Almost back in Holland

As most of you may know, I am now entering my last week in Zhongguo for the time being. This world around me, once absolutely surreal, has become my reality. I've become caught up in the life here. I have made friends with people all over the world- my german and italian, particularly, have improved greatly. I have made enemies too- well just the one, and I still don't know exactly why, haha. I have survived the barren path that it is to study Chinese for three months, where quite a few around me have given up on at least part of it. It's not an American-comedy-success-story: There were moments when sitting through another class seemed unbearable- the Chinese was difficult, and there was this one person scoffing at my failures and questions constantly. Yesterday was a particularly good day actually- I was going home after the worst speaking class I've ever sat through (because I didn't understand anything.. there are good and bad days!). I didn't feel like facing character class- but then I decided I wouldn't let a random person dictate what I do and don't do in life. So I went back to class. Wrote down the damn characters for the day. And asked the person what her problem was with me. I should have done it a while ago, but I guess I never wanted to see more trouble than was actually there... In any case, even though there were no concrete results, I'm glad I faced the issue.
I made friends with a local dog who now follows me around jumping happily every time he sees me, to great amusement of everyone around. I have tried nearly all the food available. And honestly, if someone were to tell me now that I would never eat Western food again, only Chinese food, I'd be fine with it. How can I ever go back to potatoes?? Or knives and forks for that matter! I can even say the simplest things in Chinese now- not much, really not much at all,  but enough for everyday life.
But the biggest changes are in attitude. I've grown to accept failure and awkwardness when attempting to speak in Chinese. I've become used to not understanding almost anything that goes on around me. My ever-reading eyes can now handle not being able to read the 'letters' around me. My hearing adapted to different sounds, my health adapted to different air. I have been with people who are older than me, often much older, and I got along with them just fine. I lived alone, washed my own clothes (didn't even ruin anything!) cleaned my room, handled my money, made my own decisions. I can handle people staring at me, even when I walk in the wrong direction. Hell, I can handle any type of situation basically. As we'd say in Dutch- kom maar op!


What can I say? It is a form of success. To everyone who thought going to China alone was stupid, or crazy, or that I wouldn't be able to do it? Yeah, no. With many failures and some bad moments, I came out okay. Not perfect, but changed and I think quite a lot stronger. I have proven what I wanted to prove- but I'm not done yet. I've been here for three months almost, and I really don't feel like leaving at all- it's time to have a little time off and to visit home, but my job here is not done ;-).


Lots of love!


Su fei

Meh.

So, I thought this would be a story about me in Beijing (Soof @ China and all) but I'm starting to become convinced this might end up being the story of a young asthmatic patient in Beijing. I missed yet another day of school today because I was exhausted and had a huge headache- but the thing is, I've never slept more in my entire life. Okay, so maybe as a baby, but still. I'm sleeping 7-8 hours a day! And I'm tired. How pathetic. Yesterday I  spent the entire day outside more or less- I went to get my iPod fixed and decided I wanted to walk to Sanlitun from one of the subway stations (a good 45 mins walk), walked back the same distance and at night I played football outside with some U. school people for two hours. And that is obviously ignoring the time I spend outside everyday. I keep saying I'm ill, but I don't think so any more- I only remember having felt like this back when I came to China for the first time (and didn't want to leave my hotel room and put up a big fuss about walking around, after which we luckily figured out what was going on). If it is the same deal, though, I'm at a loss as to what I should do now. I guess I should start taking the asthma medicine more diligently, but God knows I'm going to forget that.
Unrelated, it's starting to get cold here, especially in the morning and at night, so I'm washing an extra blanket to use. It's also starting to get reeeeally dry- everyone is complaining about dry lips and mouths, and I'm actually making my 2 liters/day minimum of water (I mean.. wow!).


