The Fifth Day 1/12 of the Way

Up at 430 this morning to work out and to wash some clothes. The towel that I got to do abs on provides just enough cushion, although it is a little small. This morning has been good. I added some new exercises in and if anyone has any suggestions for body weight exercise that can be done without a mat or a lot of room please tell me. The AQI is bad this morning, hovering at around 200.
I took shower for the first time without stepping gingerly as I scrubbed the floor with toilet cleaner and a brush I got from the Wu-Mart.  I talked to me madre this morning which was nice. She informed me of home and said she would send photo. I need to ask her how the diet is going. Breakfast was good nuts, banana, strange fruit and eggs.

The strange fruit at breakfast is called mangosteen. It is pretty good.  This morning was not very busy, I learned about making a sample of DNA ready for PCR, then with Xiao Qi (Mister Chi), I helped grind samples of fungus for DNA extraction. I learned how to read the electrophoresis gels. It seemed that the thing she was testing for did not work, the cotton was not transgenic.
I learned some Chinese words today wo is I, do (pronounced dough) is understood, ne is you, and several other words that i cannot event begin to sound out spelling in English. they sort of use endings like that of English and Spanish, but instead of changing the word at the end of what ever they are saying they place a tense. For example to say in the past one would add le to the end of the sentence, so to say "I understood" it is "Wo dole"
Mister Chi tried to get me to call one of the women in the lab a fool.  He told me that she loved to be called it. this led to an entire crazy chatter, of which I was in the center, standing uncomprehendingly. Finally Leo told me that the word basically meant fool. It seems that Mister Chi is the practical joker of the lab.
Leo and I left for for lunch a little before twelve because he had to fill up the food card with money. Dr. Hongmei told him to fill up a bus/subway card with money so that I can travel around Beijing.  
 Lunch was good, I had a stir fry and a different type of stir fry. one with onions, pork, fungus, and stuff the other with celery and Tofu. the tofu here is excellent compared with american tofu. I also had rice, the rice is very good as well.
After lunch Leo left to fill up my subway card and I left to search for the closer supermarket, Let us just say that I failed, I forgot to cross the street out of the south exit and so I made a few loops before giving up and buying eggs from one of the street vendors.
Another thing that I found out, Mister Chi is one of the people who play basketball down on the courts below my room, and he and Wendy both do the Kung fu/Tia Chi thing on the courts in the later evening.
This weekend I will be going to the Olympic park, then when I get back cooking the Bangladeshi Chicken and making dumplings, Asian style. It will be awesome.
The air quality is only getting worse today, we at 198 right now.

 Breakfast! The eggplant colored things are the Magosteen 

my room

 

The view the trees in the center are the same trees

My room

More of my room

Toilet!

Mangosteen

Mangosteen

 Wendy has this weird Chinese pressure point statue in the lab,

Grinding samples with Mister Chi

Note the window at waist height in this restroom

Lunch!

I went back to work at about 200 and ran into Misma. I asked him if he had a break like I did in the middle of the day. It turns out that he is donedone. He no longer has a job to do now that his Ph. D. is finished. He is just getting ready for Convocation on the 26th here and packing to go back to Bangladesh.
In the lab there was nothing being done that I could do, so I watched things happen for a while. Jimmy showed up about 15 minutes before I left. This was when activity really hit a standstill at 400. I left to go to the closer market. I walked about trying to find it and made it into the high end apartment districts before turning around and choosing a new random direction to look for it. I was just about to give up when I saw the entrance on the other side of the street. I bought some Mangosteens, and a dragonfruit and some milk. I do not know whether the milk is pasteurized or not. I will go down to the Bangladeshi family to see it they can help me with that.
In the store they were playing "Oh Christmas Tree" which was an interesting choice, they must not know what Christmas is or they do not know what that song is. I have also noticed that Asians eat tomatoes like apples. I have seen multiple Asians eating tomatoes but but none eating apples.
Another thing that is different from the USA it that instead of a drink to wash down your meal they give you a bowl of boiling hot soup. Now in the winter this might be nice but it is summer now and if one does not have time to let the soup cool down a little it is no bueno. If one has time to let it cool then it actually is very good to wash down the food.

Ben stopped by and asked me how I was doing. He invited me to breakfast at 715 tomorrow morning, so now I have something to look forward to tomorrow. I already miss home and I have 54 more days to go here. I will be able to make it. Hopefully I will have a chance to cook something for someone, the only thing that I can think of right now though would be Eggplant Parmesan as there is a lot of eggplant here.

I went down to see if the Bangladeshi family was there, the kids were but the parents where not, so I still need to ask someone whether the milk I got is pasteurized or not. I also check Pimpans room to no avail.

Dinner was good, in room, had the same as breakfast. I have eaten 12 eggs since Monday evening. That's a lot of eggs.