Oh, the things I see in China

Right next to my university, there's another university, with only a small street between the two. My university has around 40,000 students (including 12,000 undergrads - I'm not sure how that works because that makes for a lot of graduate/other students), and the university right next door has 20,000. The little street is quite the happening place - there are always lots of people and you can constantly find something entertaining to watch.

Last Friday afternoon's entertainment? A duck walking around on the middle of the sidewalk. If you just read that last sentence again to make sure you read it right, you did. I had to look twice, too. Then I had to take a picture.

The proof:

Elementary School Memories!

Yesterday after a homemade lunch of tacos with a couple friends, they said that they wanted to play a game. Last year they taught me a card game called 红桃四, or Red of Hearts. It's very similar to a card game that I grew up playing with my family called Scum (also called Capitalism, President, etc). This time, though, the game that they wanted to play was an addition to that game. The new game started after the loser of each match of 红桃四 was determined. The loser had to choose, they explained, between being asked a question that they had to answer, or doing an action that the winners dared them to do. Sound familiar? Yep, it's also a game I played as a kid back in the States. We call it Truth or Dare! I kept thinking to myself, I'm playing Truth or Dare with 2 college grads and a current college student. It brought back fond memories of elementary school sleepovers.

A "Typical" Day

There's nothing like a "normal" day here, but I thought I would combine several days to show what a day in the life might like look like here.

7:00 alarm clock goes off, shower, eat breakfast, make quick call home to family or friends
8:45 take the elevator 23 floors down, ride my bike to school
9:00 one-on-one tutor, practice pronunciation
10:10 class with 3 other Americans, read a story about a Chinese festival and talk about the holiday as well as the vocab and grammar in the story
12:00 meet friends for lunch
1:30 take a power nap
2:00 study - characters, vocab, grammar, prepare for the next day's class
5:00 go for a run
6:30 dinner at home
7:30 check email, read, watch movie, hang out with friends, go grocery shopping, whatever needs to be done
11-12:00 go to bed

Update: I wrote this last week, then looked at it just now, and it definitely is the "ideal" typical day...it didn't happen any single day this week. Every day is an adventure! I never know what's going to happen or what's not going to happen. If you live overseas, or ever have before, I'm sure you know that things always take longer than they do in the States. When I go grocery shopping, for example, it's a couple-hour-long process, just because I have to try and read the characters to make sure I'm buying sugar and not salt or some other Chinese concoction, and I have to go to several places: a grocery store, a fruit store, a vegetable store, and a whole separate place to buy meat, and I'm doing all of this with my bike or walking.

Mongolia

Because of China's National Holiday, I had a week off school. Together with some other friends, I made the 30 hour train ride (most of which I slept through after an exhausting previous week) to Ulan Bator, the capital of Mongolia. It was neat to see the Asian influence but also the differences unique to Mongolia. We spent most of our time in the capital, but made it out to a national park for one of the days we were there.

The view from the train, when I was awake, was incredible. As we rode along, the Gobi desert crept up - grass, people, and homes slowly disappeared, and weeds, sand, and yurts popped up in their stead.

The train that we rode on goes on to Moscow, so the sign is in Chinese, Mongolian, and Russian. You can tell that Mongolian writing looks similar to Russian, and in Ulan Bator, the Russian influence could be seen in the dress, buildings, and other aspects as well.

This is what we mostly saw outside the city. Mongolia is more than twice the size of Texas, but the population is just under 3 million, with just over 1 million in Ulan Bator.

The Parliament building. Front and center is a sculpture of Ghengis Khan, their hero. He created the largest empire (land-wise) in history. It covered 22% of the world's land, and included over 100 million people.
This was taken in the city square right by the Parliament building.
Men feeding pigeons near the Buddhist temple. There were quite a few people who dressed in traditional cultural dress.
One day we headed outside the city - it was absolutely beautiful! The temperature was perfect for a fall day, the tamerisk tree leaves were bright yellow, contrasted with the bright blue sky, and it was so refreshing to be out in nature and hike around the national park.
Plus, I got to ride a yak.
It seemed like most people live in yurts (called a ger in Mongolian). They have mini doors, and a pipe coming out of the top of them to heat the room. Apparently they heat fast but cool fast, too. The gers were scattered all throughout the city (except in the center) and the countryside, too.

Check out more pictures here!