On the 27th, I stayed home (in Mao Da's house)...went online, facebook, and then went to Yuan Ming Yuan with Robin and Jenny. It took forever to get there, liek an hour prolly. Mao Da was at some class, so his dad drove me to pick Mao Da up and then dropped me off at Yuan Ming Yuan. Robin rode the subway, so it took him like 20 more minutes to get there. I remember Jenny took a princess picture, and she tripped on the stairs there. Hmmm also, there was this nice maze place we walked around. We had to leave early, because Robin and I had to go see this performance at the new opera house that night. So we left around 3pm, and went to Wangfujing again, so I could buy shoes (since you had to wear shoes in the opera house). I bought some pretty expensive Li ning shoes...forgot how much they were, prolly around 30 USD (EXPENSIVE for china), and they were also one size too small (either a 45 or a 44...I'm 46). So we had McNuggets for dinner, and Robin and I left Jenny to catch the subway to the theater. We got there, and took some pictures in front of it. We got this guy to take a picture of us, so then Robin offered to take a picture of him. He wasn't sure if it worked, so they playbacked, and with the guy standing next to him (I found this out recently), Robin saw that one of the pictures was the guy naked. Hahahah. The skit was about Sun Wukong, was pretty interesting.
On the 28th, I began at Wangfujing (AGAIN) with Jenny and Robin, and then went to Beihai with them. Unfortunately, we couldn't go everywhere there, but we did go boating. We bought some snacks, and then just sat on the boat for like 2 hours or so. After Beihai, we tried going to Qianmen, but the street was closed, or what we thought was the street. Apparently, it wasn't what we were supposed to look for. Anyways, Jenny and Robin went off by themselves, because I had to meet my gufu (dad's younger sister's husband) to get from him the package of gifts I had given him earlier to take to Henan (where my dad's side of the family lives). My gufu works in Beijing, that's why I was gonna give it to him to take back to Henan, but then I found out I was going to Henan anyways, so I went and took it back from him. Anyways, it took FOREVER calling a cab from the Tiananmen/Qianmen area, because cabs aren't allowed to stop there. After about an hour of looking for a cab, I got one, and arrived to Shichahai, where my gufu works/lives. He and his friend took me around Shichahai, which is a restaurant/nightclub district all surrounding a lake, where you can ride boats and whatnot. A LOT of foreigners go there. My gufu also showed me some of the hutong restoration projects they were working on. It was getting really late, and i didn't want to make Mao Panyong stay up for me, so I quickly rushed home on the subway. Haha, I also had to get Mao Da to keep the door open for me.
On the 29th, I packed, and then left for the train station to HENAN in the morning. At the station, I realized...that...I...left...the...gifts...AT HOME. Wow. So retarded. Spent last night getting the package from my gufu, and then I leave it at Mao Da's house. Way to go. So I bought some food gifts at the station and just brought it along with me. I arrived in the afternoon in Luohe. Like NO ONE was in the Luohe station. Wow. I went outside, still not many people outside. Obviously a smaller town, lots of dust everywhere. I found my aunt (dad's younger sister), and she was with her daughter (their second child). We rode the bus to Beiwudu, met up with my grandpa, who then drove us in his little motor-tricycle to their village of Zhanghua. So...yeah...I don't like living in rural China. On the way back my aunt stopped to go grocery shopping in this meat store, and she was like "what do you want to eat tonight?" and I'm thinking "I'm not sure I want to eat any of this..." Anyways, yeah, dinner was pretty good. I didn't eat much, according to them, and they were like "Why? You don't like it?" But I actually thought the food tasted pretty good...I actually was just full. Yeah...then we took a shower. As in, I had to take a shower with my two boy cousins. Yeah. a 13 year old and an 8 year old. On the roof. In the dark. An 8 year old. @_____@. That night they just watched tv...so boring. And my uncle kept asking me about job opportunities in the US..and my aunt also asked. She said she'd be willing to watching someone's kids or just wash dishes at a restaurant...but yeah, I don't think they'd want to. Life would suck for them in the US. So much more freedom to do things in China, especially if they don't know English. I remember waking up a lot that night, and my grandma was awake many times. And like, she kept putting blankets on me, but it was so hot =/...and she turned off the fan too...
