Practicing my Chinese with the locals

Damn. The Olympics are taking over China. I've heard, in addition to the crazy license plate laws (alternative license plate digit days, one blog back), they have ground missiles for the purpose of anti-air missiles attacking any of the Chinese Olympic venues. It's really insane. So, just to see it myself, I went with Tammy and Xiao Monster (one of our friends here). We went to the Olympic Green, which was the area with the most Olympic venues, including the most important one, the Bird's Nest (Niao Qiao), where the opening, track, and closing ceremonies will be taking place, not including the other events that will also take place there.

The architecture was amazing, though Tammy and I both thought it would be a little bigger. It was cool to see and the lights from the building were awesome. Of course though, we took pictures of it in the dark and through a fence, since these new Olympic laws and enforcement systems have put chain fences around anything that would resemble or even look like Olympic events or people would be involved. We spent so much time at the Olympic Green because we wouldn't have time to take more pictures of it at night before the damn 外国人 (foreigners) start coming and invading our space. Anyway, we're going to Inner Mongolia this week and we won't have any time for the next 5 days (we're going by train 火车) how exciting, not really. This is the second of two trips with EAP and I'm not that excited to go. Maybe it's because of the fact that we don't get to shower and we're spending the night in a sandy yurt, but that might also be the reason I kinda want to go, to be a little adventurous? I hope it will be fun, going to Mongolia is not a place that I would originally plan on going for vacation.

Anyway, there was a story that I was meaning to tell that happened earlier this week. So...I got a haircut in China....and it wasn't that bad. We went to this place very close to our apartment. I went with Tammy and another friend, thinking that we would all get really bad FOB cuts because we didn't know how to say anything, trim, shorten, thin. Basically all we knew how to say in terms of haircuts were cut and wash. But, it turned out quite well. They did my fauxhawk thing like I usually have it in the states, but I think here it was a little better, probably because it cost 10 KUAI, WHAT THE HELL!? My haircut, which I get in the states for $18, and once even $78, was only about $1.25 in China, and it was good. So then we were more confident and the girls went to get theirs cut (I was used as the guinea pig since I was a guy and my hair didn't matter as much, I guess if they messed up I would just go bald). Anyway, it was an amazing experience because it was the first time we actually talked to native Chinese people and they understood what we were saying. We had a good conversation for about 2-3 hours because they decided they wanted to cut Tammy's hair for nearly 2 hours. Here is the process that they took cutting Tammy's hair: washing, drying, cutting, washing, drying, straightening (1 hour), and finally some final cutting touches. The straightening took so long because they would seriously straighten 20 hairs at a time, no joke, and very carefully too. They were awesome, we ended up talking about Chinese 明星 (famous people) and what their names were in China. For example, Kobe Bryant is 科比　(Kebi) and then they just told us the names of Jackie Chan and Jet Li. What was funny was that they were talking about them and we would pretend we knew what they were talking about, then later ask them about the people they had already asked us about and we would all laugh...It was funnier in the moment, you had to be there. We talked about sports, getting haircuts, going out (夜生活), and even some of the economic logistics or the Olympics (奥运会). Anyway, it was a tight experience because we got to put our Chinese to work and only speak Chinese, something I've been wanting to do since I started looking at PiB, only to realize that EAP was the only program to award direct school credit.

We made a pact to only speak Chinese starting soon, thank God. Speaking English was killing me.

Then I went to Gome (www.gome.com.cn) to get a mouse for my computer since my old one broke. This new mouse is ballin'. It's white, my favorite color on cars now and it's by LG so they said it wouldn't break. But I was able to manage to tell him about exchanging and if there was a warranty, without using any of those words. After that, Alex and I went to get tea and just went back to the apartment. This happened a couple of days ago. I'm surprised at how well I can get around. Alex even mentioned to me how he was proud that we could get around, though right after one of the employees said something to me that was so incomprehensible it was funny. We are also starting to pick up "er-hua", which is basically the Beijing way of saying things. Instead of saying Xi Men (West Gate) you would say Xi Mer, etc.

Well now I think we have to get ready for Mongolia since we are leaving tonight at 6 pm, in about 2 hours, taking an overnight train over to the desert. They told us to also bring a coat for the grasslands, which are supposedly cold and windy. We will have access to a hotel shower everyday except for one, where we will be sleeping in a traditional Mongolian yert, which is a house made out of mud and dirt and sand...essentially. Anyway it should be fun.

I would like to update with pictures of the haircut people and other things, but I guess I'll just leave you guys with the Olympic venues for now. Tammy has the rest of the pictures.

I don't know if you can see but the white car is in a lane with an Olympics symbol. Apparently, only Olympic registered vehicles could ride in it, most of which didn't have license plates. The cops patrolled this lane and the license number rule on the streets.

An Adidas ad that I thought was cool.

The Nike store display of Yi Jianlian, Kobe, Lebron, and more.

"Crouching Tiger Hidden Bacon"

Niao Qiao, the Bird's Nest, an amazing looking Olympic venue.

Some cool looking hotel building, I think it's holding rich people and or athletes.

The swimming stadium.

Another shot of the hotel.