Back to BJYC

For those who don't know, I worked in Beijing last summer (summer of 2007) in another part of Beijing. I like to call this part of Beijing "The Ghetto". It's location is at Tian Tan Xi Mar - or for those who can't read Pinyin - the Temple of Heaven, West Gate.

Basically, I worked at the Beijing Yucai Xue Xiao, teaching 7th graders. For those of you who were on the e-mail chain that go round, you know I didn't have fun. In fact, there were only 2 good things about working at BJYC - cheap food and Amberle (awwww). Amberle was my co-teacher while teaching there, and the cheap food was right around the gate from the school. The best cheap food, was at a restaurant accross the way, which served the best duck ever. Not Pekin Duck, but better.

So on Saturday night, I went with 3 other girls from the program. OK: don't go in a taxi on Saturday night in BJ. The traffic is insane. Oops.

We got there after the other girls, and the other girls and been sending me paniced texts, saying that my description of the area did not match what they were seeing. I asked if they were, infact, at Tian Tan Xi Mar, and they were, so I told them to hold on tight, and we'd be right there.

We got there, I got out of the cab, and wondered were I was.
Let me put it this way: The Olympics were certainly there.

Some photos: (mainly for Amberle)
That was our corner store, btw, where we would buy our daily ice creams/drinks.

As not to make you all jealous, here is a photo of the aftermath of dinner:ALL DONEEEEEEEE!!!

Another interesting development was that the menu at this restaurant is now in English! I was so irked! Amberle and I had to struggle through this menu and we ended up eating duck intestines and frog pieces! Bu hao.

And of course, the obligatory "Michelle at Yucai Photo", a replica of the one in Summer 2007

Same place, different season and Longchamp bag.

Sorry, but A/C Adapter is not in my Vocabulary

Have any of you noticed that I really don't know what letters to capitalize in a title? I mean, I'm just pointing it out. Anyway, here's my real entry:

I wrote how I busted my camera in the last post, and while hopefully it'll be fixed when I'm back home in December, I still need something to document my time here. So, on Saturday I went off to the Electronics Market in Beijing. I've written about the other markets in Beijing - how you are expected to bargain - but the EM was something else. I don't know pricing of electronics here, so I was pretty much flying blind. It was INTENSE!

Apparently not a lot of Foreigners (read: white people) go here, so as soon as I walked in I was being pulled in multiple directions. Physically. Not like, "Oh! Look at that hot pink camera!" but "OW! Take your damn hands off of me!" physical. And while this goes without saying, I'll say it anyway: No one spoke English. Obvi.

So I started to bargain, and the moral of the story is that I got a new Canon A470 for 900 kuai, which is pretty good, 'cause that's the same price that the Chinese people were paying for it. Woo-hoo. The one bad thing: everything is in Chinese on the camera. Like...all of the menu options. Crap.

The next thing I set off to buy was a portable DVD player. Why a portable DVD player, you ask? Well...despite my computer being a relatively new model, it doesn't have a DVD player. (Thanks, Dad...). So I purchased this:

Yes, that is the Devil Wears Prada on the screen, btw. (The DVD sellers are back, now that the Olympics are over. Woo-hoooo!!!) It's about the size of a CD player, with a screen in the center. It's pretty ballin'.
The down side to this item: it's not really portable. It needs to be plugged into a power source all the time. Crap x's 2.

The other photo is that of the market...I don't know what floor. They all started to blur together after the first hour and a half.

Wass ist Das?

OK:

So the top photo is the Yellow River (either that or the tour guide was lying to us and that's a really polluted river). The next is Xi'An's city wall. The following photo is Lenore and I riding tandem on Xi'An's city wall. (Riding tandem is really hard, by the way. Like...really hard) And finally, the Terra Cotta Warriors.

In the other post the photos are the following:
The sketchy airport we took out of in Beijing - it was located on a military base and was about the size of a private airport. The next is a photo of me squatting next to a sign that says "There are places for nature's call. This is not one of them." Next is Kanas Park, and a photo of all of us at Kanas. Then there is a POV shot of me on my horse during the 8 hr trail ride. (For real, that was like a death ride. Just sucked sooo badly.) Then there is a table shot of us at the Moon Festival. A photo of me and Snaggletooth (Snaggletooth had a massive underbite, but was still my friend for the 3 days in Hemu). A photo of Hemu - this town was straight out of the Wild, Wild West. Me impersonating a statue in DonHuang, Me and Chris on Camels and then Josie and Rong Laoshi (our teachers) at the Sand Dunes, trying to keep sand out of their mouths.

Sooo this was just a housekeeping post...will write more later.

The Last 4 Day's Didn't Have Much Going on, Except the Terra Cotta Warriors.

The First 10 Days Out of The Past 14...aka Before My Camera Died

I'm Still Alive

OK, just a note to tell everyone that I didn't die in the boonies of China. I did however bust my camera, so it'll be another couple of hours until I can find someone who uses the same type of memory card as me, so I can upload my photos from the first 10 days.

Check back soon!

Quick Update

Currently in DunNuang (?) in an internet cafe that smells kinda of like pee, and really wishing I had some hand-sanitizer on me.

Trip so far has been great - I mean, the accomdations have been sub-par...but I guess you can't get everything in life...

I'll be back to updating, a week from today!