I'm not sure if the bonfire happened last night or not because Li Dan and I went to sleep at 10, which was great, and I actually slept until the alarm went off at 6:25. We had no power so I showered in the cold dark, which I have done several times since getting to China and I'm grateful I cut my hair short before coming here. We all ate together in the hotel restaurant again, but because a majority of the good was perhaps not what we Americans think of as breakfast food (dried fish, many different pickled things) CET staff provided some peanut butter, jelly, and bread, for which we were grateful. 

We drove 15 minutes out to Qingshan Lake, where we boarded a small boat that took us out to "Thousand Year Old Pine Tree and Painter's Village". I guess the pine tree was the short stop we made on our way to the hike, where you could walk up and tie red cloth around the fence surrounding this huge tree. There were also stalls leading up the path filled with preserved eggs, strange barbecued animals (kaoshe included, which is grilled snake - it was Y30!) and dried things like mushrooms and flowers. We got back on the boat and rode out further to another area, again with stalls selling things from tourist stuff to mushrooms, dried snakes, preserved snakes (pickled?), spices, etc. We hiked up this stall-lined path to waterfalls, several together, where we stopped for pictures. 

We took the boat back to land. Because it rained so heavily last night, it was deemed unsafe by staff to go hike at Hutanggou, so we first went back to the hotel to eat lunch (I finally ate congealed duck blood, which tasted like the tofu that was with it in the same dish). There's a bird's nest in the wall of this restaurant (packed mud walls), and the small birds provided music for our meal. 

We had about an hour of free time after eating and a lot of people decided to ride the horses with traditional saddles - you're helped along by men on bikes. 10 minutes for Y20. I decided not to because it would be kind of boring to just be led up like a kid down the road (though it made me look forward to going riding again back in the US) but I got fun pictures of those who did. 

At 1 we headed back on the bus towards Dandond, but because our earlier planned activity was cancelled, we went to the rebuilt section of the Ming Dynasty Great Wall instead. It's right on the Yalu River.

We climbed up all the stairs to the top tower and from there you could see miles into North Korea, and miles into China on the other side. The difference wasn't all that striking - as JJ said, she could have thought CET staff were just tricking us and saying a rural Chinese area was North Korea. There were some buildings, maybe factories, in the distance, and closer there was a walled complex that looked like it could be a small village as well as fields of corn, goats, cows, and oxen. The only weird thing was, from this distance, compared to Chinese towns that are nearly the same (minus the whole walled in thing) there was so little activity. We saw a bicycle and a cart go by on the road in our whole climb up. Also, beyond this small border area, there was nothing - just the mountains, not even the occasional corn field.

We went down from the tower and thought we were headed back to the parking lot but it turns out we were following teacher around the other side of the mountain - it's steep in places so not good for people extremely afraid of heights (including Huang's roommate, who was pretty awesome for not freaking out too much when we came across the steep parts and actually going through it with us), but there were actually really good rails and footholds the whole way. Just be prepared to be dripped on by the water running down the mountain.

This trail took us along the side of the river as it got narrower and shallower. Our first sight of a person was a soldier sitting on the roof of a shed. As we walked, we heard music - a woman's voice in a slow song, so slow it was creepy. It was coming from the walled complex.

As we went further and got closer to the cornfields, we couldn't hear it anymore over the sound of ducks quacking, but we never saw any ducks - just cows and goats. In the field there were about 10 people working. They were too far away to see clearly but it looked as though they were all wearing the same clothing.

At its narrowest (after 2 days of heavy rain), the river was about 5 meters wide. Without the rain, you could probably walk across it. The Chinese side was lined with pathways but the North Korean side had walled raised fields, the kind to prevent floods, and maybe 5' fences of wire. A man in a military uniform rode by the fence on a motorcycle (looked new and Chinese) and my classmate waved. He stopped and got off his bike and we stared at each other before he walked behind a tree and it looked like he was using a walkie talkie. A minute later one of the chinese boatmen rowed up to the North Korean side and walked up a little path to a broken point in the fence and the two of them talked for a few minutes behind a tree.