Okay, so new plan: drink a lot of water, take medicine, take vitamins. It's gonna have to do, there is no way in hell I'm going to miss another class, I feel guilty enough as it is. Also, it's quite a lot of fun, I understand so much more of what's going on these days! And the teachers are very nice. Character class is tricky. We have quite a few students in the class who speak Chinese but don't write it. Combined with a teacher whose English isn't very good, the inevitable occurs- lessons are in Chinese. Impossible as it is, it must be good for something- ideally that 'something' being my Chinese. Although I'm making very good friends in this class too- that's quite awesome as well. I'm really going to miss all these people =(.


That's it for today! Love, Soof

Chinese

I am slightly proud of myself and ridiculously tired right now.

Proud because this morning I woke up on time, made myself a nice sandwich and a cup of tea, got dressed, packed my stuff and brushed my teeth before leaving for school. On time. Perfectly controlled. Non-tired. It was beautiful, just beautiful. Oh and also, I've been studying non-stop for two days for this stupid Chinese test. And tired- well it's more 'intellectually defeated', really. I haven't even reached grammar just yet, and already these words are swirling inside my head. Some internal monologue for you:

'Was it bàngōngshì... or maybe... bángōngshí? I'm pretty sure the gong was a gōng, but maybe it might have been gòng, as in yígòng, all together. Hey, wait, 'in total' was yī gōng, right? Wait a second! But... that's the same thing? Maybe I should check the characters for a second... Oops, same characters, so one of the two is PROBABLY wrong... hmmm... the teacher taught me one of them, wait what was teacher again anyway? Laoshi... eh.. lǎoshì? Let's look that one up again.. *sigh* damnit that was one of the first words! Lǎoshī, lǎoshī, lǎoshī, Soof, come ON! At least I know bù. Oh wait, bù changes tone! Oh F*** what was the rule for changing tones? I don't even remember where I wrote that down. Okay, let's just... eh, some old words, let's get some confidence for tomorrow. Chī, right, shénme, that's ok, jiǎozi, miántiào.. no. miàntiáo! Okay I've had it.'

In other words, this is DIFFICULT. Or maybe I'm just not very good at it, which is very possible. Anyway, I'm giving up for now, I'll see what happens tomorrow. Goodnight everyone!

The roommates as they are now!

Another week of class has been and gone. Next tuesday we're getting a big test on spoken Chinese- on the entire book. It's a big book. It's about 500 words in pinyin, as well as being able to make them into sentences. Ther hardest thing for me is the tones though. I can remember that a dish is called 'dzai', and I can even remember that in pinyin I'm supposed to write 'cai' (don't ask), but 'cai' alone means absolutely nothing and is completely wrong- because it's supposed to be 'cài'. It's not like french, where people would sneer at you if you missed an accent- it's just the wrong word. As if you say cat instead of motorcycle. No wonder Chinese people never understand what you're trying to say.  No wonder they laugh. The sentences we must be saying!

Smoggy Beijing

Pretty little temple-like
building at the top of a hill.

This week we went to a park north of Tien'anmen (sky-air-gate).  It's quite a big park with a few pretty high hills. I wonder whether these are man-made, but I expect they aren't, and in that case they're quite the freaks of geography. They have cute little temples on their tops and steep little winding rock-staircases to get there. It was a bad day in Beijing that day which was quite a pity because otherwise the view from up there is said to be amazing. Smog is weird- it actually looks a lot as if the city is shrouded in a soft, distorting, semi-transparent white hue. On a bad day, first thing you think is 'oh, it's a cloudy day', after which you realise you can't really see that apartment over there, which is actually quite close. And beyond that apartment is some kind of a dark shadow compared to the air next to it, so that must be an apartment too!

Stairs!

