campus. There was a main track/road running around a large lake, which was the main focus of the area. There were gardens and wooded areas and small paths where tons of people were studying. Everyone we saw there was a student, and almost all of them were studying¡ not something you'd see back at State :)
After eating weird food for a couple days we were all sick of it and wanted something different. The group decided on Korean food which, looking back, really isn't that different from Chinese food. We found a restaurant back in the residential areas a mile or so from our hotel and ate traditionally, on the floor. I learned an important Chinese word today: Pipjiu (pronounced pee-joe). This means beer :)
The food was good but didn't remind me of home at all, so going out for foreign food didn't really serve it's purpose, at least for me. One of the guys in the group bought a bottle of nasty liquor and we all did shots, including my professor, who did two quite happily. Seems he might be a drinker.
We found an internet caf¨¦ after dinner, and underneath it was a grocery store¡full of ice cream! It was wonderful. I looked around at the funny food they had and actually found Trix cereal. Later on in another store I found Frosted Flakes and Coco Crispies¡so much for not finding cereal! Now finding milk that's not literally almost straight out of the cow¡
We had met our other professor, Dr. Qi (Chee) right after dinner, and he took us to the caf¨¦ and bought our internet passes. I tried to upload previous entries and pictures from the great wall but my disk wasn't compatible with their system. Soon after we'd gotten online, there was a power outage and all the computers crashed. I guess it happens a lot because the dozens of Chinese in the room just quietly got up and walked to the front desk for a refund. Weird.
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