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!