We've been having a few more bad days here. Every time it rains (which is not very often- I've had 3 'rainy' days since I arrived, and then it only really rains for a few hours, not like in endless-raining-Holland) the skies clear for a few days, and breathing is a fantastic experience. Well, I'm overstressing the point- in fact being asthmatic I had expected to be really bothered by the smog, but actually I'm quite fine most of the time. What gets to me more is that we're starting the cold period over here (already!). For the last 3 days it's been cold enough for Dutch and German students to start wearing warm-ish sweaters, so obviously my Ecuadorian friend is dying. As for me, I'm just a little colder than the Dutch students, of course. How's the weather in the Netherlands anyway? What's going on with the world? For the first time in 6 years I haven't touched a newspaper for a month and a half, and I feel like a hermit. I think we would barely get the news of a new world war, especially if China is not in it. Maybe if someone bothered to tell us, but to be honest I don't know the Chinese word for war. I wish I could read the newspaper... even though that might not even get me anywhere in China. I sometimes watch the English version of Chinese news, and that's all about China too.

I just liked this flower.

If anyone is wondering how the visit to the police station went- it is a great success story! As always when I want to go/do/get something specific I translated a few sentences into Chinese using Google translate and my own knowledge of Chinese (haha). I set of, first to ask where the police station was exactly. I asked someone who completely ignored my question and almost turned back (you try that kind of rejection when you're feeling sick in a country you don't know), but I managed to find someone who explained where it was. I walked into what ended up being the backdoor of the police station, which was actually closed, but because I was there and it was easier helping me than trying to explain it was closed, or maybe because the policewoman was a really good person, the whole thing was arranged in a few minutes. Which was nice, very nice. We need some successes here, to get over the times people don't understand you want a coke and bring you a sprite ('kuhluh' and 'schwepie'... I mean, really?!).

New Soof?
(Inside parent joke)

I ALSO met a Chinese friend of my Chinese friend-that-lives-in-Holland, which was... interesting. It's difficult to make conversation, since I don't really know what the glass houses are in China. Also, who pays what? She showed me around this really cool hutong and we went for dinner. Her absolute favourite? Chicken feet. Let me repeat that, just to make sure you understand this: Chicken Feet. So of course, I tried one, said that it tasted really nice and no problem, she could have the rest since she liked them so much! We kind of arranged to meet again, but I wonder whether that's going to happen- I mean, in Brazil that would mean little to nothing.


This isn't all I've done- it was actually a busy week after all! I'll be trying to keep the blog juuust a bit more updated, since it's come to my attention that some people actually like to read it or in any case do so ;-). 

Sick

So, Sophie is now laying in bed. Sick. I'd write ill, because I was taught by someone that being sick actually means vomiting or being close to that, but it turns out a dictionary contradicts that statement. Anyway, what do you do when you're sick and alone? There is no mom for me out here. So basically I have the full moral charge of not going to class today, and I took my own little pill and I made my own little tea with honey. But today I am supposed to go to the police station to say that I'm staying in Beijing another month, and that cannot wait for me to get better. Also, I really need food- yesterday all I had left more or less were onions and potatoes (incidentally: onions and potatoes make a great dish). And if I want to eat at all I'm going to have to cook eventually or venture to a restaurant to get take away. But there are also a few more complicated issues- to start with, in Beijing, where do I get the freshest air? Should I open the window or leave is securely closed? Should I turn on the air-cleaning mechanism in my room that looks kind of weird and doesn't really seem to help? Should I keep the plants where they are or get them out? All in all, it's difficult to just get some air worth breathing here. I'll leave you now- there's some Chinese tea waiting right here for me that I need to get to!