Another guy rode up on a motorbike on the path (on the Chinese side) and yelled out to the boatman - they yelled back and forth for a bit before the North Korean and the Chinese continued their conversation.

Our teacher came up behind us and we talked to him about what we had seen. His bet was they were dealing for things like cigarettes and beer. 

We got back on the bus after a few more pictures and drove to Dandong, we we got to our awesome (Western-style!) hotel and showered (with hot water!) then rested on the actually soft beds with real pillows not sand pillows! We went to eat with 13 other students at a Korean place for dinner. I just wanted good Korean food like my Korean friend from high school's mom used to make, but everyone fought over the restaurant, we picked randomly, and then two of the boys insisted on ordering everything. We ended up with stuff like eel and raw beef and a bunch of other fish dishes (it was more Dandong-style restaurant than Korean). I think the food had Korean characteristics but was really more Chinese. Also, because I was on the end of the lazy susan after all the guys I had pretty slim pickings. However, for the first 40 minutes we were in the restaurant they were fireworks going on over the river and I watched them through the window. 

We went to the riverside after dinner and watched paper lanterns be sent up like hot air balloons over the river. Some classmates bought some to write messages on and sent them off themselves after they were lit by the owner of the sidewalk stall. 

North Korea was pretty dark - only the buildings on the bridge area were lit and they're factories. 

I cannot sleep in China because the sun is up so early and the Chinese people get up with it and talk! I first woke up about an hour ago (4:15) and they were all already up. And smoking. The train is still really interesting, though, and even though I don;t like waking up so early I like watching the cities and villages go by. 

Yesterday in 1 on 2 our teacher talked about what the letters in front of the train numbers in China mean. Our train from Beijing was a Z train, which means "zui kuai" or "fastest". The train we're on now is 2126 with no letter, meaning it's slowest - also cheapest. Our ticket for the hard sleeper to Dandong was Y98! There's also K ant T trains, meaning kuai and tebie kuai or fast and especially fast. 

Right now we are stopped in some city but only 15 minutes ago we were going past a bunch of mountains in the distance with small villages closer to the train - that's what I saw when I woke up. 

Also, a (gross) moment in history - up until today I have managed to avoid the dreaded Chinese toilet, but no longer. Train ride was just too long.

Afternoon

We're in Hekou on the Yalu River! I have now seen North Korea. When we got to the train station around 9:30 we got on a bus that took us to the grocery store where we bought our lunches (including Korean sushi, bread with egg and chives, and an orange) and we got back on the bus. We were very popular at the supermarket, as such a large group of foreigners. Everyone stopped to stare at us while we picked out fruit and all the people at the butcher counters and pre-prepared food counters waved and laughed at us.

From there we drove out to Hekou and stopped at a tiny park by the Yalu where we had our first view of North Korea! It was just mostly empty (in that there were only a few buildings, but it was very pretty scenery with heavily wooded hills and mountains). A boat went by as we watched from across the river.

We got back on the bus and drove to the half-bridge, which along the path up to is has busts of Chinese war heroes. All the Chinese roommates had a bit of a laugh at the Americans taking pictures with them for the irony of it, considering these are "resisting America to support North Korea" war heroes. The bridge is old stone/concrete and ends halfway through the river. It was bombed during the war and either because of the bombing or just because they wanted to, North Korea disassembled their half of the bridge. We could see a small North Korean "city" on the other side of the river, certainly no more than 50 buildings and that would be counting things like sheds. It looked a lot like the small Chinese villages with people growing corn in their yards. People were washing their clothes in the river and we saw one truck go through the town and a few donkey carts. For Y3 we could look through a small telescope. We were told one building was military barracks and I could see an armed soldier standing in front. There were some men walking through town and they wore clothes just like Chinese village people (a little mismatched, kind of old, but nothing specifically odd about them) but with military hats. The woman I saw were both washing clothes in the river. As I watched, a Chinese tour boat passed the coast so I turned to watch and there were three small boys, maybe 10-12, one with a slingshot, who all threw rocks at the boat as it passed. It was hard to tell if it was just the usual 10-12 year old boy activity or purposefully trying to hit someone. 

