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III
cu yu, xiao di, and the gang
July 21, 2008
// 4:51 AM
Just a moment ago, I got back from getting my first haircut in China. Janelle, George and I were scared out of our wits that we would end up with the most unattractive, ridiculous looking haircuts ever, but we were totally mistaken. We had heard from others who had gotten their haircut that a place down the street charged 10 yuan for wash and cut. It was called 喜喜 and there were about 5 guys working there. George went first and the guy cutting his hair was pretty serious looking the whole time, but they knew we were 外国人 (foreigners) and we were working on our Chinese.
After about 15 minutes in there, it started began to be the best time I've had in China for a while. They were talking to us with our minimal Chinese speaking skills and they were telling us about their lifestyle and their lives (sleep, eat, and work apparently), but it was such a hilarious conversation. We asked them about their night life, and talked about how they don't have one. We also talked about swear words and they taught us several to which they said we shouldn't say aloud on the street. It was really freaking fun. Janelle even asked if we could take them out to eat but they said that they were too busy working. They were only about our age! Most of them were younger! It was pretty amazing.
Anyways, my haircut ended up taking about 2 and a half hours. Wash, cut, blow dry, straighten (which literally took an hour), and cut again. And the whole thing was 10 yuan. Which in American dollars, is about $1.50. No joke. In America, you'd probably spend that much money on electricity powering my straightener. It cost 30Y for the three of us, but we decided to tip them 20 because they were just ridiculously awesome company. Janelle wants to go back and bring them, midnight snacks and talk to them some more. I'm all for it as well. Did I mention how stoked they were when we asked them to take a picture with us?:
 Janelle, me, Cu yu (my hair dresser), George, one of the guys who knew a little bit of English, George and Janelle's hair dresser, and Xiao Di at the bottom.
I'm definitely going back to visit them. :D
 Anyways, so the past few days have gone by pretty slow, but the rest was much needed. The 服务员 service workers come knocking at the door at 8:40am on the weekends and wake me up. It sucks, but I guess they do clean the room for me. This weekend I went to 王府井大街 Wangfujing Street where there's about 4 different malls, each with 4+ stories of shopping. There are about 4 Nike stores alone, not to mention the NikeBeijing store which houses a nice chunk of Dunks on display (right). Rojer and George sort of went on a spree though. Both of them spent nearly 100 American dollars, which I am telling you, is pretty hard to do in most of China. We spent a total of about 6 hours there, window shopping and acting like tourists. Our day there also consisted of a meal at McDonalds. Okay everyone, let me just say that the McDonald's we have the in the States, I don't care how nice you thought it was in there, the ones in China look like they're straight out of Ikea catalogs. They have those decorative bamboos, sleek chairs, rice paper lamps, it's sort of ridiculous. And there's ALWAYS a line and a crowd at the golden arches. The meals are pretty expensive too! 25Y average for a good sized meal. That's more than $3.00. We saw a lot of foreigners at WFJ yesterday though, more than usual. We even tried to help a couple of them from Los Angeles.
But the preparation for the Olympics is really picking up now. There are fences around everything at BNU, including our apartment. Apparently the US team is staying at Li Yun, one of the apartotels on campus, and they're basketball team (yes, including Kobe) is going to be at the gym across from my apartment any time now. It's pretty exciting. I think I wanna go to the Olympic Green tomorrow, where the Bird's Nest, among other Olympic venues are.
But everything is Olympics now. EVERYTHING. There are signs everywhere. You can't walk far without seeing some kind od Beijing 2008 sign. They just recently adorned the school's perimeter with Beijing 2008 One world one dream signs. But things are also closing. They won't let us play on the basketball courts and they've closed a lot of the convenient markets they have around here. Forces us to walk further, but that's okay, we eat way too many carbs in China. Everyday, bao zi, bao zi, bao zi (basically steamed buns with meat).
III
Just do so!
July 03, 2008
// 9:48 PM
So while a few of us were walking around Xidan, a HUGE.. seriously, HUGE shopping area full of good bargains, cheap stuff, and good eats, we passed by a nice rip off of some Nike shoes that said "JUST DO SO." Freaking hilarious. Anyways, that's one for the books.
The last few days have been HOT. When I first got here, the weather was awesome. Not as hot as I expected.. Probably around high 70s to mid 80s and sometimes a breeze. But lately, it's been even too hot to walk a block to get something to eat. The A/C is on 24 hours a day in the building and it feels SO good everytime we walk in. And on top of the heat, the mosquitoes are starting to bite more frequently. Poor Chris. He has about 6 bites just on his neck. Gross.
The other day we went to Houhai, a huge area with ancient architecture and nice lakes and cool restaurants---speaking of mosquitoes, i think i just got bit. gross--- Anyways. There, we got to look at a prince's garden and try all these different teas (Oolong, Jasmine, Rose [a bit sour for my tastes] ). But that day, our tour guide, coincidently named Jackie Chan, told us that there were 50,000 tourists that day. Ridiculous. We also got to visit an old family's home. Fourth generation in the hutong. Amazing. After dinner there, we all got on these boats and went around Shisha Lake, and were provided the nice entertainment of this young woman playing the pipao (i think!). She was kind enough to fulfill our requests of Tong Hua and some Jay Chou songs. Oh baby! After that, we still had time before we had to go on the bus so a bunch of us decided to get in a huge circle and play silly games like Elephant, Watermelon, and Dungy Dungy. lmao.. good times.  
First day of classes have started! I was placed in a ridiculously high level and I bounced out of that class so fast, that by the time the day was over, I was in the middle level. :] It goes at a really slow speed, but everything is understandable. Today's class made me miss Zhang Laoshi and Berkeley though :\
Anyways. As promised, pictures from the past week!
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Name: ymmatammy
