Beijing Nights

While last weekend was my cultural weekend, this weekend was my fun weekend. On Friday, I went out to grab some noodles for lunch with a few people and we ended up not coming back to the dorm until after 1 am. We went shopping and found a very sketchy DVD store. When we walked in, the salespeople asked us if we were American. When we answered yes, they led us to a secret room. It even had a special door that looked like a wall panel but then swung open. The secret room was stocked with American movies. They had their proper covers and everything. We all stocked up. Each DVD was 10 kuai which is less than 1.50 American dollars. I have watched one movie so far, and there is nothing wrong with the DVD!

Afterwards, we decided to meet up with more people from the Chinese program at a club. On our way, we found the most amazing street food. As soon as we walked out of the subway, the scent of baking pastry greeted us. A man stood at his homemade stand attached to the back of his bike with a large metal ring attached to which were small fish-shaped waffle irons. he opened each fish one at a time, poured in batter and added a small piece of chocolate. Then he closed the fish and let it cook while he turned the ring to the next fish and repeated the action. He did this so quickly that watching him work was almost as great as the taste of the finished project. Since chocolate and sweet pastries are rare in China, we were all very excited to eat our fish-shaped, chocolate-filled pastries.

We finally met up with everyone at the club and had fun dancing. Since we had only planned to go to lunch, I was wearing a white t-shirt, a hooded sweatshirt and jeans. At first I felt very out of place among all the girls dressed up, but I got over it and just had fun dancing.

On Saturday night, I went out with my roommate and her friends. Although, we ended up meeting up with a huge group of people from the program. As Guo Yue and I were getting ready in our room, Guo Yue looked at me and said in a tone of surprise, "You look quite pretty! If you were skinnier, you would be even prettier!" I am not even offended when she says things like this because I find the differences between us so amusing.

We met up with a large group of people at San Li Tun (or Turrrr as the Beijingers say), a bar street frequented by alot of foreigners. We took up a whole room in the back and just sat and chatted and played dice. Then, we walked to another club to go dancing. I had a great time hanging out with my roommate outside of the dorms. Also, it was nice to see that not all Chinese girls fit the stereotype of reserved and conservative.