When I turned around from the telescope there were a bunch of older guys in Chinese army shirts and pants coming up the bridge towards us. They seemed to be (based on badges on their shirts) an organization of wounded soldiers from various wars (they were all different ages). They came up to the different groups of us on the bridge and asked where we were from, our ages, and why we knew how to speak Chinese. They were as a group really interesting and fun to talk to and Li Laoshi has to pull some of us away from our conversations to get on the bus (especially from the one guy who was deeply involved in telling one of the students how much he liked America but how hypocritical the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are). 

Back on the bus, we drove about an hour and a half through windy rural areas and mountains and suddenly we heard a bang - I thought we hit something or burst a tire but then I turned around and there was some kind of smelly smoke filling the back of the bus. We got off on the side of the road (again, corn fields) and saw something leaking - it was water from the radiator. They filled it back up and we slowly, with repeated stops, drove the rest of the way up to our our ethnic Manchurian-themed hotel/resort (there seems to be horseback riding and river rafting activities for the Chinese guests!). We're having dinner at 5:30, watching a Manchurian performance at 7, and possibly (if it stops raining) having a bonfire at 9.

Evening

Dinner was excellent! We sat on wood stumps around big tables at the restaurant and ate beef and potato, tofu, rice, fish, tiny dried shrimps, disanxian (potato, eggplant, and peppers), egg and tomato and cold cucumber and it was all delicious. Then we bought some souvenirs from the stall at the hotel entrance and looked through the local people's bags, mostly containing dried mushrooms. I thought about them because there were so many different kinds and they're a regional specialty, but I wouldn't really know what to do with them and what each different kind is. 

Then a little after 6:15 we went and sat down for the Manchurian performance. A bunch of Chinese tourists were sitting next to me and LiDan (who's my roommate for the weekend because our roommates couldn't come) and when they heard us speak Chinese to each other, freaked out and asked for out pictures. We spent about 20 minutes with smiles frozen on our faces and being blinded by flash while Chinese people crowded around us. We were more of an attraction than the show itself, which was really interesting. There were dance and musical performances but the best was definitely the lion dancers who were two acrobats in the lion costume who jumped around on increasingly high poles. I took a lot of pictures but think my shutter speed may have been set too slow and will have to see how they came out. 

After the show I once again became a tourist attraction, which I don't really mind but at first but then once ALL of the Chinese people realize there's a very pale person to take a picture with, it becomes too much. I just ran off saying my roommate was waiting for me and I had our key, which was true. As I ran up the bridge, Maerdun pointed out a spider, and then we noticed they were EVERYWHERE. It was half the size of my palm. If this is how big Liaoning spiders are, I don't want to see what they look like in Southern China. When we got back to our room, LiDan and I closed all the windows to avoid palm-sized visitors in the night. 

Now we're back in the room and listening to the lovely karaoke coming from the perfomance space. It's all guys and they have gotten progressively worse until just now - this guy's not too bad. I think the bonfire is off because it has been raining all evening.

Right now I'm on the train to Dandong! We're in the hard sleepers, which means three small beds on top of each other, 6 total in each open compartment. I'm with all guys. Right now all the guys are drinking beer and chatting after losing interest in what's in my journal (tickets, funny food wrappings, receipts, brochures). I hope I can sleep on this thing, because there's no opportunity tomorrow! 

I signed up for the return trip to Beijing today and I was really excited. I'll be happy to be back home and doing my regular things and eating my usual food (aka not just one type of food all the time). Today I had a Chinese version of pot roast for lunch with some kind of..maybe cut up ribs? There's some kind of red meat, most likely beef but maybe mutton, potatoes, and some carrots over rice. 

Maybe tomorrow I will have something a little more interesting to say because I will see North Korea from across the Yalu River! Coooool.