Alas, our crazy fun polish roommate left on saturday. So on friday, we set out with a group of 24 people to have dinner and go out. Have you ever tried walking into a restaurant with 24 people? Exactly. 
We ended up on two huge tables in a huge private room. Man, Chinese food is just REALLY good. I'm enjoying it so much lately! Noodles are not so much my thing, mostly because of the weird sauces they use. No, the way I like it is how Chinese people usually eat- in a medium-to-big group, they order lots of different dishes and everyone just choses and takes whatever they want to. Obviously, you get rice too- although hardcore Chinese-eating people will tell you that Chinese people only eat rice after dinner. Anyway, the magic words to remember are 'jigga' (means 'this one'- most Chinese restaurants have pictures of their food) and 'bu la' (meaning 'not spicy'- please, please, don't forget bu la, especially the first 10 times or so you eat chinese food). It's fun to eat this way- the food is varied, you can eat what you like and not feel guilty about eating everything (there's always SOMEONE who likes that last dish) and because you try so many dishes every time, you start getting a feel for what kind of food you like.  Which is good. The only detail is that you shouldn't be too squeamish about what it is you are actually eating- liver and duck's head are quite the treats here. 

Yay! Lost!

Anyway, after dinner we were supposed to go out, but my new Ecuadorian roommate wasn't feeling too well (there was a lot of smoking going on) and I didn't want to let her go home alone, so we took off. I must say, after the last night I didn't mind much at all. Obviously, the taxi driver didn't understand and took us to the wrong subway station, which immediately confirmed the need for me to be there. Now, you may or may not believe this, but of my roommates I'm the one with the best directional skills. I guess because I've biked and walked around quite a lot on my own, I usually know where I am and where I should be going, which is more than I can say for most people around here. I can actually read the Beijing map. What? It's true! Ask them if you don't believe me! I've led people around in the right direction looots of times!


SO that was it for friday, but I guess I became a bit ill (it was chilly and I gave my poor Ecuadorian roommate who has never known below 15 degrees weather my jacket) so on saturday I wasn't feeling very well. I guess the roommates felt the same, because after we said goodbye to the Polish roommate we just watched some movies. I mean, bonding is important too right?
On sunday we went for happy hour at the 'Drum and bell', a (kind of) bar I went to on my second night here. Happy hour is actually happy hours, a plan by which for ± 3 hours on sunday afternoon you can get as many of a chosen drink as you want for 5 euro's total. Needless to say, when we arrived we found a few people from the U. school already there. And then more came. By the beginning of actual night we had a crew out there! There's something about the U. school and their friends- this happens all the time. It's awesome! =D

Crowd =).

We had arranged with some of the people to go to the Summer Palace the next day, on monday, but in the end they bailed out on us (something about a headache?) and my Belgian roomie wasn't feeling too good either, so E. (the Ecuadorian roommate) and I went to the Summer Palace alone. When we arrived, we were shocked by the crazy amount of people. We might not have considered the implications of this being a national holiday ()=). So we got ourselves started on some nice Chinese meats-on-sticks (they're really good: bu la!!). After that we went in and started the crazy visit of the entire area- it's really really big. 

It had big colourful buildings full of detail, in the same typical colours as I've seen before in China and some very pretty little towers and shrines. There's a  huge lake within the Summer Palace area, as I've told you before, but apart from that it had little areas with lakes and typical 'walkways' (I'm not quite sure how they're called, see the picture on the right). I'll just tell you about the four things I liked the most. 
First one was a small lake enclosed by walls. You could walk around it, and there were lots of people just sitting down and relaxing, or feeding the fish. I really liked the place for its taste- usually important places look important and imposing, not beautiful an sich. 
We sat down for a while, and I heard a little girl explaining to her even younger sister that the small fish were called 'small fish' in english. I decided to agree, and next thing I know we were talking in our basic Chinese and English sentences (nice to meet you, ni jiao shenme ming, my name is, wo shi ba sui, etc). In the end we took a picture together, but E. has the picture on her camera and right now I have no idea where she is xD. In fact, that's a pity because she has pictures of the next thing I liked best- a little tower overlooking the massive lake of the Summer Palace. I might post some pictures of that later- it was really nice. 

Hmm.. let's just sit down?

