Olympic Frenzy

Going to class is starting to become a little more normal and a part of my schedule. It used to feel weird going to class here in China, but I feel more like I'm going to classes in Berkeley, though in worse weather, without my bike, in crappier clothes, afraid I might need to use the bathroom, and always studying for the day's ting xie (basically a vocabulary quiz everyday).

We also just had a test, one for du xie (written, the first portion of our 4-hour straight class) and one for ting shuo (speaking/listening, the second portion of our 4-hour straight class). The first one is taught by an actual professor, who I thought initially might be a child molestor or rapist because one day in class he approached Tammy only and pulled her aside to another room. I followed them and waited in the hallway, where there were no students. Haha, paranoid. But I guess in the end it turned out the room that they went into was the faculty lounge and he just felt awkward about it, but he wanted to ask one of the students in our class to teach his daughter in high school (or speaking partner, or so I've heard it been called here). I guess it's probably because Tammy is the best person in the class (best Chinese pronunciation: English ratio in the class). Anyway, the other teacher is just a graduate student, I believe. I thought she was a pretty cool teacher until she gave grades back today about the test. It was totally BS. She gave Tammy not a great grade on no grounds, the fucking test was ok, but #1, the ting li (listening comprehension) tape was fuzzy and a lot of the speaking was incomprehensible so everyone got a bad grade, #2, she gave Tammy a bad grade, saying she didn't use as many words or used them correctly, not having taken a recording or even taken any notes about the speech. How can they, after not taking down notes, answer any questions the students have about getting anything wrong. BAD SYSTEM, I realize now that Zhang Laoshi 還是我最喜歡的老師 (Teacher Zhang is still my favorite teacher). Anyway, BLAH, we'll go talk to her tomorrow or something. I hope she really isn't a biased teacher.

NOW, to the exciting stuff. The Olympics are about to begin...and guess what?!!? BNU (my school) is holding the USA Men's BASKETBALL TEAM. What does that mean? I get to see Kobe (Kebi in Chinese), Lebron, and EVERYONE practicing in the gym that BNU built especially for the athletes and DAMN is it nice. BNU signed a contract with the Olympics to build it and it's a nice ALL GLASS WINDOW BUILDING. The windows are crystal clear, the courts look amazing (from the outside), they have an indoor swimming pool, and most of all there is air conditioning...but, they don't allow anyone that's not affiliated with the USA Team even near the venue. Afterwards, we'll be able to use the facilities, but only after the Olympics, we'll probably even have to pay a fee to get in. My goal is to get a picture or see, or maybe even get a signature or talk to the players. I am after all, a huge US Team supporter, right?

The Olympics is also trying to crack down on the society, in different ways... They are cutting the number of cars by allowing only license plates ending in odds and evens take alternating days on the road. This increases the amount of cars on the street and would potentially cut traffic, increase public transportation, and most of all, cut the pollution for the day by half. Oh boy, decreasing smog. This is in addition the weather shit that I KNOW they've been doing. Good weather, clean air, blue skies, breathing clearly. That's what Olympics in Beijing is all about. I think the Olympics really will revitalize China to the powerhouse it should have been, bigger than the US. Anyway, it's getting there. Go CHINA! (I'm not a communist).

We wanted to go see the Olympic Green yesterday, where the majority of the Olympic venues are located (including the Bird's Nest, etc.). However, we didn't go because we spent the entire day shopping in Wangfujing, and SHIT, we're still not done. We discovered 3 hidden malls, one including the most amazing shop I've ever seen in a mall...an AUDI dealership. IT WAS IN THE MALL, and the only cars that were there were RARE CARS:

My BABY, the R8, the car I took 50 pictures of.

This MONSTER TT, with I think two V6s, so...a W12. SICK.

This gorgeous WHITE S5, wow the white looks hot.

An RS6 I'd never even heard about.

A ridiculous TT 3.2 Quattro, race colors.

This STORE!? In a mall in Wangfujing, and across there was a BMW AND VW place. I had been to this mall before and I hadn't gone far enough down. I'm glad I did. I went with Tammy and one of our friends, he bought some kick ass NIKE shoes from the Nike store, of which there were probably 4, and all legit, with legit US prices too. Tai gui a. Anyway, it was nice to see such a wide selection of shoes that I feel like the US does not have. I talked to Tammy about it, the stores like Nike and Adidas are not as impression or do not have as large a selection in the US. Tammy has the pictures, I'll update them later, but wow, I wanted to buy so many shoes. Good thing I didn't, I ended up going to a Li-Ning store and getting some awesome stuff. A Chinese track jacket, awesome Shanghai shirt, free polo and some socks, under $70 US. It was the most I've ever spent in RMB here, for a day's work, but I think it was totally worth it.

After, we went to McDonalds and had some food, good change (though I've already had it 3 times) because I don't feel like I have to diarrhea after. Then! we went to the night market (the smaller one that also sold little souvenirs and had a video arcade with DDR). We were looking at the food and I remembered all the food I ate last time, the scorpions, silk worms. BUT WHAT THE HELL!? I saw a skewer with scorpions, normal, but one of them was still moving. DAMN! That's fresh. It turns out that's not the one I was looking for originally, I knew it wasn't right, but I remember going in that one. The real one we only found after we were done shopping, and looking, but not finding a taxi that was in service.

Anyway, the highlight was getting the awesome clothes from li-ning, check out www.li-ning.com, the crazy scorpions, and of course...the Audi Store. Oh, not to mention trying to help out the foreigners who were looking for the Beijing Grand Hyatt. What RICH SO-CALers. Anyway, I always feel like helping them out because, even though my Chinese is not that great, I feel like I want to be a translator, also help the foreigners bargain because I KNOW they are getting ripped off.

The cab ride back was ridiculous, I just can't wait to see all the changes that are going to take place because of the Olympics, less cars, wow, more people on public transportation, no yay. There are already so many things the government is putting up around the city to make it look more foreigner welcome and more 好看 (good looking).

They JUST put this up in front of our school the other day.

@ Audi.

Tammy called this my Myspace picture.

One part of Wangfujing, you can tell it's really touristy.

I can't wait to plan my trip for the break (summer-fall break).