It's already almost the weekend again! It's kind of unbelievable but also very good. I am dreaming a lot lately, mostly about going home and W and during the day I randomly think about weird things about home/the US: going to the grocery store, walking my dog in Amherst or driving to the Holyoke Mall, or imagining driving up the NJT to NY. All kind of random but I guess it related to normal things I like about being in my "home country". I'm surprised I'm not daydreaming about better plumbing or drinking water with ice. 

Last night's dream I think was influenced by seeing the beggar yesterday. I dreamt I was in the US, but not at home, and somehow found two badly injured cats. One was a stray and would be fine and kind of disappeared from the dream but the other was crippled by shattered bones in its back legs and in my dream its owners had the right to sue me/do something horrible to me? if I didn't return him to them. At the end of the dream right before I woke up to my alarm, I was in a train station trying to run away with him but sitting on the floor with all my bags crying because someone had taken him.

This is only personal observation and I have no idea the truth of it but... in China I have not seen any apparently disabled people who weren't either beggars or very old (and these were always with their children/someone younger, being pushed in a wheelchair or helped along). The prevalence of severely disabled - obviously missing limbs or parts of limbs or contorted maybe from disease or something someone did to them is very disturbing, especially compared with the apparent lack of "regular" (leading a life outside of begging I guess I mean) disabled people. 

Today, despite all this depressing talk, was a normal day with baokan and one on one and one on two. I can't decide how I feel about one on two because the idea of it, to help me pronounce and use correct tones and speak more fluently, is definitely something I want to achieve but in practice I don't feel any effect from it. I know how second tone should sound right when you say it and I can copy, but it won't stay with me and won't transfer to other situations. Maybe it's a lack of my own awareness, not practicing or trying hard enough, or just the nature of the class. I'm not sure. I still like the professor and the class, I'm just not sure I'm taking anything from it. 

Huang and I practiced erhu today together for about 30 minutes and I practiced alone another 10. It's a nice break from homework and I don't have much else I can do for a short period of time without internet and having finished all my English language books I brought. I could knit - the Chinese roommates seem to be very impressed by this skill and the fact that I sew. 

What else? Today I think I will write a bit about food, but I have only been to Harbin and Beijing so I don't have much of a comparison. Here's what I notice about food in Harbin.

Tea: not a NE thing, nor is rice so much. Hot water and grains are preferred because obviously tea and rice aren't native to this climate.

Breakfast: You can get different forms of the rice porridge called zhou, some of which seem to be only rice while others seem to be a grain. There's also dumplings in broth, baozi (like dumplings but with a bready outer layer). These are most commonly filled with pork and vegetables like corn and green onions but sometimes have beef or mutton instead of pork.

Breads are also popular, as are both duck eggs and chicken eggs. A very common bread looks and pretty much tastes like pizza crust (the regular variety) but has a scrambled egg cracked on top and is pan fried. I eat this a lot as well as other slightly sweet breakfast rolls. 

I haven't tried them, but the Chinese students eat these long, thin, red and very "mystery meat" - looking sausages and they are everywhere from breakfast to dinner. I have not tried them. 

Lunch/Dinner: It's pretty much the same fare for both lunch and dinner. I sometimes get fried rice from the take-out style cafeteria, always spicy and with vegetables. There's also a place that roasts actual recognizable pieces of chicken which is good when I want to recognize what I'm eating - chicken can be kind of not great in the mixed dishes and at restaurants looking for the character for chicken is not enough because breast and thigh meat is not the norm - you're just as likely to get a heart of even a foot. Mutton, pork, and beef are of the more normal variety and more common. 

Vegetables are everywhere but not always what you would find in the US. Eggplant is common and very tasty, often served with bell peppers. Chinese cabbages of different varieties are all good, mushrooms aren't as prevalent as I hoped, I have yet to see broccoli, but carrots, corn, varying kinds of beans and sprouts and nuts are easily found. Also tomatoes and potatoes in dishes are common. There's a dish of scrambled eggs and diced tomatoes often served over rice that's really good for escaping the "Chinese food" feeling, but it's served for lunch and dinner. Cucumbers are also in pretty much everything. 

