Not so early the next morning, we ventured out into the streets of the Haidian District.\u00a0 The city comes alive with breakfast foods in the morning.\u00a0 Although the smog was still pretty thick it seemed more bearable in the morning.\u00a0 Life blossomed everywhere!\u00a0 I do not know what I ate for breakfast\u2014what it was called that is.\u00a0 It was some sort of sandwich-like food with meat (not sure which kind), green peppers, and other various spices on a bun-like object.\u00a0 It sort of reminded me of a Philly steak sandwich.\u00a0 It was very tasty and I would definitely eat it again!\u00a0<\/p>\n
A while later I went with another experienced teacher by bus to exchange some of my money at a bank.\u00a0 I was amazed at his ability to converse with the teller after only being in China for about 6 months.\u00a0 I was grateful for his help and fully expect to need it again in the very near future.\u00a0 In fact, he is helping me find a bike tomorrow!\u00a0<\/p>\n
After money-exchanging and walking walking walking, we stopped at another teacher\u2019s apartment for lunch\u2014leftovers from the night before.\u00a0 We rested for a while and chatted while drinking cold water (apparently a rarity in China) before heading to our next destination.\u00a0 We walked to another teacher\u2019s apartment close by (also a relative term) to get some transportation cards, try out the used bikes, and briefly use the internet.\u00a0 During this time it was decided that we should visit a nearby Starbucks because it was buy one get one free day.\u00a0 It happened to be the Chinese Valentine\u2019s Day today so Starbucks was having a deal.\u00a0 Knowing this tidbit of information was useful when seeing many people carrying roses throughout the city. Unfortunately \ud83d\ude42 for the single ladies, the only people we had to share this special day with were the others!\u00a0 It was quite an enjoyable time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Later, we ate supper at a really cheap restaurant with amazing food.\u00a0 I will definitely not starve here!\u00a0 After supper, it was back to the apartment for some moving, sweeping, mopping, and sweating.\u00a0 Where is this cold shower when you need it?\u00a0\ud83d\ude09\u00a0 We all sort of crashed on the couch trying to figure out our new cell phones.\u00a0 The group of teachers decided to visit a \u2018restaurant\u2019 (fan dian) for some chuan and pi jiu (beer).\u00a0 (This is pronounced chuar by the Beijing locals.) Chuan\u00a0\u4e32\u00a0is basically lamb on a stick and surprisingly tasty!\u00a0 Each stick was 1 kuai or about 14c. Try to think of it as going out for beer and wings at Buffalo Wild Wings.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tomorrow I venture out on the subway without any help from an experienced teacher.\u00a0 This should not be a problem since I am now an expert.\u00a0 Hmmm\u2026..more to come at a later date!<\/p>\n
Highlights of the day:\u00a0 experiencing the life and activity in the streets of Beijing, amazing Chinese food, briefly seeing the blue sky while enjoying Starbucks with new friends, being \u201cdinked\u201d by another teacher, and successfully giving directions to a taxi driver without help! (I\u2019ll let you figure out what \u201cdinked\u201d means!)<\/p>\n
Downers of the day:\u00a0 lingering smog, cold shower in the morning, and the feeling of jet-lag sticking around.\u00a0 Hopefully this will be less and less in the next few days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not so early the next morning, we ventured out into the streets of the Haidian District.\u00a0 The city comes alive with breakfast foods in the morning.\u00a0 Although the smog was still pretty thick it seemed more bearable in the morning.\u00a0 Life blossomed everywhere!\u00a0 I do not know what I ate for breakfast\u2014what it was called […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/99"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amber.schlomer.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}