The next morning, I wake up, and its dark, and my grandma was gone already to make breakfast. and then she woke me up at like 6 in the morning to make me eat food. And I'm thinking I DON'T WANT TO IT'S SIX IN THE MORNING. But she kept saying "吃吧吃吧" in a somewhat-whiny-I'm-hurt-if-you-don't tone. So I ate some food. Then the whole day I played cards with my aunts. Was pretty fun at first but got boring after a while. Cards as in Chinese cards as in the game lasts for a few hours. During that time, 2 more of my cousins came to visit, but they left before dinner. For dinner, we went out to eat. We left the village, and went to like the town center area, which was basically an intersection, and found this restaurant to eat it. Uhh...the food was okay I guess. There was only one main dish. Like a big pot of spicy chicken. Idk...my uncle's not rich so I was okay with whatever. Then my cousins and I fooled around with my camera some. One of my baby girl cousins was being especially annoying. She was liek "take a picture!" and then "show me the picture!" and then "take anohter picture!" Went home, took another shower.
I'm pretty sure the whole time I only peed once. Because, there are A LOT of mosquitoes in the bathroom, and I'm afraid to stay too long in there. Oh, and at the restaurant, I remember going to the bathroom, except the bathroom was actually in the backyard (it was a family owned restaurant), and it was completely dark in the corner of the yard they pointed me in. There was a wall, but once you walked past the wall, you couldn't see anything, so I just randomly peed on the ground...hoping I made it into the hole.
The next morning (31st), I was awakened by my grandma to eat again. I was supposed to leave at like 9 (I think?) in the morning, but she wanted me to eat at 7 just in case. So I watched some movies with my cousins, and then my family friend drove me to the train station.
Got to BEIJING idk where, but that night I went out to eat with Mao Panyong's family and their friends (who are also friends of my parents) at some really fancy restaurant. One side of the hallway, the room numbers ended with 8. The other side numbers ended with 6. The second to last numbers on both sides were never 4. So...on the first floor, numbers on one side were like 118, 128, 138, 158, 168...the other side was 116, 126, 136, etc. (6 and 8 are lucky numbers, 4 is unlucky because it sounds like the word for death). Yeah, lots of very interesting and expensive looking foods that night.
The next morning, the 1st, Jenny and I met at Shichahai, where I again met my gufu to give him the gifts back for him to take to Henan. He took Jenny and me to this nice restaurant, except 2 of the dishes in the beginning were really disgusting...tofu that looked like poop, and these veggies that looked like grass. Must be an acquired taste. Anyways, there were still yummy things like Kung Pao chicken, zhajiangmian, etc. Btw, that day was SO CLEAR. You could see really far down Chang'an Avenue...wow, good job 共产党! After that, we met up with Robin at the museum, where I only stayed an hour, because my uncle (the older of my mom's 2 younger brothers) and his wife went to pick me up to take me to PINGGU COUNTY, where my mom's parents live. That night was my grandma's birthday (lunar calendar), so we celebrated. That night, my uncle and I drove back to Beijing, he dropped me off at Mao Da's house.
The next morning, on the 2nd, Jenny's aunt picked up Robin and I to go do stuff. Jenny's younger cousin tagged along (amy?). First we had dimsum for breakfast at some expensive hotel. We were going to go to Qiangui KTV (the really expensive one), but they were full so we went to Mailedi (Melody). Mailedi's deal was really good. It was basically like, "If you buy our food, we'll give you the rooms for free!" And we were like "how about we just pretend we bought your food and pay that price for your room...because we're full." They said no, so basically we ended up paying not much money and got a whole table of food....
After KTV we went to Xidan, a shopping district, and 77th street Underground mall. This isn't like the underground mall in Atlanta. It was multiple stories underground, you could easily get lost there because there are escalators going everywhere. After Xidan, we went to Tiananmen to take some pictures, and changed into our "I live under your bed" tshirts that we got at Xidan. Finally, we went to Wangfujing again and the night snack street. Sigh, my last night in Beijing. Oh, and then we rushed home again because I was supposed to meet Qiuqiu's mom to give back the Guanyin Boddhisatva Jade necklace she gave me....because I'm not Buddhist, and I saw that it cost like 1300 yuan, I believe, which is almost 200 dollars. So it would've been a waste to give to me. When I was giving it back I could tell she wasn't that pleased...but oh well. Got back late again to Mao Da's house.
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