This morning I had wenxue and after that I came back and did homework before going out. First a note on current events in China - there are serious events going on in XJ (excuse my carefulness of language I doubt I can singly be 'hamonized' but I would like to retain access to my blog..) that started on Sunday but we didn't hear about them until yesterday (Tuesday). This morning Hu Jintao even came back from the G8 in Italy - they might be the most deadly in years. But of course the only reason we know is Jianju checked the Economist.com, saw the news, and told the rest of us. There is not really anything about it in the Chinese news, except now there are reports of attacks on Han Chinese coming out. There's no reason to be concerned in Harbin but we have been warned not to speak with Uighurs because either party could get in trouble (of which there are very few in this city). The biggest effect on us is this: Facebook has been blocked. As have other social networking/communication of some sort websites, but this is the one that affects me most because I use Facebook to chat with W while he is at work. So this is a big bummer and we are all hoping it is short-term.

Anyway, lacking any more news from the Western front, Huang, her roommate, Li and I all went to Zhongyang Dajie today! First we went to see the Sofia Orthodox Church which was very pretty but very small. They had what seemed like the original ceilings, unrestored, but the walls are covered in an exhibition of photos covering the history of Harbin. There was also a women's choir singing what we think was Russian music but with Chinese lyrics. 

Afterwards, we went to walk along Zhongyang Dajie itself, which is a cobblestone street blocked off from traffic. The buildings were mostly built by the Russians in the early 20th century and it's pretty touristy - I compared it as Harbin's version of Georgetown (same stores and everything). Except with lots of Russian tchotchki shops. 

We ended up spending most of our time in a bookstore where Huang and I both bought XiaoWangzi (The Little Prince!) in Chinese and two different "Chengyu Gushi" books (stories related to and explaining Chinese idioms). Huang's is for kids, with pinyin, and mine is maybe for middle or high school students. I really liked the bookstore and wanted to buy other books too as gifts or something really it's silly because no one knows how to read them! 

After the bookstore, Huang's roommate left to return to campus, and we kept walking to the end of the street, where the Flood Victim Monument is and went to sit along the steps on the bank of the Songhua River. There were people in the big square using big brushes to paint calligraphy using water on the concrete and there were also people with puppies, probably trying to sell them. The police were very vigilant about beggars in the area. Beggars in China are very....upsetting, for lack of a better way of putting it. It's often very old people and very small children or people with severe disabilities, such as the man we saw today who had both no feet and no hands - obviously amputated somehow because of very visible scarring. People like him use skateboards or crawl to get around and he was being led out of the square on his skateboard by three policemen. The problem here is similar to other serious begging problems, such as in India. Children may be kidnapped and purposefully crippled in order to make them "better" (more profitable) beggars (though I have not seen any obviously crippled children, I have seen many adults). It's all really horrible.

We watched the boats go by on the river and some brave/deranged souls go for a swim in the muck. Across the river there's parks, even an amusement park. We will go someday but today we had to come back (by bus, #64 and all buses are Y1 a ride) to go to a party held by HIT English majors. It was a little awkward at first but fun and we got to meet other students. We all thought there would be more good so no one had dinner and when we came back to the dorm everyone was hungry. I got to eat some snacks from the package from W that came today! He sent me Oreos, Cheez Its, gum, Milanos, Wheat Thins, oat bars, and Reese's. Everyone is jealous and YJ says it shows how much he loves me to send my favorite snacks so far (she told me a Chinese saying which I promptly forgot....)

Back in the dorm, we met a Russian who was looking for a Chinese girl he thought lived on our floor but none of us could figure out who she was and there are only 6 Chinese girls on this floor. We all sat and talked about him in the common room then ate the crabs, ducks tongue's (really) and cashews left over from Jianju's roommate's birthday dinner. Around 10:30 YJ and I came back to our room and ended up talking about immigration policy, feelings towards immigration, and the history of racial tension in the US. All this because she wanted to know why I am so pale and don't tan but the other American girls can tan. I explained how our ancestors may have come from very different places so even though we are all white, the other girls can tan and I can't because mine were pretty much all from England/Ireland and all pale and tan-free.