Third thing was a building designed to be a theatre. We were just walking around when we saw lots and lots of Chinese people just... sitting there, on some steps. We figured they had to be waiting for something, so we joined them. They had been waiting for a little demonstration of how women danced in the time of the emperors (the Summer Palace is was built and expanded by emperors of different dynasties). The theatre was decorated vividly, and it had really weird stairs which were really cool. If I ever have a lot of money I'm definitely getting one of those for my house. As well as a lake like the one I saw. And round 'doorways' made of decorated wood.

Click to enlarge!

Come on, aren't they cool?

Which brings me to the fourth coolest thing I saw- a tiny exposition on furniture owned by the emperors. Mom, you would have loved these! They were mostly made of wood, carved painstakingly into intricate shapes. I don't have any good pictures of this, so a bad one will have to do. Because of the wonderful weather, it was actually worth it to have gone, even though the place was quite crowded- once you got out of the main tourist areas, it was quiet and nature-y. I even saw a squirrel running around carrying something in his mouth! I'll tell you about yesterday later- I'm really hungry right now, and I need to figure out where my roommates went xD. Bye!

Days §24-27§

Pretty sights in Beijing

It's three fifteen in the afternoon and I'm lying in my bed, about to sleep. Why, may you ask? Well, it's the end of month one here at U. school and that means people are coming and going- such as my beloved Polish roommate and a (crazy) Polish friend of hers. So she managed to convince me to go out with her on wednesday AND thursday, which is easy for the rest of my roomies since they have afternoon classes, but waking up at 7.30 in the morning after going out is no fun. In fact today I was philosophising about writing a book called 'What a human can and can't do with 2,5 hours of sleep'. 

A man selling goods.

It seems I can function quite normally- my afternoon-class roommates are skipping school as we speak, and I went to both classes in the morning (writing and speaking)! I also have a new roommate (so there's four of us now for two more days). The new girl is Ecuadorian. She arrived a few days ago, so I led her around a bit because she doesn't have much with her. How amazing is it that now I'm the one taking someone around, showing how to get to school on a little self-made map, asking Chinese people where I can find certain things in Chinese? 

The things we must get used too...

It felt good, in any case. Another thing I've been working on is the extension of my Chinese visa for a month. To extend a visa her you have to have more or less  2000 euro's on a Chinese bank account, so first step was actually making a bank account and 'borrowing' a lot of money from the U. school to have in there for one day. Next step was visa office- since next week is a national holiday, everyone is extending their visa NOW. I'm only getting my passport back after the holiday, and to book & get a train ticket you need a passport, so the chances of me getting very far out of Beijing are highly diminished right now.

MEGA SALAD.

()=)

We'll see about that later. As it is with every official thing in Beijing it was a bureaucratic and sloooow business- it took me at least 5 hours to get my visa extension request done. Anyway, around here we Westerners are getting so crazy that one day (on tuesday) I got together with some classmates and we made a HUGE salad. Mindblowingly big (see the pic). We also visited the (*shame*) McDonalds once. Ah, it's part of the China experience, all of it.

The...thing?

I added a little video of my German classmate, A., and me playing... a uhm, a game. It's typical Chinese- on parks you can find old men and women as well as young children showing off their skills. We are not quite as accomplished. We are really, really bad is another way of putting it. But we have decided that even if we don't learn ANY Chinese, we will at least be able to play this game decently by the time we leave this city. Underneath that is a video of biking in Beijing, but it might be too long and boring for most of you. Maybe sped up it's interesting! Love, Sophie

The full weekend (days 20-23)

This weekend was filled with going out and partying! On friday we started off with a party at the English people's house (they're leaving soon, they stayed only for a month). It was a Chinese-history themed party, so people were supposed to get dressed up for it. And, to my surprise, they actually were! Most people anyway. I myself was wearing a Mao shirt, there were others who had done the same, some wore panda hats and shirts and some took it a bit further back, wearing typical Chinese dynasty clothes. I got my shirt at the Silk market, where I went on friday (I also got some 'allstars', which are nice). Anyway, the party started out great, and we were just really getting started when we heard a knock on the door- the old neighbour, asking if we could keep our party down. I guess we didn't do much of a job, because ten minutes later the police came (well ONE policeman) and told us party was over, everyone had to go. 

