Despite what I thought before about fitting into Beijing, the atmosphere here is so different, much different than I remember in 2008. All the people, the cars, the hecticness of everyday life changes so fast compared to what I’m used to, even compared to all the big cities in America and Europe. Of course, I’ll get used to it after a few days. I arrived in the morning and my grandparents greeted me with dumplings. Apparently, my mom told them everything I like to eat. The only problem is that her representation of what I like is probably what I liked when I was in high school. College/Europe made my taste in food change so much haha. I chatted with them for a while but it’s very hard because I think my grandpa is slowly developing Alzheimers, as he repeats the same conversation every hour or so. I tried giving a different response each time for my own sake of not going crazy, but eventually it got tough so I just have the same conversation with them every time. My grandma is hard to understand as usual because of her surgery. Nonetheless, it feels great to be ‘home’. I planned to finish my Reading Faces essay the days before my cousin goes on break, but that is not working very well because I’m writing this instead.
The second day I couldn’t really sleep so I woke up bright and early to go with my grandparents to the outdoor market, finally cheap and good veggies/fruit! They bought the cutest little oranges and they’re so sweet, I’ve never had them so tiny. The only problem with my grandma is that if I say no I don’t want something, she’ll think it’s a yes, if I say yes, it’s also a yes. This means that there is no ‘no’ in her book, so she ends up buying everything even if I tell her not to. Also with food, if I finish something, she’ll think I love it and buy it or make it for me the next day. She also stuffs me like crazy, saying I’ll get sick if I don’t eat, but I eat so much and she still forces me to eat more haha. Man, I’m gonna get so fat here.
The next day I saw my two other cousins, beibei and zhuzhu, and holy crap they’ve gotten so tall. Beibei wants to be a ‘perfumist’ or those people that mix perfumes. She wants to go to America for school so I just told her to major in chemistry or something like that, but I really hope she knows what she’s doing. Maybe it’s called cosmetic chemistry… Anyway, we went to eat dinner at a Mongolian place (all goat/sheep products), and then went shopping a bit where I bought these nice Italian leather boots. Unfortunately, my aunt paid for it, it’s so hard paying in China nowadays! We were going to watch a movie since it was Christmas eve, but I was so tired because of jetlag so we headed back around 11pm.
Christmas day was kinda uneventful, but it’s nice because I got to spend it with my grandparents and catch up on all my sleep.
The day after, I had dinner with gugu and apparently one of my distant cousins, hui jun or something like that, was over. I’ve only met him once in my life but he’s just 7 months older than me, so it was pretty cool talking to him about stuff. I also met a lot of my aunt’s friends kids, we used to play cards a lot every time I came to China. They’re all so grown up too and one already goes to Ohio State, the others are prepping for SATs. It’s kinda weird that everyone is heading to America.
Currently, I’m sitting I 上岛咖啡, enjoying a cup of cappuccino that took about 30min to make and they put whipped cream on top in a tea cup, it’s kinda cute. I’m glad they’re not kicking me out because they’re pretty busy and I’ve been here for four hours already. 20% of my essay done haha, so sad.
And I stopped writing there.
Currently, I’m at the airport back to Rochester ugh, time has gone by way too fast. Anyway, I stayed at 上岛咖啡 until about 3pm (6-7 hours there), had a HUGE and not very appetizing French toast, and headed back. My aunt called me at night and told me to watch a movie with her and the others. We had dinner first then watched fei cheng wu rao II. It was a pretty cute movie and I managed to understand everything (they had English subtitles too). Chinese humor is so different than American as well as English. Chinese humor is VERY subtle, half the time I didn’t even catch what was supposed to be funny. All in all, it is an enjoyable movie, the guy is a good actor. That night, I couldn’t sleep so I tried writing a bit more of the essay till about 6am, except I actually watched Narnia haha, fail.
Finally, on the 28th, my cousin came back from college in 南京 so I finally have someone to chill with! Luckily, she got out of school early this year, everyone else gets out around 1/10-1/20, which would’ve sucked cause that’s when I leave. Jiujiu, jiuma, and I picked her up at the airport, her ticket cost about $30, sooo cheap! We then went to a nearby place for hot pot.
The next day, I really wanted to go to 西单 to shop because I love that place. However, my cousin really wanted to KTV so we went to jingku at xidan and sang for 3 hours + free huge buffet, lol start of fat life. Their milk tea is actually really good! I got to listen to her sing off tune for a couple of hours but it’s ok because now I know all the new popular Chinese songs haha. We shopped a bit until 10pm then headed to 鬼街for dinner. I dunno why I didn’t really go there before, but almost all the restaurants there are open 24/7. We found this tiny restaurant in a sketchy corner and had a nice dinner until 1am. I think China is picking up the Spanish habit of eating late.
