Super bowl Monday!
It is Super Bowl Monday!
The game was broadcast live in China at 7am. So a bunch of people woke up at five and piled into some taxis so that we could go to the “Goose n Duck Pub,” a sports bar in Chaoyang district. We were had by the taxi driver on the way: everyone else paid 40 yuan for their ride, but ours cost 60 yuan. That sucks. The pub was packed full of ex-pats when we got there. I got a free ski hat in the lucky drawing. Tim, one of the full year guys, got a football which is apparently a hot commodity in China. There was free breakfast, and a lot f people drinking beer at 7am.
The game itself was okay. The first half was really exciting, since the bears scored a touchdown in the first play. The number of turnovers from fumbles was ridiculous; I think that there were six or seven turnovers. Prince did the half-time show, and the second half was boring.
The Colts won.
We ended up being VERY late to our first orientation thing in the morning. Partially because the game ended about when we were suppose to be there, and partially because our cab driver got lost.
Lunch with orientation groups was at noon; I ate too much as usual. It is really strange how that works: I always want to try everything, so I just eat a little bit of each dish, I always end up being full long before they stop bringing dishes out but I want to try those too. Ai Laoshi came out to eat with us, and we ended up talking about table manners, customs for eating, and the “games” that everyone plays.
“Meet the IES neighborhood” was in the auditorium at 2pm. They brought in one area studies prof, one roommate, one language prof, and one homestay mother. Each one spoke (in Chinese with Ai Laoshi translating) about IES and how you can be successful in Beijing.
They talked a lot.
After that we had two hours to “discover Beijing.” There is a little worksheet of things that your group needs to complete by Sunday at the language pledge kickoff. It’s pretty cool. I used my “Insider’s Guide to Beijing” a lot. If you are planning on coming to Beijing at some point (family) I would strongly recommend that you get the book. It is published by Immersion guides and has all kinds of cool stuff in it. By favorite part is that it has the addresses in Hanyue pinying and in characters, so you can try to tell your cab driver where you are going or you can show them the address and they can READ it. Its cool.
The final event of the day was an info session on the Yunnan trip that we are going on at the end of this month. There are three groups that do three different things in Yunnan with some overlap. All of the trips look awesome, but I want to go on the third trip to Southern Yunnan. It focuses more on socio-economic issues than ethnicities but it will also have interaction with ethnic minorities.
Awesome.
After the informational I went to the little Jiaozi restaurant with a big group of people. Alicia, Jordon, and Tai ordered for us. Yum.
After dinner I wandered around with some friendly friends before coming back to the dorm. While we were wandering I found a sign that shocked me: it had some Chinese characters on the top and then three circles on the bottom, one was “no stopping,” one had come off, and the last one was a little handicapped stick figure with a big no line through it. No handicapped people. That blows my mind.
And now, Bed.
The game was broadcast live in China at 7am. So a bunch of people woke up at five and piled into some taxis so that we could go to the “Goose n Duck Pub,” a sports bar in Chaoyang district. We were had by the taxi driver on the way: everyone else paid 40 yuan for their ride, but ours cost 60 yuan. That sucks. The pub was packed full of ex-pats when we got there. I got a free ski hat in the lucky drawing. Tim, one of the full year guys, got a football which is apparently a hot commodity in China. There was free breakfast, and a lot f people drinking beer at 7am.
The game itself was okay. The first half was really exciting, since the bears scored a touchdown in the first play. The number of turnovers from fumbles was ridiculous; I think that there were six or seven turnovers. Prince did the half-time show, and the second half was boring.
The Colts won.
We ended up being VERY late to our first orientation thing in the morning. Partially because the game ended about when we were suppose to be there, and partially because our cab driver got lost.
Lunch with orientation groups was at noon; I ate too much as usual. It is really strange how that works: I always want to try everything, so I just eat a little bit of each dish, I always end up being full long before they stop bringing dishes out but I want to try those too. Ai Laoshi came out to eat with us, and we ended up talking about table manners, customs for eating, and the “games” that everyone plays.
“Meet the IES neighborhood” was in the auditorium at 2pm. They brought in one area studies prof, one roommate, one language prof, and one homestay mother. Each one spoke (in Chinese with Ai Laoshi translating) about IES and how you can be successful in Beijing.
They talked a lot.
After that we had two hours to “discover Beijing.” There is a little worksheet of things that your group needs to complete by Sunday at the language pledge kickoff. It’s pretty cool. I used my “Insider’s Guide to Beijing” a lot. If you are planning on coming to Beijing at some point (family) I would strongly recommend that you get the book. It is published by Immersion guides and has all kinds of cool stuff in it. By favorite part is that it has the addresses in Hanyue pinying and in characters, so you can try to tell your cab driver where you are going or you can show them the address and they can READ it. Its cool.
The final event of the day was an info session on the Yunnan trip that we are going on at the end of this month. There are three groups that do three different things in Yunnan with some overlap. All of the trips look awesome, but I want to go on the third trip to Southern Yunnan. It focuses more on socio-economic issues than ethnicities but it will also have interaction with ethnic minorities.
Awesome.
After the informational I went to the little Jiaozi restaurant with a big group of people. Alicia, Jordon, and Tai ordered for us. Yum.
After dinner I wandered around with some friendly friends before coming back to the dorm. While we were wandering I found a sign that shocked me: it had some Chinese characters on the top and then three circles on the bottom, one was “no stopping,” one had come off, and the last one was a little handicapped stick figure with a big no line through it. No handicapped people. That blows my mind.
And now, Bed.