Beijing, China. What's Happening to Me: The Twenty-Eighth Day

I woke up at about 630 this Saturday morning and lay in bed listening to the workers jack hammering in the area below my window for an hour before getting up and talking to the family. I enjoyed some yogurt, plums, two bananas, and some brie stuff for breakfast. I have 31 more days to go here. Tonight I will be going to have dinner with Rachel Ganson, a former BR intern who is in China. I will take the subway there - it should be interesting adventure. Hopefully I will be able to find her - plan to wear my bright tie-dye t-shirt so that I am spot-able.

Before heading out for my final swim at the pool that is closing for repairs, I went up on the roof of my building and walked around a bit and took in an "over" view of the area. I have to say it was pretty nice up there, especially since we are experiencing some good air quality days. Next time, I should take a chair and just sit and look around for a while.

I left to go swim at 1130, my last time at that pool. I got a refund for the times that I had not used on my card which amounted to 375 yuan (about $60 US). I did IM (butterfly, back, breast, and free for those who aren't swimmers) for the first time today in a long time. It was very tiring. After I swam I walked to the close grocery store and bought eggs, chicken breast, and yogurt. I sauntered back to my room and put the yogurt and the eggs up before going down and cooking the chicken breasts. I used Pimpan's cooking supplies to cook it. I could not find salt so I ended up using curry seasonings. It was okay but not exactly to my liking. I left my card key in my room which meant that I had to go down to the desk and figure out a way to tell the peeps there that I had locked myself out of my room. But I figured it out, with some help. I need to go to a pay phone and do a follow-up call to Rachel.

I went on the subway for the first time alone on the longest trip that I had been on the subway for - I made it and got to the right station very easily. Once I got to the right station (Tiantindongmen, The Temple of Heaven and the Pearl markets), I exited the station at exit B as was told. It took me about 45 minutes to get there. I exited and started walking, I walked some more. I kept on walking.. I walked around for about 20 minutes before giving up and heading back to the station to go to another exit and see if Rachel was there. As I was racing down the steps I heard someone call my name, I had walked right by her as I came back through the station entrance. She must have missed me on my way coming out or she was checking another exit. I saw a multitude of foreigners at this stop. Rachel said that it was because of the pearl markets. We went to a "french bakery" to get food. It was not bad for Chinese french food although the baguettes were not good in my opinion. I also got some 'pizzas', a 'hot dog loaf' and a chocolate thing. The pizzas were the best. Once we got our food, we walked to the McDonald's that Rachel's friends had eaten at and we sat there. She is working at an orphanage with the others this summer. we sat down at about 540, and had a very short conversation as they left at 600. They were ribbing one of the guys for buying a fake watch, a knock-off brand, that is. I said goodbye to them and they left. I sat and finished my bite of baguette and then headed out. I bought a dessert at the store as well before getting onto the subway. I will return to buy pearls.

On the subway I met a man who spoke very good English and we had a good conversation. It was nice just to talk. He asked easy questions and so I could just rattle off the answers and he would listen. At my last transfer, I said goodbye to him and headed to line 4. (Note to self: I need to be sure to get rid of my partial yuan before I leave here as what use is one yuan cent (which is like $0.0016 US).

When I got back to the dorm, I bought another thing of OJ and then headed to my room. I put the dessert into the fridge and then grabbed me a chair, my ukulele, and my OJ and went back up to sit on the roof. I sat and strummed my cares away. There was a pretty nice sunset that I could only partially see because of the tall buildings. I saw some mountains back lit. I did not even realize that there were mountains that close to us here (a testimony to the level of air pollution).

Dave (one of my brothers) on the screen, He froze that way when