Beijing, China. What's Happening to Me: The Forty-third Day

Sunday. I got up this morning at 900 and basically sat and played guitar and ukulele. I did start on my paper and typed 458 words in the introduction (thanks to the gentle suggestion of my Dad who said I needed to get the paper done prior to getting on the plane to head home). At 1120 I left to meet with Faith. I met her at the west gate of CAAS, and we headed to the subway. We had a few minutes on the subway ride with a transfer or two before exiting the tube and heading back to the surface. Once above ground, we waited on Faith's friend Richard. Faith, as it turns out, is a very bad map reader.

We walked though the Hutongs (old alleys) and stopped for lunch. We had an Asian pizza thing. It was kung pow chicken and Peking duck flavored (I don't think it is a flavor that you will be seeing at Pizza Hut any time soon). After eating, we continued to walk through the alleys. She got me a very weird milk thing to try (the recipe contained mangoes), and it was pretty good. We walked around for a while before I told her that this was not the type of place that I visit - way too touristy for this country boy. We meandered a bit more, saw their version of Big Ben, and got back into the subway where we headed to the place of Richard's and Faith's old high school, Tsingua. This school was inside the grounds of Tsingua University which meant that in order to get in we had to have ID cards for the university (as it was also a popular tourist place). These ID cards we did not have but we went through the gate any way. When the guard stopped us, he asked us what dorm we lived in, and since Faith knew the names of the dorms, she was able to fool the guard and gain us admittance. It was a very nice university with lots of trees and green space. Faith told me that the dorms were ridiculously cramped - there would be eight of them placed in a room smaller than the room that I am in. She also said that her class size was 200. I told her about the class sizes of Texas and that I had graduated from a class of over 600!

She has lived in Beijing all her life and goes to college in a southern province, so she knows all the things to see and do in Beijing. Hopefully tomorrow she will take me to another place, that is, if she does not have anything else to do. I told her that I would like to see the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest at night and see them lit up. She said that this would be possible. She also said that I need to see the modern Beijing at night to see the skyline. That should be pretty cool as well.

After walking through Tsingua, we were going to get Beijing Duck. Unfortunately it was too early (none of the restaurants were open for that) so instead we walked to a train station and headed back to CAAS. There was a duck in front of the building that we were going to eat the duck dish at. I had seen it before as there is one that is close to CAAS. It turns out it is a denoter of a fancy chain restaurant that serves good duck. I stopped by the dorm room to grab my Frisbee and more water before we went to the place. It turned out to be a very fancy place. I am not a fan of the fancy Asian food places. I would rather eat at the Sesh Wan place or one of the smaller places like that than a fancy place. I mean the food was good but no more so the those other places (and they are much cheaper). The duck was pretty good, I have to say. You make kind of a taco out of the meat and then put some sauce into it. Definitely different.

I talked more to Faith. It turns out that college here is very easy and high school is extremely difficult. It also turns out that Faith and her friend went crazy for the first year of college. She did not go to many of her classes and drank a TON of alcohol. She also gave herself an ulcer. She mellowed out a ton when she took a GRE class over December. The Instructor of the class was a very good influence on her. She now goes to class and does well academically. She is going to be taking the GRE soon, and I may be helping her with her English studying.

Richard did not say very much the entire day. His English is not as strong as Faith's and he is less comfortable with conversation. After dinner, he left to go home - he has a soccer tournament tomorrow and needed to get a good night's sleep. Faith and I proceeded to the Renmin field, threw the frisbee, and talked. She really loves tennis but had no concept about cross-training. She did not understand how other exercise improves one's ability in other areas such as running, swimming or playing tennis even. Our evening wrapped up at about 840.. She got on the subway to head home, and I went back to the dorms where I talked to the family.

Lunch yesterday