我的空调坏了

So, my air-conditioning is broken...indefinitely, and Beijing weather is really starting to get humid.

It's hot as hell in my room, though I feel like since the Olympics will be starting soon, the Chinese government will implement their weather altering methods to make it rain more and make the weather cooler. I have, after all, been seeing more and more foreigners and they wouldn't like this weather very much.

We went to San Li Tun yesterday, a very popularized foreigner's street, where everything you find is around US prices plus! Wow, these prices really remind me of back home. You can find what we ate on this website www.beijingsaddle.com, authentic Mexican food...well as authentic as you can get in Beijing. I've also noticed that prices all around are rising because some places need to import things, which are more expensive now that the Olympics are making high costs on everything. Anyway, things just seem more expensive now since I've been away from America for such a long time.

For example, Olympics tickets, OLYMPICS! WOW!, are going for around $100 for the "expensive" ones. I feel like "DAMN! That's hella expensive", not realizing that I just spent around $90 for a Kanye West concert back in the states, and that wasn't a once in a lifetime event, I can see him anytime. The Olympics, now this only happens once in a lifetime, unless you are a baller and travel around with all your money going to the countries where the Olympics are hosted, but even then, this is the only time it will be in Beijing, China for a long time, probably never again, at least in my lifetime. Also, experiencing Olympic fever in the city as a study abroad student is quiet an experience in itself.

Anyway, back to San Li Tun. The street was filled with places that catered to foreigner night life. The places read "Budweiser" all around, and shops such as Adidas (with 5 floors), North Face, and even American Apparel were present on the street. Not only that, we witnessed a massive change in the nationality demographic, I probably saw more foreigners, usually from Europe, than I saw Chinese people (not including the fuwuyuan or the taxi drivers). That was quite an experience, something not to copy too often, after all, my meal was around $25 US.

So now I am sitting in my room, thinking about how I have to study for the midterm that is tomorrow. It didn't feel like too long ago when I had my first midterm, oh well, we really do only have 2 weeks until the summer intensive program is over.

It's hard to see it says Budweiser 5 times.

This is the restaurant that we went to.

We are also planning our trip in between the summer and fall semesters now. We want to take a train to Shanghai, Guangdong, Fujian, and Yunan, then afterwards fly back up to Beijing for fall semester, free of Olympic chaos. It should be fun, but I also should study for the midterm tomorrow and try to keep myself cool somehow.

edit: It's raining and we can't open the window anymore, at least they brought us a fan...that squeaks and clicks every once in a while.

Here's a picture of some Chinese Tabasco I stole from San Li Tun because I felt like I deserved it, seeing as how I paid about $25-30 US.