okay, here's a big one

Okay, unless I suddenly become ill, I'm going to sit here for at least 15 minutes and recap my last week, since that was when I last wrote. It's a good thing when I don't write--it means I'm having a good time! Actually, after this I'll be able to write more often, as my roommate now has her computer and has set it up. At this point, however, her dad is borrowing it. First, before I start with my week's recap, I bought tickets to Inner Mongolia! I got 4 other people to go with me and we leave next Wednesday for Hohhot. It's only about a ten hour train ride, and we'll do it overnight both ways. Some events included in our long weekend trip (Wednesday-Sunday) are: staying in a yurt, a traditional Mongolian tent; doing sand skiing in the desert; riding camels and horses; getting up at 3 am to watch the sunrise (it actually rises about 4:30 am here in Beijing, what a pain); and watching a traditional wrestling match. I'm so excited! It's a tour, which I dont' particularly care for, but it seems like that's the best way to do it, if not the only. Okay, on to the recap. I last wrote about Thursday I believe, so I'll start with Friday.

Friday:
I went to class as usual, 8 am to noon, and then grabbed a quick lunch at one of the cafeterias. At 1:30, myself and the rest of the program went on a hutong tour. A hutong is an area with small alleyways not wide enough for a car and walled courtyard compounds. If you were to look at a hutong section, you would see a dusty alleyway with lots of bikes parked along the side of continuous walls. There are doors every so often that open into courtyard homes that house 1-4 families, and the hutongs are also famous for somtimes having very elaborate lintels. Anyways, we went to the hutong area in Houhai, otherwise known as Back Lakes. When our bus arrived outside the area we were going to explore, we were greeted by a million pedicabs, which it turned out we were goign to travel in. I'm really not crazy about pedicabs-I feel so terrible for these guys to have to pedal my fat American butt everywhere. But my friend and I made friends with the driver, and enjoyed a much cooler experience than had we been walking. We stopped at a home and went inside (The owners get paid by the tour company to show off their house) and spoke to the woman who owned the house. While much of the area is owned by the government (70%), this house had been in her family for about 4 generations. The "house" consisted of four small buildings clustered around a small courtyard that was shaded by zucchini vines growing above. One wall of each building was composed of windows for ventilation, and the house was oriented south, which is considered good luck. It seemed to have running water and plumbing, as well as electricity. She said that during the Cultural Revolution, two other families moved in with hers, but that now, it was her, her husband, and her son and his family. She also said that many young people no longer want to live in the hutongs, as it is much more convenient (she noted parking) to live in a high rise. Many hutongs are being destroyed for the Olympics, because the government wants to present a glistening, modern city to the world.
All the guidebooks I have read have noted this destruction, but our guide was quick to point out when asked about it that the government is preserving the hutongs, and none are being destroyed. Just looking out the window of the metro shows this to be a lie. After the hutong tour, we went to Prince Gong's palace, where we saw the beautiful imperial garden, and then had a traditional tea. Pretty touristy, but it was very informative. After that, we were on our own, and a few friends and I decided to head to the restaurant/bar section of Houhai, known as Lotus Lane. I mentioned it before-it's a really beautiful area on a lovely smallish lake. We had a good dinner and hung about a bit before heading home. We watched a few dvds when we got home that we bought for 50 cents US each.

Saturday:
We went to the Great Wall. It was the same section of the wall as I went to with my family, but this time, instead of taking the cable car up (the Wall is perched on a ridge so you have to find a way to get up there), we decided to walk. That was Saturday, this is Thursday, and I'm still sore. It was a solid hour of a leg burning exercise, straight up the mountain stairs. It was lovely once we got up there, though! I had been there before, so I took very few pictures and just enjoyed the view, which is amazing. You can see miles from the Wall, and it's fun to imagine yourself a barbarian invader, facing this Wall and being told to run straight up a mountain into a barrage of arrows and hot liquid, mount the wall, and then face thousands of highly trained imperial soldiers. That would be a bad day. After the Wall, I went to Sanlitun, the bar area for foreigners, and relaxed for a bit before heading home relatively early.

