Fun speaking Chinese

Hmm so where did I leave off...

Yesterday after I left the Internet cafe, we went to Beihai Park which is in Central Beijing. It's pretty far but only cost 17 Yuan to get there in a taxi - just over 1 pound. Upon our arrival we got hassled by about 30 rickshaw drivers trying to get us to pay them for a tour of the park. They followed us for about half a mile and by the end of it had dropped their prices from 180 Y to 20 Y per person - but we still weren't interested - we just wanted to have a walk around. The park is beautiful and we stopped at a little restaurant for lunch, where we got grossly overcharged but didn't really mind. We've noticed that if you're English, they give you the English menu which has extortionate prices compared to what the locals pay. I haggled using my little knowledge of Chinese numbers to get the price of a bottle of water from 20 Y down to 15 Y. That's only like 1 pound for a bottle of water - but for example, I bought 12 bottles for 15 Y in the shop on our street a couple of days ago, so it's pretty expensive. In this cafe a bottle of water only costs 1.50 Y. The menu was full of English dishes as well as Chinese, but of course we ordered something a bit oriental. We were served the noodles with a fork much to our dismay, so using one of the girl's phrasebooks I managed to piece together 'Can we have chopsticks, please?' and was very pleased with myself when the waiter understood straight away! After lunch, we braved the toilets and were greeted with a traditional Chinese 'squatter' - luckily I didn't have to go but the other girls conveyed just how interesting the experience was.

The part of the park we walked around had a big lake which was encompassed by loads of bars, restaurants and shop stalls. It was all very pretty by the lake and there were many men swimming in the water. We kept getting approached by the rickshaws and after another look in the phrasebook, we figured out how to say 'no thank you' -
bu yao, xiexie'. This went down a storm with the locals and they were quite happy to hear our attempts at Chinese. Interestingly enough, they left us alone far more when we said no in Chinese.

There's exercise equipment littered all over the park - we found it quite strange but had a laugh trying it all out with the locals. Along the lakeside, we stopped to watch some children and men practicing Kung Fu - we started taking pictures and they were happy at first but then shooed us away - I guess one was enough! It was getting a bit late so we headed back towards the gate of the park where we saw some people playing this strange game. Basically, it's like keep-ups in football/soccer but instead of a ball, they use this weird little thing that's shaped like a badminton shuttlecock which has a plastic/metal end that kind of jingles and feathers coming up out of it. A couple of American guys had joined in and when the old Chinese man spotted us, he called us over for a game. We were terrible at it obviously - but a huge crowd of Chinese people gathered around to watch and take pictures of our futile attempts at kicking it. I did get it quite a few times - but it's a lot harder than a football!!! We played with them for about an hour and then actually bought one ourselves so we could take it home and practice.

We jumped in a taxi to go back to the apartments and the driver helped us revise our numbers 1 - 10! We also started showing him our photos from the day and he had a bit of a laugh at them. I think he just thought we were crazy English girls - but so far most of the Chinese people have thought that!! We met up with loads of other people back at the dorms, most of them had been to visit the Summer Palace - something I'll definitely do another day. We went to a bar across the street which serves 600 ml beer for 3 Y!!! Ridiculously cheap. In comparison, the bar here on campus serves the same beer, half the size, for 12 Y. We ordered loads of food - dumplings, chow mein and loads of difference fried rices - enough for 20 of us - and it worked out at 10Y each - less than a pound. And that was including all the drinks!! By far the cheapest meal we've had so far - I think it's going to be our starting point for every night out.

We went to bed around 12:30 because we had to get up early to head out to the Great Wall at 8:30 AM. I'd woken up at 5 - still not quite on Chinese time!! We ventured to the bakery down the road for breakfast and bought a selection of pastries. Most of them were lovely but one of them was filled with what we guessed to be sweet tuna - it was pretty disgusting. Chinese students came with us to the Great Wall and we spent the whole journey there quizzing them about how to pronounce Chinese words, since we were pretty sure we'd been saying everything wrong so far!

The Great Wall was, in one word, amazing!! It took about an hour to get there and we spent about 3 hours climbing it. There's not really much to say about it - it was just an incredible experience. Coming down, a few of us found shortcut route down the mountain which avoided the crowds and took us through a few pagodas, which were painted with traditional Chinese stories, as well as a temple. Back on the bus, we all realised how exhausted and sweaty we were and we were glad to get back to the dorms to have showers and refresh ourselves. Next we went out for dinner to another restaurant and had yet more delicious Chinese food. Can't fault it at all - every meal we've had has been amazing. Back at the dorms, we met up with some more people for a couple of beers and now I'm hearing writing this.....it's started raining while I've been here and it's turned into a thunderstorm - our plans to head out tonight have been put on hold, it could be a night here at the uni bar tonight.

Tomorrow we have our placement exam at 8:30 AM - none of us really speak any Chinese so I think we'll all end up in the beginners class! After that, we have our opening ceremony and then we're going to Forbidden City. Right...that's all for now!!