KTV and Duck Neck!

It's Wednesday here now, so I need to catch you up now that I can finally post things I have written about the past few days! 

The day of Monday:

Now I am happy because I got some internet access which was limited but I was able to chat back home for a bit. That was good. Then I needed to get up and take a shower and go to the registration. Also I ate more food so that was good. At the registration I had to do many things. I ended up meeting a nice girl from Holland, but I don’t remember her name or where she lives. So much for that. So I got to the one of the stations in the registration and they were asking me to pay for the room and tuition. I told them I don’t have to because I am from Farmington and I am there on the scholarship and then they told me that I had to change rooms to the other building because the front desk put me in the more expensive room which isn’t covered by the scholarship. I was angry because that means I need to repack AGAIN and also I know that my new room isn’t going to be as nice as the one I already had. And it didn’t help that no one spoke good English so I couldn’t ask many questions. They said I need to wait until Tuesday to move.  After the registration I was hungry and I wanted to go out to find some food. On the way out I saw Maeve and she was crying because she wants to go home. So I took her back to my room to talk for a while. Then a Chinese woman who taught at UMF my 1^st year came to take us out to eat lunch at the campus restaurant. The restaurant was really nice and I ate a lot of good dishes, including duck, chicken, and pumpkin pie (Chinese style, I will take a photo if I eat it again because I really like that). Then while we were eating something very interesting happened. A Chinese boy came to our table and ask, “do you speak English?” I said, “是，我们都是美国人“ (Yes we are bother American), pointed to Maeve and myself. He said he was in the US for two years to study and he ask if he can have our phone number. I gave him my email address because I was a little creeped out. He said his name is Vince. He seemed pretty nice, and after a little chatting he went back to his table with his friends. Then later, when we were getting ready to leave he came back over and invited us to go to KTV with his friends and him. Maeve didn’t want to go, but I was up for it. I looked to Laoshi and she said she thinks it’s okay because they are students of this University. I decided to go because I need to make some friends, and I know who to call if I need some help. Plus there were some girls there so I wasn’t too worried. So I went and introduced myself. I had spoken Chinese and Vince’s friends were surprised, I guess they thought I cannot speak Chinese. So we chatted while walking out. I was talking to a girl, Amy. She was really nice and we ended up sticking together for the afternoon.  Vince drove his car to the KTV and Amy and I went with him. His car was so nice, man! He’s lucky. The KTV was near Carrefour. Vince took like 10 minutes to try to find the parking space. Then we went into the building up to the 5^th floor. It was so big and cool and I loved it!! We went to the room and the friends were already there singing some songs. They asked me if I was going to sing and I said, “I don’t have a good singing voice”. They said, “yeah but you can sing the English songs better than us”. So I ended up singing like 10 songs while I was there, some me and Amy or me and Vince did together. It was pretty fun there, and they wanted to take pictures with me and ask me so many questions. Amy said, “you’re so pretty”. Talk about feeling famous or something. They also bought me a bottle of water. So after 3 hours there Vince drove us back to the campus. I was going to meet Michelle because she was going to help me to log into the internet. So I was saying goodbye to Amy about to walk to my dorm and I heard someone call my name. It was Michelle. She was on her way to my dorm to meet me. She came over and started talking excitedly with Amy. Turns out they are friends. Out of like 20,000 Chinese students I managed to meet the friend of one I already knew!! So that was pretty insane. After chatting a bit Michelle and I went to my room and fixed the internet and then we wanted to go get something to eat. She took me to a Boazi place that she said is my friend Chiaping’s favorite place to eat. If you’re reading this, Chiaping, I hope you’re jealous! Because those Boazi were out of this world!!!! I also had some porridge there for the first time. Then after we ate there we went walking on the street looking at all the little food shops. I bought some cookies, and also a duck leg. Michelle bought the duck neck and made me eat it. It’s like little duck vertebrae nuggets that you put in your mouth and chew the meat off, the spit the bones out to the bag. It was an interesting experience, and though it wasn’t bad, I don’t know if I’m going to run out and buy some for myself. :P I saw some creepy things out there. Pigs feet, chicken feet, a whole duck with the head on that had been roasted, and also a dead chicken plucked and hanging by its legs from a bike handlebar. That’s nuts man!!! After that we went back to my room to hang out for a bit, and then Michelle went home. I was happy to enjoy the internet, only too bad like every site that I normally visit is blocked here. I am going to work on getting it unblocked! I went to bed kind of early though, because I was so sleepy.