Btw, I love taobao, I wish they could ship to America…
Dayi gave me two tickets for me and Zheng Yue to watch a show at a really famous Chinese Music House (literally translated). It is near 天安门 square. Before it started, we headed to xiu shui since it was close and I bought a pair of fake uggs, it was soo cheap I couldn’t resist. They’re actually really comfy too! The show was all singing with piano. There were about 5 people who sang; among them was a 77 year old who was amazing. The sad part was that we both fell asleep because we were so tired from the previous day, but my excuse was that ht singing was so good it was soothing so I felt sleepy… At night, we headed to gui jie once again and went to a bigger restaurant this time for some random food. I feel like every day I eat dinner until about midnight or later.
New Years Eve came really fast, what better way to spend it than shopping? We headed to xidan once again (I can’t get enough of it). I was really hoping there would be a huge feast/meal at night with my mom’s side of the family but they were so busy and the kids had final exams the next week so I went to my gugu’s place and had dinner with her and her/my ‘family’. It was a good timing because I was going with her to ski the next day anway. Zheng Yue and I unwillingly pulled an all nighter because my other cousin from wuxi talks way too much. We ended up listening to him about his life for about 5 hours zzz
2011! Wow, I’m getting old. We left bright and early the next day with two other families to a place about 1 ½ hour drive away. Keep in mind, this whole trip cost about $20 (CS/hotel/skiing/rentals), including EVERYTHING but the food. We settled into our hotel, had some lunch, then played 真人CS, which is basically translated to real person counter-strike or what we call laser tag (but it was more intense). We split into groups of 10vs10 (with other people we don’t know). There were three terrains: mountain, playground, and a pit with lots of walls and a castle. It was really fun but climbing up and down the mountain was a pain because it was steep and very easy to hurt yourself lol. The only downside was that there wasn’t enough time to finish a game, because of the amount of people. We played capture the flag where the flag was a person and we had to get them into our territory, regular 1 team vs. the other, kill whoever until one left, defend the castle (other has to get into the castle), and lots of others I can’t remember. We ended up getting dirt all over our clothes. After dinner, we played cards. I was so happy because I haven’t played sheng ji in about 8 months!
The next day, we went skiing at a place next to the Great Wall. What an interesting experience. This place is considered one of the best in China, but it was all man-made snow and only had four lanes. They asked me the day before if I liked easy, medium, or hard so I said medium suits me (I was thinking of a blue hill). So a girl who has skied before said she’ll come with me because we’re the same level. I was kind of skeptic because she had not skied that many times, and I was right. Their difficult hill is an easy blue, much like the one on the way left at Sandia. Their medium hill is a regular green, and their two beginner hills are like the Santa Fe bunny slope. In other words, it was really easy. Also, the place was packed and no one knew what they were doing. I went with that girl who said she’ll come with me up the second hardest slope (bunny slope in the US), and when I was standing in lane, this skier came crashing into me so I was like, I’m snowboarding the hardest one (which is still a blue). I went on that by myself and realized there was a terrain park with very very few people, so why not go try that since there’s nothing else to do? I met a cool snowboarder who kept on jumping the jump, then climbing back up. I would have never even attempted this jump in the states because so many people could pull it off like crazy, but since I was one of the best snowboarders there (not to brag, but it’s true, there was only about 10 who could manage the blue hill), I tried it. At first, I failed many times because the jump was just too big and I was scared when I got into the air, but the guy talked me through it and after about 6 jumps I pulled it off! It was the most AMAZING feeling ever to land that jump, I couldn’t stop smiling afterwards.
The trip was definitely worth it just for me to pull off that jump and after the first time, I could land it about 80% of the time. In china, they call it 飞. I like that word better than jump, sounds cooler. For dinner, we had 烤鸭 yummy!!
I planned to meet Yayi before she left so on the 3rd I went to Wu Dao Kou to meet her. That place is next to qinghua and beida and had lots of Koreans is what everyone told me because it’s next to an international school haha. I also met two of her high school friends, they all went to si zhong which is pretty much the best high school in Beijing, they’re soooo smart! We went to 颐和园 where her friends knew almost everything about the place. We walked on the ice and had some 糖葫芦 haha, what a nice winter feeling, I haven’t had that in a while. At night, we went to Yayi’s awesome but far away house to eat hot pot. Apparently her dad runs 5000m then plays basketball once or twice a week, I’m so jealous, I wish I could do that! Sadly, I had to leave early to meet with my wuxi cousin for badminton late at night. He said he was on the badminton team so I thought it would be really fun. I then realized he’s the type to show off way too much. I’m not even good and I beat him. He couldn’t keep track of the score, his form was very very off like he’s never played before x.x can you tell I’m getting tired of him? But I guess it was a good exercise.