Chinese characters on the floor!

Someone who wanted
 a picture with me...(??)

Luckily we had someone in our midst that actually spoke Chinese. Then again, I guess the point the policeman was trying to make was pretty clear. We slowly evacuated the building, waking up the entire neighborhood as we went (oops.) after that we *tried* to go out, which wasn't that much of a success since getting a taxi is not very easy in China- if you are an obvious foreigner, that is. Some cabs just don’t stop, others won’t take you, and sometimes when they do, they’ll stop randomly and decide that they don’t feel like taking you any further- in one case a taxi driver even took us to the wrong place and shouted at us to get off because it was the right place. Anyway, in this particular night, no one wanted to take us. A few taxi drivers pretended not to know the Sanlitun area (by comparison: A Dutch person not knowing Amsterdam). 

One guy even had the nerve to tell us he wasn’t going to Sanlitun, only to suddenly change his mind when we stepped away and a Chinese girl asked to go to the same exact place (yes he took her). I really cannot seem to understand what’s wrong with taxi drivers here. I’ve heard theories on how they might not like driving Western people around because they get mad when not understood (which might actually be plausible), but honestly mostly I’m too annoyed to feel that way. Anyway, in the end we took a riksja which was a lot more fun, if slightly more dangerous. Although, since these days I use my bicycle I guess I shouldn’t complain about danger.

=)

In the end we got to the place where we wanted to go (me and the roomies) and joined some people at some kind of a latin bar with great music (really my type), great dancing, and VERY annoying creepy guys. Oh well you can’t have everything I guess. It’s actually Western guys who get annoying- Chinese guys are waaaay to shy to do more than stare, in general that is.

Well we stayed there for quite a while, so the next day I was exhausted, but my roomies wanted to go to a park. Due to a misunderstanding with a taxi driver, we ended up at the New Summer Palace. We got in with a student’s fee of one and a half euro’s- it was the non-touristic area of the Summer Palace complex. 

One of the cuter mini-
buildings of the Summer Palace.

It’s a huuuuge place with a few connected lakes- we walked around the biggest of them, which took a long time but was worth it- it was very soothing, after such a busy night, to be able to relax in a nice open space. That night we were supposed to go to another party (a good-bye party for someone) but we had decided not to go, on account of being absolutely exhausted. In the end though, my roommate decided that she really wanted to go, and not alone, so I tagged along, and actually had fun (and then got asked for a date the next day by someone from the party, which was flattering if nothing else). On Sunday I slept for most of the day, and I kind of… sulked for the rest. Well, in my defense, it isn’t easy to be here. It feels like a dream- a dream in which food is completely different and always gives you a slight stomach ache, crossing a road is narrowly escaping death every time (and biking is, if possible, even worse), taxi drivers are evil and people stare at you endlessly. Where if you walk into a room you’re the movie star (and girls stare at you jealously and angrily even if you do nothing at all) and you can never be one of the crowd. 

Characters that take
my teacher a dictionary
and 5 minutes to write.

Awwww!

Even the language difference means there’s no rest- everything and everywhere is in Chinese, and in Chinese if you don’t try to speak EXACTLY how you’re supposed to you have no chance of anybody understanding anything (chances are slight even if you DO manage to speak perfect Chinese…).  Some days are bad, and you don’t manage to get a word across- some days, like today (Monday) are better, and suddenly the entire take-away (food) goes fine, without you or the waitress having to say ‘what’ or ‘shénme?’. Life here isn’t perfect- there’s a lot to get used to really, not only Chinese and China but ALSO living on my own for the very first time and being far away from everyone over there… Oh well, I get by. This was my choice and for now I’m sticking with it! Love, Sophie

Writing Characters with.. water? At the Summer Palace

More dancing Chinese people! =D

Days 17, 18 and 19 (wow!)