Sunday:
I totally relaxed. I had plans to go shopping with a friend but she was out singing Ka-la-OKAY (that's actually how it's spelled) until 7 am, so she was planning on sleeping in. I did, however, get up to take a short bike ride with a friend to the Old Summer Palace, otherwise known as the one that was the rival of Versailles, but was burnt to the ground in 1860 by Anglo-French forces in retaliation for the appalling fact that the Chinese dared to defend one of the ports against Western invasion. It was terribly hot, so my friend and I only stayed a while, but it was really neat. It's mostly a picnic area now, since it is a series of large lakes and small ruins. It was funny because there was a school group touring the area at the same time we were, and we kept running into them. Somewhere, a group of ten year old girls have a picture of them with a tall redheaded American girl and a taller blond American guy. Look, mom, here I am with the circus freaks! My friend got some pictures of us with the kids as well, so that'll be fun to look at!

Monday:
Went to class. It seems like I did something else meaningful with my day, but I'm coming up short. Hmm. Oh, yes, it was Independence Day. Everyone else was going to a barbeque at a girl's friend's house in the suburbs, but it was an 100 kuai taxi ride (an appalling amount, 12 USD) and I was feeling a little off. So instead, I had a little me time. I went and got noodles for dinner, and then headed for the largest bookstore in the area, which has a small English section. I bought a cool book on the origin of Chinese characters, a Chinese grammar book, and the four-book series The Three Kingdoms, which is THE Chinese adventure novel from ancient times. I did a little homework, relaxed, read, and went to sleep.

Tuesday:
Ooh, getting closer! That's good, because I'm getting super bored of typing. Tuesday after class I relaxed, and at 6 pm we all went to the Peking Opera. It's good there was food, otherwise I would have had to do something else, like pick my nose, to stay awake. Actually, it was okay. There were two selections from two different operas performed, one of which was Farewell my Concubine, the classic. If you've never heard of Peking Opera before, it involves elaborate costumes and high, falsetto singing/screaming. It sounds really terrible, but it was pretty interesting. The accompanying music was actually much better than the singing, and sounded much like you may imagine traditional Chinese music to sound like . It was an experience anyway, and I liked the very stylized dance movements the performers made.

Wednesday:
Wednesday was a really cool day. I went to class and after meeting my tutor, whose favorite activities include watching me eat and laughing at my mistakes in character writing condescendingly, I went shopping with friends. We went to an indoor shopping center where I bought two DKNY silk-ish cardigans, a Lacoste polo (my Georgetown camoflauge), a pair of Versace sunglasses (I'm getting contacts in August, and these actually look good on me), a Juicy Tube lip gloss, and something for Ron. I also got a manicure and hand massage, which looks and felt great. (I also had a really nice conversation with my manicurist in Chinese. Mom, don't worry, it was very clean and they never broke the skin). Anyways, it was all for 350 kuai, which is about $40. Yes, everything is fake, or stolen, but they are awfully good fakes, and it was such a fun girls day out (I went with two girls from my class) We now have plans to go get manicures regularly, since a simple manicure is 20 RMB, or about $2.50. You do have to be a little careful about who you go to, though. So that was my really cool day. It was made even better by the fact that the vendors didn't really attack you, and some of them didn't even care if you stole a glance over at their booth. It was extremely relaxing, for a change.

Random other things:
I've started a taiqi class. It meets at 6:30 in the morning and I'm successfully finding my center.

I have a meeting at the World Bank again tomorrow.

My hair dryer does not like the voltage here, even with the converter.

That's about it for now, but I promise I will write more introspective, interesting things, and will talk more about the food, as well. Actually, on that note, I thought I would want American food, but I am still madly in love with Chinese food. It's a love affair that I expect will last me through life. I'll write soon, and thanks for all the comments!