Getting settled (one week!)

Hey everyone who actually cares about when I update my blog: I'm sorry about yesterday, I was sooo tired. Well, it was today for me (3 o'clock in the morning) but it was yesterday for you! Yesterday was a good day overall! School was okay, not all too difficult. I needed that. After school me, E. (the german girl who waited 4 hours with me on a subway station on out first day in Beijing) and a guy from the school went to the Lama temple and the Confucius temple. We walked there through a Hutong that seemed to be growing in popularity: we travelled from an ugly stinky old authentic part of the Hutong to the new, still kinda ugly, big hotels part. The lama temple we went to is a huge complex with many buildings in a style that reminds me of the temple of heaven, buildings mostly in red with very colourful and decorated roofs in greens, blues and gold. 

The 18-meter-high Buddha.

The Lama temple.

However, the lama temple is a Buddhist temple- it has lots and lots of different types of God-like figures, of which the most important ones are golden-coloured. One of the most astounding things is the variety of colours and styles mixed together. We would call it extremely kitsch, but there is something Buddhist people seem to like about just having many colours and styles put together. The BIGGEST example is the 18-meter-high Buddha, supposedly made with only one trunk of wood (though it was carried in in pieces to assemble it inside). I find it the origin of this Buddha highly debatable, but it is certainly impressive. It holds a few cloths of different colours that clash highly with gold and to top it huge false flowers. To pay respect to the Buddha people left incense and bowed. They also left fruit: I saw a bag of mandarins near an altar still in the orange packing they always have, which was highly funny. 

miántiào

We fortified ourselves with some noodles before going to the Confucius temple, from a really dingy restaurant where they wanted us to pay before giving us our order. These were actually the first 'real' noodles I have tasted since coming to China, since we usually get rice with some type of meat when we eat Chinese. They tasted kind of weird, but I'm still alive so they must not have been THAT bad.

There were 30 of these! xD

The Confucius temple is a bit of a mystery to me. It was less colourful and (in my opinion) more beautiful than the lama temple, and it was situated in very calm courtyards with beautiful old trees in them. Confucius was, to those who have not known him, a man who had a lot of influence in teaching in China. He advocated that teaching should be done indiscriminately, and opened the first private school in China, in which people who were not from the elite could educate themselves too. I do not know how he became holy in China; the Confucius temple also had a museum next to it where you could read every single word he had ever said and every single thing he had ever done (click on the picture of text to the right!) but as far as I know he was just a Great Educator. I guess people always need something to pray to? I need to find out what happened there, as well as what all those different God-like beings meant in the Lama temple. 

After the temples we went to a supermarket where E. had seen some plants, and I bought two as well as towel (I needed some). I basically took the subway and then walked through the streets with two plants and two towels in my hands. Finally a good reason for people to stare! And it was rush hour too (it always is in the subway)...

My german friend (left) my two 
roomies and me at the school!

At night there was a welcome party for new students in the U. school. There were 3 Chinese kids who were 14 years old and had come to chat in English, so I talked to them for about half an hour. I should have asked for a phone number, I really need someone to speak to in Chinese and children speak more slowly than the adults. I think it must be because they know what its like to have to learn a new language, and they understand that pronouncing words carefully and slowly helps a lot. Most Chinese people just start talking rapidly when you don't understand what they say, which obviously is not particularly helpful. 

=D

After the party ended we went out all together in a group of about thirty people: 'Spread out in groups of 4 with at least one half-Chinese-speaking person in each group and get cabs, we meet in front of pub B.!'. Cab drivers don't really like taking foreigners anywhere, so O., my Belgian roomie with Chinese roots baited for the cab. The cabdriver felt extremely betrayed when he figured out she didn't speak any Chinese! Going out was a lot of fun- the music was good, and the drinks (although probably made with false alcohol, which is said to circulate here) tasted fine. 

Food!

Today was a muuuch  slower day. We took our time to sleep, and then we went to a clothing market near the zoo. They have shirts for 2 euro's, and large suitcases for 20 euros. Clothes are very colourful and weird- my roomies can't completely get used to it, but I absolutely love it! I'm not much of a shopping person, but I may well become one very soon! After that we went to a supermarket and I bought lots of nice, healthy food (parents, do you copy?). I wanted to buy cream to make my champignon pasta but they just don't have it. They have milk and yoghurt, but NO cream. It's quite surprising. I did buy some ham now as well as jam, which both turned out to be good, so now my bread won't be quite as boring. And afterwards, I re-organized and cleaned my room which was slightly disorganised. It's perfect now! And the plants look really nice too, and feel extremely homy. All in all, a good, relaxed day! Now I think I'm gonna see whether the mushrooms and cherry tomatoes are any good, and after that to bed it is- tomorrow we are going to the Ming dynasty tombs on a day trip.