4th of July!

We definitely celebrated the 4th of July in style this year. We had planned to cook hamburgers on the beach, but thanks to the rain, we ended up renting out a restaurant close to our dorms and cooking "hotdogs" that were really just potted meat in a little tube. It's about as close to a real American hotdog as you'll get in China. After eating, we shot fireworks and went out. Here are some pictures (I'll put up dinner and firework pictures later):

A regular day in China

I thought it might be interesting to let everyone know what a regular day over here is like. I have class every morning from 8:30 to 12:00. After class, we normally eat at 黄河湾特色小吃 (Yellow River Bay Restaurant). Then I come back to the dorm and study/mess around on the internet. I meet my study partner 马雪芬 (Ma Xuefen) every afternoon at 5:30. Then I eat and go back to my dorm. Some afternoons, our class has an activity: if we are learning about hospitals we go to a hospital; if we're learning about education, we go to a school; etc. I've included some pictures of what a normal lesson looks like, what a page of my notebook looks like, and the huge mildew spot in our dorm room.

Scorpions in the fog

Qingdao's been pretty foggy the last few days. It's really nice outside today, though; it's cool and there's a nice breeze. We went to the world-famous Qingdao Brewery yesterday morning and toured, so that was pretty interesting. Afterward, we went to a culture square and looked at some paintings and stuff that we will probably go back and buy sooner or later. I'm spending too much money on random stuff, but I have to remind myself that there are seven Chinese yuan to every American dollar. That's changing fast though; in the two weeks that I've been here, the exchange rate has fallen from 6.93 yuan per dollar to 6.87 yuan per dollar. China is certainly growing.

It's not growing out of its old, sometime unsettling habits, though. We tried scorpions the other day. Here are some pictures from that:

More Pictures

I have some more pictures. Obvicopter. We went to Laoshan Mountain last Saturday and it was fun. It was a lot of walking, though. Here they are. We won't fool with captions this time; just use your imagination.

Captions for the pictures

I tried to do this yesterday, but I couldn't get the captions to go in the right place. This is to prove that the computer is not smarter than me.

Picture 1: Guanhai Mountain Park. It was nice.
Picture 2: A squid. Yes, we ate it (after it was cooked).
Picture 3: Me being introspective while looking out to see. That's some big Qingdao buildings in the background.
Picture 4: A group eating at Laduzi Fanguanr (Diarrhea Restaurant). I haven't gotten sick yet, but it's only a matter of time. Oh well, it's cheap.
Picture 5: Our class at the beach.
Picture 6: Qingdao buildings.
Picture 7: Beijing airport. It's the dragon terminal "rargest terminar in word"
Picture 8: Some ice we saw while we were flying over some sea near Canada.

As you can see, Qingdao is pretty. The people are nice, and they talk funny. Yay China.

It's Friday afternoon. I'm finished with my first week of class, and I'm still alive. Time for a fun night.

Matthew

Pictures...finally

Traffic

Traffic in Qingdao is ridiculous. Lanes are apparently a fluid concept here, as taxi drivers casually speed down the wrong side of the road and bus drivers swerve between cars and pedestrians alike. It makes driving an adventure, though, so I guess I shouldn't complain.

We went to Jimo Road today for some bargaining and I got some good deals. One in particular was a new wallet that I paid 30 yuan for (about 4 American dollars). I was sure it was fake, but when I took to the actually Salvatore Ferragamo store in Crowne Plaza, they said they definitely think it's real. And if it's not, they can't tell. So I saved about 5 hundred American dollars on that deal.

Anyway, pictures later tonight hopefully. Until then,

Matthew
马舒凯