Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Daily Life in Beijing





Everyone has been asking me a lit of questions about what daily life is like here so I figured I would post up some pictures of the apartment. We live in Dong Si, which is a fairly central part of China. Our apartment is fairly nice, and very convenient. There are three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living/dining room, and a kitchen. There are also two sun porches. One is for hanging laundry and the other is for food preparation and storage. The bathroom also has the laundry machine and the shower is over the sink. There's no shower stall or tub, just a drain in the floor.

The last couple of days have been spent exploring the city. We went to Silk Road which is this huge building with lots of stalls that sell everything and you can bargain for the prices. Everything is pretty much a knock-off, but the whole thing is kind or cool. Some of the other kids bought some stuff, but it was fun to walk around. My host mother walked me to the subway stop so I would know where it was. The subway is extremely convenient and allows me to go pretty much everywhere. The day after I went to Wang Fu Jin Street with a friend. The street is essentially the equivalent of Newbury Street or Fifth Avenue. We walked around a bit, went to the international bookstore, and then went to a cafe to have baozi. They had some good vegetarian ones which I enjoyed.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve which is a really big deal. We'll feast in the evening and then stay up all night watching the New Year's special on TV and then watching the fireworks at midnight. The next day we are going to a hotel for the night so we can swim and play sports. My host father told me last night that the night after we might go see a performance of Swan Lake.

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