Jack Frost nipping at your nose...

I've been suffering from another flu this past week. I barely left my room last weekend, so not too many pictures recently:

From dinner at a Hunan restaurant with Zoe last week....yummy.
Picture from the second round of the singing contest, My classmate won third prize!
My Christmas tree and a package with some Christmas presents from Scott and Loren and Corey! Exciting! I'm looking forward to opening them all!
Tonight was a class party to say goodbye to the three Americans in our class. They have an earlier exam and go back home for Christmas. Here's Alex and Song-Jun, the singing contestant.
Here's Tammy, Daxian, me and Kaitlin:
Baoxian, Izumi and Xiuzhen:
Yinxin, me and Mika:
Most of the group:
After dinner:

After the party we intended to go bowling, but the miniature bowling alley was already full, so the party ended pretty early. I did however see this advertisement for a rather expensive, rather oddly named Christmas party...
Tomorrow I'm heading to the Forbidden City for the first time in 5 years....I bet it won't have changed much since my last visit.

Classmate in Singing Contest

He's singing a Jay Chou song...unfortunately it's a bit shaky due to someone pushing past me at one point, and the sound quality isn't great, but it gives an idea. He was 24th so it took quite a bit of waiting before it was his turn. There were a few really good singers and a lot of mediocre ones....wish I had their confidence!

Weekend

Here's the decoration I put up on the outside of our dorm room door:
Went to a friend's (Alex's) birthday party in Houhai on Friday night. He is the one sitting next to me.
Here's me and Kaitlin:
On Saturday I went with Kaitlin and Jared to Panjiayuan (a market that is supposed to full of antiques, but they are all fakes). First, here's a picture of a horse outside the Mudanyuan subway station. Horses pulling carts is a common sight, despite the fact that we're in a huge city.
Here are some Panjiayuan photos:




This is from a restaurant we went to for lunch. They plastic-wrap the dishes to show they're clean, and they charge you for it. What a rip-off!

The past few weeks in photos

The past few weeks following midterms have been a bit of a blur....I'm not sure why. During the midterm week I managed to go see a couple screenings of short student films at the Beijing Film Academy. Here are some pictures of the directors at the post-screening Q&A:

I was really shocked at how mean the audience could be when they weren't enjoying a film. They would start yelling "Hao, hao (good, good)" loudly and laughing, but it was obviously sarcastic. I wouldn't have been able to handle it if I was one of the directors.

After midterms I went on my own to check out the Olympics buildings. It was fine, pretty much what I expected. Here's the Bird's Nest as it looked from the subway station:
Here's a random guy from Hunan. I approached him to ask him to help me take a picture but he didn't move and his friends obviously wanted some "Look at me with this foreigner!" pictures, so I got a picture with him too. I can add it to my "Look at me with this Chinese person!" collection of pictures. haha.

Here's the water cube before the sun went down, with no lights on.

I believe the building with the green lights is the media building. Dunno what the one in the foreground was.

There was a stage and lighting set up in the middle of everything. They were playing music loudly and it sounded interesting, but it was surrounded by a wall. As far as I could tell, it was some kind of promotional activity put on by a bank or investment company, but it was only for bigwigs I guess. I joined a huge crowd craning their necks and trying to see something, but it was a fruitless effort.
Here's the water cube lit up.

And the bird's nest lit up:
Here's a pic giving you an idea of how close the two buildings are to one another.
My shadow:
Later the next week I went to a school-organized kungfu show which was among the weirdest things I have seen. It was in English and was entirely geared towards the foreign tour industry. I liked the promotional stuff outside of the theatre....I bet the Nobelists loved it:
One of the kungfu kids entertained the patrons before the show....
Last week I spent going back and forth between Beijing and a place called Songzhuang, about two hours by bus and subway from where I live. There was a film fest taking place there and I had a fabulous time. I felt lame pulling out my camera to take pictures of all the cool directors and artists there, so I only took a few pictures outside to give an idea of what the place was like. It was in the countryside....here's the road to one of the galleries where they were showing films:
There were some other galleries on the way, and a lot of private, fortress-like villas which apparently are owned by some incredibly wealthy, famous contemporary Chinese artists.
The other place in the village where films were screened was here, the Songzhuang Art Gallery. Kind of a weird building. The path in the pictures above is behind this building.
The barren-looking path behind the art gallery:
And finally, tonight Zoe and I went to Carrefour and bought a few things to decorate for Christmas. Here are the rather underwhelming results, but they make me happy.
What says Christmas more than the water cooler, bucket and tree trifecta?
Here we are with our miniature tree:

Last Weekend

Here's a little comic drawn by Derek Kirk Kim which expresses how I sometimes feel here. It's easier to sit in my dorm room and eat oatmeal at times rather than going out and trying to find a decent place to eat. Haha.

