Overslept today, so I didn't get up in time to meet Chelsea for breakfast. I was supposed to go with her to meet 2 of her new Chinese friends. Took a slow easy start today. The weather is absolutely beautiful! The sky is super clear, but it's cold and windy. Grabbed baozi for breakfast with Lizzy and Mona and then we headed into Beijing to check out the Purple Bamboo park. Chelsea and Mariah were busy doing something with the CIEE delegation visiting Beijing for the CIEE conference this week. I guess the conference is in Shanghai, but they're visiting Beijing to get a taste of the program here. I have lunch with the group of them tomorrow.

The park was really nice. I think it would have looked better a few weeks ago before the snow and cold weather set in. The bamboo still looked nice since it stays green year round, but the lakes looked kinda crappy with all of the dead lotus plants floating around. Overall it was a really nice place to visit, lots of nice scenery. We ran into a person that randomly started talking to us. I was proud of myself..I was able to handle the whole conversation without having to ask him to repeat anything...I was impressed. After we were  done walking around the park, we stopped at the Zoo market since it was close by. Lizzy finally got a pair of boots. I bought a nice pair of fur lined gloves for 30 kuai, so I was super happy. After our shopping endeavor we headed back to Beida and started doing homework. Tonight I grabbed dinner with Ai to catch up with her a bit since I havne't had the chance to talk to her much. It was a lot of fun. The rest of my night was spent studying, catching up on internet work and studying for my quiz tomorrow. Tomorrow should be another busy day with this lunch event, but at least most of my afternoon and night are free. I decided I really need to be using more of my free time during the week to travel around Beijing. I still have quite a few things left on my list, but only a few are must see items.  I'm definitely not going to go to every temple and teahouse on my list. Well that's all for now. I hve to update my Drexel blog and then get ready for sleep!