A Couple More Weeks, A Couple More Stories

Tired of scraping together meals from FaBao, the nearby grocery store, Rachel and I decided to eat dinner at WanFuJing's xiao3chi1 market.

Rachel had a special delicacy in mind, and so we walked...

and walked...
...until lo and behold, a whole rack of them appeared before our eyes!
Can you guess what they are?

Scorpions!
mmm yummy...
We decided to wash them down with some coconut - quite the meal.

A few days later, I spent a day with my father's old high school friend's son, and we visited Peking University and Tsinghua University. The first thing that I noticed about the two campuses, were that there were hordes of people everywhere! I used to think that Yale got a lots of tours groups, but after seeing Peking and Tsinghua, the influx of tourists at Yale seems like a mere trickle.


People were crowding around and fighting to be the fastest person to jump up there next to the stone to get their picture taken. It literally took us about ten minutes to get this picture (an even greater shame that my eyes are closed).





A group of us ACC students decided to go searching for the best roasted duck in town (ergo the best duck place in China since Beijing is the most famous for this specialty), and locals directed us to LiQun Roasted Duck. Al Gore and Clinton are among some famous people to have eaten at this place (pictorial proof was plastered all over the walls), and at the table next to us, a Taiwanese how-to show was filming a segment.

ACC paired us with a language partner, usually a grad student from our host university, or another university in Beijing. I didn't have that many opportunities to meet with mine, because she attended school on the west side of Beijing, while ACC was located on the east side. Here are some pictures when I finally did get a chance to meet with her and see her school.

See the really tall swing in the background? I finally convinced my language partner to try it
A typical Chinese student's dorm room (we were definitely lucky at ACC with our two to one room and in suite bathroom)
For ACC's "Explore Beijing" Day, I visited Friends of Nature, China's first NGO. Their offices were much smaller than I expected (only three rooms, instead of an actual building), and they seemed pretty low on funds. Despite the lack of funding, some of their projects were pretty impressive. They mainly concentrate on education - teaching children about protecting the environment so that when they grow up, it will be a concept that is second nature to them - and holding conferences to raise attention on certain environmental problems.

Below is a game that they play with elementary school children to teach them about nature and environmental protection.
Ms. Yan and I (I interviewed her about Friends of Nature's history, current projects, involvement with Nu Jiang's dam controvery, etc)
Dining in Beijing means getting a lot of good food for very little money, but after two months of feasting on restaurant dishes, I started craving sandwiches, salads, pasta, and cheese (just to name a "few"). A friend and I decided to make our own version of pizza...and we were too impatient, and so we just wolfed down the bread, tomato sauce, and pepper jack cheese. It was glorious. It will go down in history as "American Night."

What "American Night" is complete with Friends?
We were happy, oh yes, we were.