Another busy day in Beijing! I had a super long orientation this morning (which included signing my language pledge for the rest of my stay here). followed by lunch with one of the teachers. She took us to a Sichuan restaurant which was right out side of Bei Da's South gate. The food there was also excellent! I can't believe how much good food they have to offer in Beijing. The Sichuan food was really good. We had spicy shredded pork, sweet and sour chicken, black pepper beef, curry chicken, some sort of soup, mapo tofu and a bunch others that I forgot about. It wasn't nearly as salty as the sichuan food around Philly. I'm really loving the food (if you couldnt tell already)! I'm so happy that I get to eat Chinese food all day, every day. After lunch, there were a few hours of free time before the field trip to the Summer Palace, so I went wandering around the campus in search of a cell phone. I had my first successful haggling experience and manged to land a phone and a SIM card for next to nothing. After the free time, the group headed over to the Summer palace for a tour. We only had about 2 hours to spend there and it wasn't nearly enough time. I could probably spend a whole day there. There are so many neat buildings to look at and so much history behind the whole place. It's a really nice place to just sit and relax. There's an amazing breeze coming off of the lake. You can pay for a boat ride to be taken across the lake to the other side. Did not have time to do that, sadly. I think I will be going back there in the future so I can take my time and look around. The interesting thing about the lake and the hill is that they are both man-made. From what I understood, one of the emperors had it made to honor his mother on her 60th birthday.

So in China, the people here love to take pictures of foreigners (for some reason). Whenever we stop to take a group picture, random people will come over to take pictures of us. Or if we're standing around in a group, I can usually spot a few people lingering around us trying to take pictures. One guy in my program is so funny. He noticed a guy trying to discretely take pictures of us, walked over to the guy, stuck his phone in the guy's face and started taking pictures of him. It was so funny. The guy was nice tho and we ended up taking a group picture with him. For the rest of the trip to the summer palace, everytime we noticed someone trying to sneak pictures with us we invited them to take a group photo with a few of us. They seem to be fascinated with the tall guys that we have in the program. It's really interesting. 

Just got back from the summer palace now and I'm putting my feet up for a few minutes before heading out to find some dinner. My feet are so sore from walking up and down steps all day. It still hasn't quite sunk in yet that I'm actually studying in China. I'm really looking forward to classes starting on Monday. Just not looking forward to the placement exam tomorrow at all. I guess I'll be up studying tonight for that test.

On a side note, traffic in Beijing is absolutely horrifying. The cars do not have to yield to pedestrians, making crossing the street very dangerous. Bike traffic is equally horrible. Also the street corners don't have nice lights that tell you when you can and cannot cross the street. It's kind of a mad dash for safety. The cars don't slow down or stop at all. And if a car is making a right on red, they dont even bother to stop. I swear, I don't even know why they have lines painted on the roads here. Sometimes you just see a line of vehicles that are half in one lane and half in another. Merging looks super scary too. Definitely have to be a super aggressive driver to drive around here. I'm glad the taxis are so cheap. Some places have bridges built that allow you to safely cross to the other side, but they are not as frequent as I would like. 

Well that's all for now. I really need to get some dinner. Until next time!