新疆: Part 3

Kashgar, China, was just a quick 90 minute flight out of Urumqi. For those keeping score at home, think of flying from Kearney to Denver. Same general direction, not-so-drastic change in altitude. Kashgar (also known as Kashi) is a decently-sized city located at one of the most fascinating crossroads in the world.

One month later...

... I'm back on the blogoshpere. Apologies to those who actually follow my blog for letting my laziness and China's dislike of Blogger keep me down. A lot has happened in the past month, so it might take a few posts for me to catch up. Please bear with me.

Now, let's go back to August 14th, the day of my departure from Beijing and the last effort I have at blog posting, right before my flight was called...

家常便饭？

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家常便饭 - jiācháng biànfàn

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Roughly translated, this little idiom means "home cooking, simple meal," or at least that's what our textbook tells us. I'll admit, I haven't really done as well as I could have at assimilating to Chinese cuisine. It's actually pretty delicious once you become accustomed to it, but I realized I was just too used to the American style of eating a variety of food from all over the world. So I might have missed out on the whole "home cooking, simple meal" aspect of Chinese food. Here, in pictures, are some of my eating experiences in Beijing, and yes, Binh Doan, this is (almost) entirely for you.

Party in the PRC

So... Friday was my 21st birthday. Yep, the big 2-1. And ironically, I celebrated shedding the restraints of many American laws in China, where said laws don't matter at all. But my friends were not about to let that little detail stop them from giving me a night to remember in Beijing :)

First, of course, all the teachers somehow knew it was my birthday (I had told a couple, but I guess word spreads fast), so they kept wishing me happy birthday throughout the morning. Although, I have to say, waking up to a 考试 kaoshi (test) was not the greatest way to start my 21st birthday. But it definitely got better. At our bi-weekly 中文桌子 zhongwen zhuozi (Chinese table), everyone sang me "Happy Birthday" (in Chinese of course), and proceeded to hoist their glasses and 干杯! ganbei! which is the Chinese equivalent to "Cheers!" Given the number of birthdays that have occurred over 中文桌子 during HBA (mine was either the fourth or fifth), Friday lunch has almost become the unofficial birthday lunch.

内蒙古: Playing

Wednesday, 2:50 PM, on the bus

I learned how to solve a Rubik’s cube!! I’ve wanted to learn since I was little, but I never got around to it. I’m having issues with the final side of the cube, but I’ll get there!

I’m a hot, sandy mess. We’re on our way to Huhhot right now from the desert playground thing.