Riverfood?

Last week at a restaurant, when asked, the owner told us their specialty was fish. One of the people in our group responded by saying that he didn't like seafood that much. The owner adamantly denied the presence of seafood, and with a completely serious face told us that of course it wasn't seafood...it was "riverfood!" Needless to say, we didn't order any seafood or riverfood that night!

Visitors!

At the end of May, five friends from college came to visit. It was so fun to be with them and experience China together, from arguing with the crazy van driver (who kept at least 2 wheels on the ground most of the time) to eating hot pot to hanging out with Chinese friends to climbing the Great Wall. Skype doesn't compare to being together in person, and it was so refreshing to be with friends that I have known since before moving here. I put up some pictures, but there are more here - check them out sometime!

riding out to the countryside...the driver took us to the wrong place and then tried to charge us extrawe stopped halfway up the mountain at this dam to take a little breakEven though the water was freezing, we swam in this little pool of water that comes from a stream flowing down the mountain

slurping our noodles for a late lunch after swimmingon the way down, we saw this farmer replanting riceTerracotta Warriorsplaying human chessWe borrowed bikes from friends, and friends of friends to use to ride around the cityriding to the center of the city, including two roundabouts!on the city wallpracting the Chinese squat...from a young age, this is a common resting/sitting positionlooking at silk shirts at a friend's friend's shop

A lot of older men wear these sunglasses here, and I got a couple pairs for my brothers...we're trying them out!the plastic bubbles - very tiring!

a crowded Chinese bus
hanging out on the sweet high speed train to BeijingAt the Olympic site in Beijing. You can see the Water Cube and the Bird's Nest in the background.
the ornately painted ceilings at Summer Palace

Temple of Heaven
It was a great day to climb the Great Wall, and as you can see, there were quite a few other people who thought so too

Movie Theater Discovered!

I love the statement on the ticket stub: "The most exciting conception China since cinema began." Not really sure what they are trying to say, but something's not quite right!

Since there are no yellow pages, discovering new things here are often either a matter of chance, a lot of hard work, or a combination of the two. I woke up this morning and felt like watching Prince Caspian in a theater. In the States, this would be no problem - I just look up where and when it's playing, fork over the $8, or whatever it is now (how much is it?), and watch the movie. It's not quite that simple here. There was once that I discovered a theater here, but there weren't any movies in English. I was feeling like an adventure, though, so I decided to give it another shot.

After using baidu, China's version of google, to look up the name and number of a theater (their website didn't have a list of movies playing, times, or their location!). During lunch with some friends, I told them about my quest, and one of them thought she knew where the theater was. She used the phone number I had looked up to make sure of the location and ask about times. There was a showing of Prince Caspian at 3:00, they said, so we hopped in a taxi and headed there.

After arriving at the theater, which was on the 4th floor of a mall, there were quite a few Chinese movies, but ONE movie not written in Chinese characters: Narnia! One of these entries had a capital VIP flashing before it, meaning that it was in English. The other showings of the movie were dubbed over in Chinese. After purchasing tickets with assigned seats for 40¥ each (about $6), we had to wait until 5 minutes before the movie started to enter the theater area. The uncommon experiences of the smell of buttery popcorn (popcorn here is normally sweet) and the carpeted floor (carpet is really rare here) completed the feel of a theater. We found a place to sit and settled in the nice big comfortable chairs to watch the movie. I enjoyed the movie, only distracted once by my friend sitting next to me answered her phone and had about a 5 minute conversation in the middle of the movie!