The first and second days

  Beijing, China
Thursday, February 5, 2009

First Day
Word of the Day: jiayou --I think this is an awesome word to start off my experience in China, because it means "do your best", and is used almost the same way that we use "good luck" in English. For those of you familiar with Japanese, it's equivalent to "ganbatte". It literally means "add oil". I have no idea how it got to it's current use.

My second flight was delayed for a couple of hours in Korea. I slept on the seats by the gate and waited for the plane to arrive. On both flights, the food was better than I expected, probably because I only ate the Asian options. Apparently, Asian airplane food isn't as bad as American airplane food. When I finally got to the hostel, I was a wee bit wacky, but not totally exhausted, thankfully, because I slept on the plane. Caitlin and I went out and walked around so that I could stretch after the plane and taxi rides, and so I could stay awake until a reasonable time to sleep. We went to see a small lake that was a short bus ride from the hostel. It was frozen solid, except for the part where some men in a boat were breaking the ice, which resulted in some bad jokes. We ate some delicious buns from a street stall and I went to bed at eight, because I had promised myself that I would stay up at least that late.

Second Day:
Word of the Day:  nali? --Where? because we spent a lot of time looking for things and asking where things were. "Nali" is also the polite reply to a compliment in Chinese. There is a famous joke among English-speakers studying Chinese and Chinese-speakers studying English, which goes something like this: An ambassador from China and an ambassador from America and their wives were eating lunch together. The American ambassador said to the Chinese ambassador, "Your wife is very beautiful." The Chinese ambassador (translating literally) replied "Where?" The American ambassador, not understanding the reference, said "Well, everywhere."

Caitlin and I went first to TianTan Park and then to the Olympic Park (see the tons of pictures in the picture folder). For lunch, we ate lamb skewers at a nice Uighur restaurant. They were so good that we got some more at a street stall on the way back to the hostel. While we were waiting for the skewers to cook, an older man who was also waiting for skewers chatted with Caitlin in Chinese. When he got his skewers, he gave Caitlin one, and said "I love you", the only English he used in the whole conversation. He was very sweet and friendly. The exchange made Caitlin and me comment on how much we love Beijing and China in general. After we made some plans for the next few days, and I worked on this blog, we went out and got some noodles at a restaurant near the hostel. So much cheap, good food everywhere. I am definitely going to have price-shock when I get back to the U. S.