smog over Beijing

I was positively surprised to see clear blue sky the first day I came here. there are good days, when the sky is blue the whole morning, there are also bad days when you can't really say if it is clouded or smoggy. it doesn't bother so much while breathing, but after walking around for half an hour you can feel the dust in your mouth. at the end of the day the hair gets really dusty and feels weird when you touch it. but I guess one can deal with it! can't wait for the winter and the snow to cover the dust a little bit.

"last supper"

the smallest and the tastiest watermelon ever!

and an other day full of adventures!

our day started with the search for the cesuo (厕所 toilet). we went to a place where they where selling shredded ice with some syrup on it which we wanted to try and they had a clean toilet too. we didn't get the ice though, since the whole menu was in chinese without any pictures. instead we got something really strange and icky, like some kind of soup with rice and beans and ..stuff in it, which I don't want to eat ever again. so the second time we ordered from the pictures they had on the wall. tasted really good.
afterwards we went back home to wait for the landlord. turns out we just needed a new plunger because our wasn't doing it's job..so yeah..we can finally..you know..find our inner peace^^
afterwards our korean friend came by and I went with her to try to finally get this shredded ice:


I could eat it every day, no kidding!

we also met some other foreigners today, some guys who will work as kindergarten teachers. they have a really really nice apartment and so much fun to talk too. one of them is australian and talks non-stop, but has a lot of hilarious stories to share. so we went to the korea town with them.
Me and Soon finally found ddukbokki 떡볶기, korean spice rice cakes. I think I can die happy now since I finally tasted it and I loved it ..maybe too much.


and to end this post..
a few funny pictures of china:
university





and look how dirty our bathroom has been

loo is still not usable and today we had a new all-time low

it all started with me trying to get my money out of the ATM. The ATM made some noises, opened a few times...and kinda died. it said I should call the customer service. yes, sure..I can totally explain my situation in chinese and also understand what they suggest as a solution.
we got home and started the cleaning...first we got the wrong cleaner for the loo, so we had to go to the store and explain them that we need something to clean the blocked pipe. with a lot of courage and persuasion from jenny's side we finally decided to show this picture:


our part of the conversation went as followed:
-"our toilet"
-"pipe" "broken" "many water" "not going"

my respect to the women who immediately understood what we needed. but all the other workers seemed to feel the need to help the funny foreigners as well and soon we had the whole staff standing around us.

we came home and tried this new cleaner, but to no success.
suddenly our internet stopped working too and as I started to think it couldn't get any worse..the lights went out. looks like the fuse doesn't like us using too much electricity.
Valli tried to search for the fuse in the stairway and managed to turn off the lights at our neighbour's apartment, who came out to look what the problem was...half naked.
well, at least he was nice enough to fix our fuse. we had to say "sorry" and "thank you" for 5 minutes though.

anyway...the loo is still clogged. but we got the lights and the internet back. what's next?

Beijing!!

ookay, my jet lag is getting better since I haven't had any sleep for more than 48 hours already, I think I am going to drop dead tonight.
the flight was loooong. very loooong. as soon as we boarded the second plane all the chinese people took their shoes off. you can imagine the air afterwards! the man behind us made funny sounds in his sleep, groaning and moaning....and even singing.

anyway, after a very chaotic day we finally got to our apartment. our taxi driver had no idea where to go and had to call the landlord and after 20 mins or so we finally found the place..and survived the driving skills. all the people, the cars and the bicycles don't seem to follow any rules. everybody is walking and driving on the same street at the same time...!!

after some, ok many communication problems (we don't understand much, always fighting who has to answer the phone..oh the horror..laughing all the way through though) we finally got to our good, but dirty apartment.

looks pretty good after we cleaned a bit

it is funny how the chinese manage their trash..I still don't understand why it is lying there and not in the container one meter away from it.

people are staring at us, it is actually really hilarious. if there is a group of people, one notices us, tells the others and everybody turns their heads to look.
went to some place which is similar to starbucks and wanted something to drink. one of us made the order, but almost orderd 100 cups of everything, because she used the wrong word and said one hundred instead of one cup. died laughing !

beida's campus is huge and beautiful. there are kois swimming in the lake!



some people even talked to us on the street because they are so curious. we went to buy some jiaozi 饺子(chinese dumplings) and baozi 包子 (chinese bread with filling) which are sold at some small place in front of our apartment building. it is so small, they are practically cooking them on the street, but the people are really nice. one of the customers stopped to talk to us while we where waiting, ok, most of the time we were just saying "we don't understand" but we still managed to talk a bit. the jiaozi and baozi taste really good!!
dragon fruit is pretty and yummy too

well, and the funny thing at the end...we managed to block the toilet because of the toilet paper we threw in. the most icky thing until now in china: you can't throw toilet paper into the loo..hilarious though. we can't stop laughing here..

only a week left until I am in China. feel nervous and excited at the same time.
I got a tandem partner and it now feels more real since there is someone waiting for you there.
I am thinking of deleting this blog and trying to make one on tumblr, but since no one can guarantee which one will actually work over there I will wait and keep all of my blogs and then choose one which is not blocked.