Tanya, Rina (one of our Japanese classmate’s) and I went to the zoo and aquarium on the weekend. It was a bit disturbing to see all the animals caged in these tiny prisons. It wasn’t so much the fish and birds, but it’s just cruel to see an adult elephant, hippo, tiger, lion etc in a tiny cement prison with barely any space to move around in. Even the outdoor ‘enclosures’ were tiny although on the plus side, they have plants/grass!

Starved for food and rushing to get into the 3pm sealion-dolphin show at the aquarium, we opted to watch the show and munch on random snacks. The show was really great, too bad my camera ran out of memory though (I took too many videos of monkeys earlier). I wished the show went for a bit longer though, it finished much too quickly!

The aquarium was pretty fun even though we were rushing through the whole place because we only had about an hour before everything closed. It beats AQWA any day just by the size of it! But I can’t compare too much because I can’t even remember the last time I went to the zoo or aquarium!

I bought a couple of souvenirs but for some reason the aquarium had an extremely disappointing range for some reason. So much so I was on the verge of buying a Japanese Fighting fish!! soooo very cute... I'm seriously thinking of getting one and my roommate can have it when I leave... =P

Anyhow, I’ve been borderline sick the past few days but thankfully nothing worst than a runny nose and a cough. Tanya on the other hand is not so lucky, she seems to keep getting sick! We’re going to go shopping for some winter stuff after class tomorrow and I’m planning to buy a heap so I can give it to my parents when I see them Wednesday =P

PS. Pikachu is much appreciated by me and my roommate =)

National week finished with me needing to transfer more $ into my account.

And then it was back to classes and catching up/hearing about what everyone else did in their week off. The week off definitely makes me wish for another week off! I don’t think there will be another one until New years!? O_o; I’ll have to create my own! But first I’ll see how many classes I can skip when it comes around to Christmas time…

After restocking my cash, I went out and bought myself a humidifier! And it’s name is Pikachu =) We’ll see if there’s any difference between life with and without dear Pikachu after a week. I’m just hoping Pikachu will help soothe my dry nose/throat because it’s been killing me lately =(

Another thing I bought was a blanket! I didn’t buy it because it’s getting colder but to add more layers between the solid wood they call a bed and my body. It’s helped a bit because I’m actually falling asleep much easier, but at the same time it’s still not comparable to a NORMAL bed.

I can’t wait until my parents come! I’ll get to sleep in a hotel bed~! Anything has to be better than the one’s in the dorm. Especially when everyone else is saying the sleepers on the trains are better than them! >_<

Oh, and I also bought a pillow just because I’m used to having more than one around. Next, maybe some cups?
More cutlery?
Laundry bag?
More clothes?
One of those wicked massage machines??

^__^

Horrayy the week is over!

This is the first time I’ve had a 7 day week of classes and I’m hoping it’ll be the last! I don’t even know why I’m complaining…I only do about 20hrs a week whereas some other people do up to 30hours! 20hrs is heaps compared to the 14-15hr weeks I’m used to in Perth!

October is going to be such a busy month! From the 1st to the 7th is our week off and I’m still not exactly sure what I’ll be doing during this time. I’m most likely going to be shopping and seeing some sites but some of this depends on how the weather holds up here. Then in a couple of weeks my parents are coming to visit me, a couple of friends might be coming and other relatives dropping by Beijing too!!

The weather here has been getting cooler now, which sucks because I wanted to experience as many sunny days as I can before I freeze my ass off. Which reminds me, those fuyuan’s in our dorm building took away our a/c remote!! Boo! I can’t even regulate my room temperature anymore.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~

Now, let’s get down to business.

Most people come to Beijing and go looking for the Silk Market (Silk Street) which is a touristy multi-storey building full of stalls selling whatever you want. The stall owners know phrases in multiple languages such as “hey pretty lady” “come look” “I give you a good deal” etc.

Because it’s such a touristy place to go to (they even have parking space for the tourist coaches), the stall owners can be quite aggressive and they always start at OUTRAGEOUS prices. Expect 500% increase!

I went to the Silk Market once and I wouldn’t go back there to buy anything, I’ld rather go shopping at the 五道口服争市场 near our campus on 学院路. The stall owners there are much nicer and most of them are quite reasonable because there are a lot of students around the area.

So anyway, today I made my way to 西单. I was looking for the street market and instead I found this unknown alleyway markets which led me to a multi-storey building packed with everything you would want. It’s much bigger than the Silk Market and packed full of locals…and I’ve always figured, if you see locals around buying stuff it means that the prices are fairly reasonable.