Last weekend was a mainly uneventful three day weekend. However, on Thursday night I did go to a class party. Since the vast majority of my classmates are Korean, it took place in several Korean restaurants/pubs in an area in Beijing known as Wudaokou, which has a huge Korean population. It's not too far from where I live. 

I'm still not used to being addressed as 'Big Sister' by the Koreans....because I am older than everyone (as you can see in the pictures below), they respectfully call me that, but I have to say it makes me feel like a creaky old lady.

I got most of these pictures from a Japanese classmate, which is why the quality is a bit up and down. One thing I can say is, man some Koreans can really put back a lot of Soju (Korean alcohol). The evening was fun but got expensive because everything was split amongst everyone evenly, so even if you didn't drink, you paid for the alcohol too. 

We first went to a Korean BBQ restaurant which was delicious! Here's some of the food cooking. You used a lettuce leaf to wrap up the cooked meat and veggies, eating it all in a little package. 
The younger people are supposed to pour drinks for the older people. No one pours for themselves. So needless to say the first thing that was figured out when we sat down was who was oldest....me! 
Making toasts and getting pissed:
That's me in the corner with Kaitlin, an American student from Wisconsin. The three people on the other side of the table are Korean. The girls names in Chinese are Zhimin and Xiuzhen. I can't seem to ever say the guy's name correctly in Korean or English.
This is a picture of me (looking freakishly pale), Kaitlin, and Baoxian (a Korean girl) in the front row. Behind us from left to right are Minghe (Korean), Alex (another American), Daxian (Korean) and Izumi (Japanese).
Here's a shot of nearly the entire class...a few people couldn't make it that night.

After eating, we walked to another Korean place. On the way we came across Hump Cafe and had to take a picture. The Chinese name means 'Camel Hump Coffee.'

On the way to the next place, Alex mentioned how his former Chinese teacher told him that she still remembered the first English sentence she ever learned, which was "I like to eat apples and cock." Of course, that was supposed to mean she likes eating apples and chicken. Not a very useful lesson!

At the next place we went to the Koreans ordered more food even though I felt totally stuffed. It was all really delicious though. We played various drinking games that were a bit complicated to play in Chinese. One involved hitting the table and clapping in a specific rhythm. People would call out someone's name and a number, for example, "Marie four!" I would have to say my name four times fast along with the rhythm and then call out someone else's name and a number. It was impossibly difficult to remember everyone's Chinese names and to respond to my own Chinese name. I lost each time we tried, as did the other Americans with the group. So, instead we just assigned everyone seat numbers which was a lot easier than having to call out, "欧曼妮 四！李大贤三！" and so on!
I sat with these girls for a little while. They are really nice, but they prefer to converse in Korean. I can totally understand, but it made sitting with them a bit isolating. Haha. Thankfully, one of the Korean guys noticed and offered to switch places so I could be closer to the people speaking Chinese together.



Finally, we ended the night in a karaoke place. It was ok, but since I don't know a lot of Korean songs it was a little slow at times. I was also strangely exhausted and feeling a bit homesick that evening, so I was happy to head home at the end of the night.

The rest of the weekend was pretty slow. On Halloween I went with Zoe and Ruyun (my roommate) to try to go watch a new film called 'Painted Skin' 画皮 with other Chinese students, but when we got there it was too packed for us to fit in. Instead we went for a walk and bought the DVD. I watched it with Ruyun and found it to be a bit cheesy, but it was still ok for a bit of entertainment. Definitely nothing scary about it at all though.

On another evening I went back to the Across the Bridge Noodles place with Zoe. Here's a picture of the outside and you can sort of see the bridge you walk across to get to the tables.

Here's a picture of the menu....just to give an idea of what the dish is like....they put it all into a boiling broth, like a hotpot.
And here's the final product, all ready to eat. Mmmm.
This week has been busy with school stuff, but nothing exciting otherwise. I have midterms this next week, so I have spent all the previous few days trying to study. I am rather nervous about the tests as I know they will be very challenging for me. 

There's a film fest going on starting tomorrow (Sunday) at the Beijing Film Academy. I bought tickets, but I don't know how many screenings I will end up attending. I'm disappointed with the timing, since it conflicts with all the exam stuff. Boo.

After exams I am joining a language exchange thing that should happen once or twice a week. I might also try to volunteer somewhere. I want to try to start doing more activities than i've been doing lately. I started using the weird gym across the hall from my dorm room and I think that has been good for my mood.