(Sorry for the crappy self-picture!)

I got my hair cut on tuesday! Big, big deal. I was afraid of cutting my hair, but when I talked to O. about it, my Italian friend, she told me she wanted to cut her hair too. And paint the tips of her hair brown (she has black hair). So we set off, into one of those evenings that go so wrong that you can only wonder at the ingenuity of it's failure. To start with she had arranged for us to meet a Chinese co-worker so we could explain what we were trying to do. The place was on the other side of the city, and we left at 5.30 so it was rush hour. People being pushed into subways? Myth confirmed to be true. People stuck between doors? Yup. People pressed up against the subway windows because of the lack of space? Right again. All in all, it was a hectic and very uncomfortable trip, since we also had to take 2 subways and a bus. Once there, we tried explaining what we wanted done (which took a while). And that was the moment, standing between 5 Chinese people and one black-haired Italian, that I realised how Extremely light my hair colour is. Seriously, you shall not believe it, but I'm practically blonde. And my face is so pink and white... I'm a freak casualty of nature here. Anyway, my Chinese hair cut was easy (and cost €1,50) but O.'s treatment was somewhat more complicated. I found out that here in China people paint hair by adding colours to it- first her hair was painted red, then they added purple, then green then blue. The resulting colour, however, stayed reddish. Meanwhile, I had nothing to do so I started studying my Chinese, and soon had 4 Chinese haircutters who had nothing to do sitting around me perfecting my execution of the Chinese language and laughing a LOT. 

O. and her new hair!

I always just assume that Chinese people are laughing with me and not at me, so I just laughed a lot too, and it was actually great for my Chinese skills. Being 18 here seems to equal being a toddler- so naturally they found me 'cute'. I can come back any time if I need to practise, haha. Actually, even at the U. school, most people are older and have finished studying, so I feel like a child there too. The overall profile is: 21-28 (mostly 24) years old, on average having lived in 2/3 different countries, having 1,3 nationalities each and studying a language OR some kind of business OR law (no exceptions to that last point!). Many of the people here are artists, and the rest are certainly creative (except for me of course. Damnit.)

Anyway, so after O.'s hair was 'finished' (it's still red and she hated it at the beginning, they really messed it up) we went to have dinner locally and misunderstood the waitress so that we got 3 plates instead of 2 of Chinese food ('omg... we keep eating but the dishes just stay the same size!') so the meal was 'expensive'. 

During dinner we suddenly realised we were going to be too late to take the bus and subways back home, so we would have to hire a taxi. Then O. found out she had no more money, so that by the time we almost got run over on the road we were laughing so much about the ridiculous situation that we couldn't breathe. Best way of dealing with letdowns!

The next day, on wednesday, I finally got my bike fixed properly, so that it is now a relatively good bike WITH pedals. And air in its tyres. Which was another gruelling experience, since people GATHER to watch you mess up when talking to the fixers. And then stay on to watch you duel with the air-filling-machine you can use (until some guy decided to show me how it worked). I've been biking a lot more now. I actually know how to bike to school, someone who lives close to me showed me yesterday! Biking is a very challenging thing to do. Listening to music would be very, very stupid. But again I'll owe you that explanation: food and traffic, coming up next.

Yesterday I also had a kung fu class of two hours on my own, because no-one else showed up. When I realised that I was going to be alone I just wanted to leave again because I felt soooo awkward. Being in China really tests all my personal difficulties this way! xD. Anyway, I stayed, which was great because I don't get a lot of sport here otherwise anyway, and I learnt many new ways of kicking ass! Now my entire body hurts. A lot. Two hours of private kung fu are more than enough for a simple half-latin american-half-dutchie. 

 I added a little extract from a typical character class today! I'm very sorry, I have so much more to tell but my arms are too sore to type any more. What a lame reason not to keep up a blog properly. Good night! Love, Sophie.