After splurging most of the money I had on me, I got lost trying to get out of the building (I swear they purposely don’t have any escalators going down!). The train ride home was interesting, I had to literally throw myself into the crowd whilst keeping a tight hold on all my bags. And of course, I forgot to get off at my stop to change lines and so had to squish into another train.

Nothing brings a country together better than these packed train rides which force us to get up close and personal.

First of all, HAPPY MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL!! 中秋节快乐！
Beijing mooncakes are small and crappy, don’t be deceived by the big packaging. EG, my pack of chips was 3/4 air and 1/4 chips.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I’ve been wanting to buy an electronic Chinese-English English-Chinese dictionary for a long while now. So today I planned to go to the bank straight after class, change some money and head off to the electronic market with my friend and a handy translator.

Everything seemed to be going to plan until I actually went to the bank. It was 13:08 when I got my ticket and it said that there was 111 people ahead of me. 111 people? Yeah right! I bet my number #1266 will pop up pronto because everyone ahead of me probably gave up and left............ Even if they were still serving #1158.

They sure did leave! Almost everyone knew that they had to get the ticket at the bank first, then they can go run errands and still be in line at the bank! I ended up eating lunch at maccas which I swore I wouldn’t do! But it was right next to the bank and well, the burgers there are actually pretty good!! =P

There were only three counters open the whole time and one of which was dedicated for the VIPs. People were starting to get restless when it hit the 2hr mark and a few customers had verbal confrontations with the staff who did nothing.

What annoyed me the most was that when you finally get to the counter, you can see the staff just taking their sweet time doing their own thing, chit chatting and passing it off as ‘important’ work related stuff. But I guess they’re not to blame, they’re extremely short staffed!

One of the customers told me that I could have gotten a better exchange at a different bank. But hey, I needed the money and I don’t know where the other bank is. Plus it was a better deal that what I got off the blackmarket… Although the blackmarket was a lot more efficient, go in go out type of thing.

So at the end of all this, I finally left the bank at 15:45 with cash in hand but I missed my opportunity to get my hands on that electronic dictionary I wanted =(

If you ever meet a grumpy Beijinger, I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve recently been to the bank!!

Things to note:
• - They make a big fuss if your money has any “strange” markings or a lil tear but they easily accept torn up RMB.
• - Always check that the bank will exchange your currency, it’s a waste of your time if you wait in line for hours just to find out that they can’t change it!!!

Ahh, I didn’t get a good nights rest at all =( Not the best thing since I had classes 8:30am til 4pm. I didn’t actually wake up until just before lunch, and after lunch I just felt like sleeping again!

I lay there tossing and turning for god knows how long last night! I’m just not used to sleeping on these hard beds. I can’t sleep properly on my back because it feels weird and there’s no give in the mattress to support my lower back. So I turn on the side which is how I usually sleep…. But I can’t fall asleep because the bed is too hard and I’ve only got the one pillow =( Sleeping on my tummy doesn’t work at all on a normal bed and still doesn’t work on hard beds!!! Ah how good would it be to get into a nice SOFT bed full of pillows!!

And I swear, it’s so dusty EveRyWheRe you go!! This room of mine is the dustiest room I’ve ever been in! I’ve wiped down my desk a few times already and the dust just comes back within an hour! There’s even dustballs on the floor! I dropped a lid and it rolled under the bed once…oh my goodness, the thickness of the dust under there is amazing! oH well, lots of studying to do now!! Especially because I plan not to study tomorrow at all!

The Great Wall really is great! All you have to do is ignore all the tourists, ignore all the walking and dodgy stairs, ignore the smelly toilets, ignore the haze, ignore the many many stalls ripping off innocent tourists…

We set off at 8am and arrived at 八达岭长城around 9:30am. We bought some supplies (snacks and water) and headed to the entrance. There were a crazy number of tourists including the 12 coaches from 语言大学 (BLCU)! After walking along the wall in the sea of people for about 5-10 minutes, we decided to head in the other direction where it seemed to have a lot less people.

And so the journey begins…

It seemed as if the further up we went, the better the view became (and this wasn’t just because there was a lot less people either!).There’s really not much else to say because you have to be there yourself to know what I’m talking about, and the photos aren’t even comparable to what you can experience…

We had to head back to the coach by 2:15pm so it didn’t really give us much time. But I’ll definitely be going back to climb the 长城 again!!

PS. Beijing coffee sucks ass! If you want great coffee, go to Starbucks even if it does cost 31RMB for a medium mocha frappachino! But hey, it’s all good after conversion ^_-