I also "broke" my language pledge demonstrating for her the differences between accents of English speakers from different countries and within the US. She liked the Southern one the best and thought it was easiest to understand. Friends of mine may know this is because my imitation of other accents are horrendous. 

Today was baokan and one on two, in between which I did homework and due to inexplicable tiredness napped. The tiredness may have really been hunger because after I went and got lunch I felt much better. Li gave me some grapes in class so I ate those for dinner because I was still full from my big rice and veggies and chicken bits (...) lunch. 

After doing more homework I went out with Jianju, where she bought dinner and I brought my grapes. 

Tomorrow after wenxue, because Huang and I have the miraculous and mysterious "free time" we are actually going to leave the limits of HIT and go to Zhongyang Dajie with our roommates (or just hers if mine hasn't slept - they have tests tomorrow). Goals include the Russian Cafe, Sofia Church, and buying some new clothes. 

Then at 7:30 there's a party for English speaking students to meet English majors at HIT (but of course we have to speak Chinese). 

I ate breakfast with JJ, Li Dan, and Lisha today before wenxue and one on one. After class, which both went fine though I was again very tired, I ate alone in the fangbian shitang (convenient cafeteria). The woman sitting across from me commented on how well I use chopsticks and asked me how I knew how to use them (practice at the houses of Korean and Japanese friends). I came back to the dorm and studied for a while before I went to my first one on two test, which was fine, though my tones are especially horrific when it's just me and the teacher.

I had dinner with JJ and Li Dan and came back to the dorm, where we practiced erhu for a bit then had class. I really like our teacher and because the class is only one hour once a week it's a really welcome break from homework. 

On the random stories front:

Li's stomach has been hurting on and off for several days and last night, before studying for the two tests he had today, he went to the store to buy more medicine. He came back, took some, looked at the package again and immediately realized it was sleeping pills in a package that looked just like the stomach medicine. He ran to the store and bought a bunch of caffeinated drinks and stayed up studying. This morning, he made it though his tests in his sleeping pill haze and managed to lock himself out of him room twice and lose his wallet (which was found in the common room by Tasha and myself right before he came to tell me his story).

The armored cars here that come for banks or other places the collect a lot of money are not just armored, they're also heavily armed. There are usually 5 or 6 guys decked out in helmets and bulletproof vests holding huge guns surrounding the vans. We're not sure if the guns are real or not, but it's a pretty ridiculous sight. 

Today was a CET activity day, our trip to Yagou, which according to one of the roommates is NE of Harbin but I have not checked a map - but I did see a sign on the road saying it's 35 km away. We got up and met CET staff at 9 in the lobby of the dorm and all piled onto a bus, where we were given bottled water, bread, and a cookie (oatmeal chocolate chip!). The bus drove us out, and it was the first time I've been out of HIT/Hongbo areas since I got here! Everything is very different outside the city - suddenly there are rows and rows of very young-looking trees and fields of both corn and rice, which I didn't expect to see grown here. We saw cows and goats and farmers using ox and mules in their fields. Driving through the town of Yagou, we attracted a lot of attention as a bunch of foreigners in a big bus. It seems to be a factory/quarry town because the surrounding mountains are covered in fresh-looking bald spots and holes and the town roads are dominated by dump trucks filled with gravel. 

After we drove through the town we drove around a small reservoir and into a tiny, possibly privately owned quarry where there were a few small houses. We hiked up past the quarry and piles of gravel, took a left at another (empty/abandoned?) house then walked a path up  hillside to a stone marker, I think from the Jin Dynasty. There is a small open roof covering ancient carvings in rock of a man (who is still fairly clear) and a woman (who has broken and rubbed off, mostly). The government appears to have set it up as a historic site. 