Arts & Parks (days 15 and 16)

Ah, the end of my second full weekend here in Beijing. 

And what a great weekend it was! Friday just relaxing, saturday Black Rabbit and sunday 798: The Beijing art district. It didn't look very promising from the outside, but the further in we went, the smaller, cuter and more original the little shops and galleries became. 798 is a labyrinth of galleries displaying all kinds of artists and art outside as well as inside. Some gallery owners didn't mind us taking pictures, so I included a few that I took. There was a lot of extremely original art, it was really a nice place to visit (and I'm not that much into museums...). There were also a few small shops that sold hand-painted little paintings and lots of other really original design things. 
Such a pity it was quite expensive! I bought a little present for a friend on that side anyway, but I'm pretty sure she doesn't read this blog so it'll still be a surprise =). I also (finally) took one of my typical little pictures (to the left around here). I hope you like it. Anyway, after the art district I ate a hamburger at (=O) McDonalds. 
No, I'm not ashamed to admit that I was quite craving McDonalds. You would be craving for something like that too if you had been eating Chinese food for a full 2 weeks after 18 years of not having one bite of it. It was a good hamburger xD. I might also have been annoyed at some people we were supposed to be hanging out with at 798: the school/internship people are very nice and open, but also just do their own thing without thinking too much about other people, which sometimes makes it difficult to arrange doing things together. Like this time: we spent a lot of time looking for two friends who just didn't really bother looking for our group. Oh well, frustration every now and then was to be expected. I guess I feel better today, since it just was a really nice day, very active, and the weather was sooo marvellous (AGAIN!).

This is just some graffiti I found ;-).

After school some classmates and I first went to the Beijing Zoo Market, a market full of really random and very cheap clothes and... well actually, you can buy anything, from make-up to suitcases (no food- it's not that type of market). We walked around for a while, but it was so full of people we kind of gave up on looking for things we wanted. I want to go back someday by myself- it's really close to my place and I prefer shopping on my own (no-one needs to wait for you then...). 

Me in the Park.

Afterwards, we walked towards a park in Beijing called the Purple Bamboo Park. It's described on an official site as being 'a large park of 14 Hectares just to the west of Beijing Zoo and the National Library. It has three connected lakes with two islands, lotus flowers, small hills, streams, bridges, pavilions, rock gardens and about 50 varieties of bamboo. The Bamboo Park also features boating, play and exercise areas, teahouses and cafes, and a small crafts market.' Which describes it better than I could- it's a 
beautiful little park with people dancing to music and practicing their sword fighting abilities (see the vids) whilst other people are fishing, pedalling around or simply chilling. The cute little bridges, together with the blue skies, music playing from speakers around the park and the huge amount of green meant we felt a bit like we had gotten out of the city again- which was perfect, very soothing. I took lots and lots of pictures of the sunlight in the trees- but I guess overall it must not be as interesting to people who live in a wonderfully natural place (but are not aware of it. Look around you!).


After the park we went to the Chinese National Library. We could basically just walk into the place (we weren't expecting that). It was extremely modern and had a very special type of layer-architecture, which allowed you to look down from above upon a scene of hundreds of students just studying at tables, with or without computers or drinks. It was so quiet that you could actually hear the air conditioning. Suddenly I really felt like studying- I think I may be starting to understand how it is possible that Chinese students do so well in the West, too... it will take more time to figure it out completely though. From the outside the library isn't very impressive, but here's a picture of it just in case.
And tonight I finished off the evening by going out for dinner with another girl- we had pizza! Actual pizza. Why this is so special? I'll explain next time- I've been meaning for a while to explain how food works here to you guys, I'm sure you'll enjoy that. For now, good night, and take care.

Dancing! I was wrong, Chinese people DO dance.

Just not exactly in the way that I'm used to!

And this is just a girl practising. Random,

but quite cool I think you will find!