On the 4th, I went hot spring-ing with gugu, her boyfriend, and zheng yue. There was not that many people there so it was really relaxing, especially cause it was so cold outside. The only part that would’ve made it better was if it was snowing and our hair was freezing while we were in the hot springs haha. Shuang…. We stayed there for quite a while because it was a spa+hotspring+food place, so we played some cards once again and headed back at midnight.
I still wanted to shop some more so zheng yue took me to nanluoguxiang. I’ve been there before but totally forgot the atmosphere. I found one of my favorite shops in Beijing. We walked into a shop that sells postcards, and everything was so cute. You can write to whoever/wherever/ and WHENEVER. There were cards on the wall that was dated to be mailed 10 years later. I wanted to write to some people but didn’t have their addresses in hand. At night, we had dinner with gugu again and then met up with 5 Australians (my aunt’s boyfriend’s older sister’s son+friends). They just graduated from high school so they’re going around China and Korea, haha the good days. There was nothing better to do because it was already 10pm so we sang KTV at jingku again.
As the days were slowly coming to a end, zheng yue and I had lunch at guijie this time and then headed to meet dayi near zhong guan cun. We went to a cheap place where I bought two scarves, then went to the real/bigger mall and bought a nice, white jacket. Again, I couldn’t pay. Honestly, I barely spent any money since I got to China because no one would let me pay ugh, I hate that feeling. We had dinner near her house because zheng yue and I had to leave to sing KTV with gugu and family (again). We sang until midnight then met up with the Australians again to go clubbing at Mix, which was actually more fun than the time I went with Sining/Jane, I feel like people were much more open this time rather than shy like last time. Anyway, we were about to not go cause zheng yue was getting sick but luckily she changed her mind cause I really wanted to club one last time before heading back to the states haha.
Since my cousin wasn’t feeling that well, I went to xidan by myself with much difficulty. I couldn’t get a cab for about 30 minutes, and when I did get one, he told me to get off and go to the other side. I walked soo much and finally got a cab. Then, there was lots of traffic so it took forever to get there. By the time I got there it was already 1-2 hours later zzz. Also, I told them to drop me off at the wrong place so I ended up walking into a grocery shop and buying interesting flavored pocky/chips. With something bad always comes something good right? I walked past a shop that sold everything for 40 kuai ($5.5) and bought hoodies/sweaters/pants/skirts/more sweaters), it was all going well…then bad luck hit again (but this time it’s my fault cause I can’t say no). There was a guy who asked me to go into their shop so I can look at it cause it’s just open. I didn’t have to pay, they just wanted publicity. I couldn’t say no so I went with him. It turned out to be a hair cutting shop. Dang, I have never been influenced to do something like this. They were very good at persuading me, making it almost impossible to say no. They sat me on the chair and said free wash, and then walked me there. (now that I’m typing this, it sounds so stupid, but I swear they were VERY persuasive). Then I figured I might as well cut it so I asked them how much, and they said 250, I was like no way, so they said they’ll give me 50% off or whatever I want to pay. They then said I can do something to my bangs or what not and I figured it was almost the last day in China, might as well do that too, so I told them 50% off and chose the cheapest one. As I was waiting, I talked to some girls next to me and asked them for the price, none of them knew, this was when I knew I was going to get ripped off. There was nothing I could do about it. Two hours later, I realized my phone didn’t have reception and it was already dinner time. Everybody was probably worried about me because they couldn’t contact me so I borrowed the hair cutter guy’s phone and told him to hurry up so I can leave faster. He did so and the total bill came out to be 300 kuai, which is totally not worth it, but I had no time to complain, I grabbed my purse and left. When I entered the subway station I realized I left all my stuff that I bought earlier there, which meant I had to go back the next day. The bad luck didn’t end there, when I got out of the subway station, I could not find a cab for about 30min. It was horrible, and almost nearing 8pm (we planned dinner around 6pm).
I finally got home later and went with zheng yue and her parents to eat Korean BBQ - finally some good food to make up for that horrible experience. If I had more in China I’d go eat lots of Korean food, it’s so cheap and totally delicious.
The last day in Beijing I went with jiujiu/jiuma to xidan to retrieve my stuff. We then went to Da Yue Cheng to do a bit of shopping because I wanted a purse. However, I didn’t find one because the price wasn’t worth it. We then went to watch 让子弹飞, it was a good movie with a unique plot, but so hard to understand. I was confused at a lot of parts but it all connected in the end. At night, we ate Thai food.
1/9 marked the end of my travelling. Xiaoyi and family came over, bought some KFC (which included youtiao and thousand egg soup lol, yummy!), and my jiujiu made a huge feast for breakfast. I stuffed myself to death and was joined by gugu and family to the airport. They drove 2 cars because everyone wanted to send me off haha, I love my family so much and I’ll definitely miss them.
As I’m writing this in the airport, it suddenly hit me that I can’t buy alcohol anymore, or go clubbing randomly…
