Gongyuan hu Xuexi

For lunch today my host father (shushu) an I shared a large fish..or what I imagine was a large fish boiled in oil. It was hard to tell because it was cut into pieces, but the head was quite large. My host mom(ayi) was also there but she does not like ‘lade’(spicy) food so she just stuck to the other dishes. I think I have had boiled cabbage at every meal thus far and this was no exception. Except this cabbage was boiled with lots of dasuan(small white vegi aka garlic). There was also pork of some kind and rice. After the meal I required a two hour food settling nap.

Last week I was so lucky as to go to an orientation activity and be handed homework that I is due at 8am on the first day of class. After my nap I started on it. It was/is a real assignment, a long boring story about flying to china and 80+ new words to learn how to write. 6 hours later I am done and ready to go to bed only to wake up at 6am and practice the characters some more.

Here is where I sleep. It is on the 5^th floor. There is a bed, desk and a wardrobe.

There is also a fan.

This is the building I used to live in before I met my family..but my current building looks the same. In fact my new building is directly behind that one. Little did I know when I walked out with my stuff to get picked up that I had already walked halfway to my new home.

We went to a park today. Shushu took way too many pictures of me. The man( not me) is Shushu.

There were way too many people in the park. Some were playing badminton with no net, others sitting, whispering sweet nothings. Most of the people were either old or kids, as shushu explained. It was true, except most of the haizi(kids) had parents with them that were not old. There were some of the old people playing a traditional instrument(two-string bamboo guitar) and singing in a traditional Beijing style.. It sounded awful, the singing, but the instrument was great. We also went to buy a new pair of house sandals(shoes you wear while inside) because the ones that originally got were too small. And I ate a sweet potato/yam roasted on a little grill next to the road.