第一周: Week 1 in review

So it's taken me awhile to get around to posting again. Things have been moving nonstop since we got here, but only in the sense that there's always something to do or somewhere to go. Put simply, I'm having an awesome time. Hopefully future posts won't be this few and far between.

There are some new (as of yesterday) photos on Flickr inclu ding our trip to the Great Wall on Friday. They'll be followed by shots from the Forbidden City sometime soon. My upload bandwidth here seems to be pretty slow, so they're only about half or a third of the photos I actually took.

On Tuesday we rented bikes for a 300rmb deposit and 60rmb per month. Things are absurdly affordable here in most places, although there's a huge difference in prices depending on where you buy. A bottle of beer will go for 3rmb in a vending machine (a beer vending machine in the dorms, mind you) but anywhere from 15-70rmb at a bar. But we ate roast duck at one of the best Peking duck restaurants and got hour-long massages for a total of about 140rmb ($20), so I'm not complaining.

Wednesday was another day of class, and we went to a bar geared towards international students that night. Then we hit McDonald's at about 3am before calling it a night.

Thursday was our last day of class this week (and most weeks), and there was a school-sponsored trip to KTV for karaoke and dinner afterwards. That ended up being a whole lot more fun than I would have expected.

Friday was an early morning trip by bus (about an hour) to the Great Wall at 八达岭 (Badaling). Tons of photos of that on Flickr.

Saturday was supposed to be another early morning trip (this time to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City), but some of us overslept and did it in the afternoon instead. Then we went to 后海 (houhai), which is this big lake surrounded by restaurants and bars, and rented a boat for a few hours.

Sunday was our first official free day all week, and today (Monday) it was back to class.

And now some photos (more at flickr.com/photos/johndietrick):

There are some pretty weird products around here, including Jackie Chan's "anti-falling shampoo"... not sure what that's for.


One of our more expensive dinners... I think I might've dropped about $6 US :P

Bad translations everywhere as well, but quite entertaining:

And in case you didn't know, the Olympics are kind of a big deal over here right now. This thing was about 50 feet from the Great Wall:

more to come...