Tuesday:

I got the chance to Skype my honey! <3 I was so happy about that, but I think seeing him made me miss him more. So after I took a shower and packed my things again!!! And moved AGAIN!!! And then I had met a Russian girl named Anastatia and so we went to the store together and to pizza hut. She is really nice but she doesn’t speak much English, and both of our Chinese is limited. And I don’t speak Russian!!! So our conversations were not very deep but it was still pleasant to be with her. She is very nice. After lunch I came back to my room to unpack again. >.<

Tuesday February 19, 2013 3:10pm

Omg I just had my first actual Chinese conversation with someone who does not know English and it was crazy man!!!!!!! And I think I was successful in the conversation even though sometimes I had some trouble, the woman is the cleaning woman here and she is soooooo nice!!!! She told me I am pretty and that my Chinese is good and I told her about America and she asked me if I like it here in Beijing and I said I love it! Wahhh I feel so proud of myself right now!! She said she is Ayi, oh my god it was just so crazy and fun!!!! I think it’s a little bit easier to talk to her than to a foreigner who is trying to speak Chinese. We had a good talk. They were making the bed here in my room for the roommate who should be coming soon. I am happy.

Later Tuesday:

Michelle and I met up for dinner. I was supposed to go to see her at 5:30pm on the main campus because we were going to eat in the dining hall. So I was on the computer watching the time. Then Michelle called at 4:35pm so I thought she got out of work early. She asked, “Audrey, are you coming?” I was so confused. Then I realized my computer was in American time and it was really 5:35pm and I was late! Haha but Michelle just thought it was funny. I changed the time there now so I don’t get confused again. So I went to the campus and it was the first time that I went there like way inside and I thought it was really nice. I met Michelle in front of the new library and we went to the dining hall that she claims is one of the better ones on campus. I just went simple and got a bowl of spicy fried rice with beef and some other questionable meat that I didn’t dare to ask about. I thought it was good though. So Michelle and I chatted, and I looked around and was the only white person in there, everyone else was Chinese. Guess the foreigners don’t like the dining hall.. After eating we walked around the campus so I can see it, and then we went out the east gate to the outlet Mall to look around. It wasn’t crowded at all, Michelle said it’s expensive there because it’s like big brand names, like Coach and Gucci. There was also a Cold Stone Creamery there!! What a place. After I came back to my dorm and just relaxed for the night. Oh, and I saw a cockroach in my room and died. The end.

Wednesday February 20, 2013

Woke up early, 6:30am. Just checked emails through the morning and hoped I didn’t see another roach. Then I got ready and went to take the placement test. It was awful, the written portion was so hard I didn’t even know what the instructions were asking, so I didn’t answer many questions there. I think the oral test went better, and the woman was nice. I had to read something, and answer some of her questions, and then we were just chatting about random things. Then she said I could go and when I went to the elevator I met another American named Jade. She is from Missouri, and she is very nice. So we walked to the dorm together, and then we went to Carrefour together (it was her first time there, I guided her). After the store we ate in KFC. That was nuts because I never ordered without a Chinese person before, so I asked, “你会说英文吗？” (Do you speak English?). The woman said no and gave me a picture menu and I pointed and said the amount and size. I got fries and what I thought was chicken but it wasn’t. Too bad for me. Also we went to a bakery and I got some goodies there. Then I came back here and hung my clothes on the hangers I bought. In other news, I just washed some grapes and went to enjoy them. I popped one in my mouth and what a surprise I got. Seeds!!! I’ve never eaten seed-in grapes before. No wonder they were so big… But they are tasty.

P.S. I finally have a way to unblock things, so now I can update this blog and it won’t be weird!! (It’s been weird writing in word and then pasting when I can get online).

More to come later. :D