We then hiked back down to our bus which took us around to the other side of the reservoir for our long hike. We hiked a few hours around the reservoir, going up the side of one small mountain where we could see the surrounding towns and quarries and back down and up the side of another. Most of the American students were pretty tired once we reached the second peak but the Chinese roommates were exhausted - especially the girls who apparently didn't understand the meaning of "3 hours of hiking". YJ wore nice jeans and a long-sleeve blouse and Huang's roommate wore all white, especially ridiculous because it has been raining here every day and we were reminded repeatedly that it would be muddy). The girls also all had their umbrellas (for the sun, not for rain) and were quite a sight scaling some of the steeper and muddier areas. 

The top of the second peak had an old viewing tower to climb up, probably... maybe 5 or 6 stories high? This viewing tower - we were told to only have 3 people go up at a time. Huand and I went up together repeating to each other "Bie pa! Bie pa!" (Don't be afraid!) - her because of the height and both of us because the whole thing was covered in rust! But we made it to the top and the view was beautiful of all the surrounding greenery. On one side, faceless mountains turned to gravel farms, and on the other green, intact mountains went on forever. 

It started looking like it was going to rain as soon as we got to the peak and when we started to descend it started to drizzle, then rain. Baxi (a classmate from Brazil, who we just call "Brazil") and I said it would be nice to have rain because it had been so hot during the climb, and it started to rain harder and harder as we walked down the (steep and muddy) other side of the mountain. By the time we reached the cornfield below we were a drenched and muddy mixed group of foreigners and Chinese and the farmer sitting on his cart under a tarp, waiting out the downpour, laughed as we all walked by. We passed through the small village (5 buildings and possibly a military base - a bunch of army trucks, tents, and a few heavily armed guys) and reached the road, where after a 10-minute wait in the sun, because it had stopped raining, we got on our bus and headed back to Harbin.

Back at Dorm 6 we had 15 minutes to change our wet and muddy clothes before we all went for a "Brazilian" style meal at Golden Hans (or just Hanse). This gigantic Chinese-Western mystery chain has an icon of a German (?) man holding out a beer but when you enter you are greeted by waitresses dressed in fake-German costumes all yelling in chorus something indistinguishable that may be intended to be German. However, just to make things clear, this place is a "Brazilian-style" restaurant serving meet off big stakes and offering a big buffet. The buffet is filled with mostly Chinese food but also some unusual possible hybrids, such as various forms of fried potatoes. Then, when you return to your table with your Chinese food, you are offered the likes of various extremely rare (as in undercooked, though sometimes just odd) meats. Chicken hearts and ox tongue included - the ox tongue was actually the whole tongue on a stake from which they carved pieces for you. There was also the more usual fare like chicken legs and wings and various cuts of beef (though, as I said, very rare). 

W said last night that I have 45 days left!

Today that sounds good because the internet thing has me really annoyed and down. They (STL, his roommate, Jianju, YJ, service guy from the school center) all think it's a problem with my port or my internet card. I think it might actually be some sort of weird cable problem because there are also several PCs (mostly Dells) with the same problem (appears it's the port or the card) but they also have never had any problem before. The service guy suggested I get a new card but I am not going to play around with my computer in a foreign language, especially in a city with only one place that knows Apples. 

However, bonus is that I have learned a lot of computer type vocabulary

wangxian - internet cable

yitaiyang - ethernet

wangka - internet card

wangkou - ethernet port

wuxian - wireless

daizou - carry out food. I didn't have time to eat lunch!

I gave Y300 to LiDan to go buy my erhu with the teacher today at 2:30. They ended up being only Y180 (down from Y300) because we bought 6. At 6:30 we had our first erhu class! The teacher is very nice and 6 of us are in the class. 

New words: yin = note, yinjie = scale, banyin =  half interval

You hold the erhu where leg and torso meet on the left side, facing it sideways (perpendicular to yourself). The bow, through the strings, rests at the top of the body when you play and you use both sides of the hairs. The bow is gripped from below not from above like a violin or cello. Your left hand rests under the white string and you hold the instrument out from you at about a 45 degree angle. We got as far as a D major scale today - the inner string is a D and the outer is an A just like violin's center strings. 

It seems really interesting, but also a difficult class to teach for our teacher because we don't have much of a musical vocabulary and half the class has never played a stringed instrument before (2 of whom maybe have never read music?)