Most fun part two!

Hmm this was Wednesday- as our afternoon cultural activity we went to the Chinese Capital Museum- This photo does a rather poor job of capturing how huge the museum is- it was taken while riding up a very long escalator. (Note: the word for elevator and escalator is apparently the same in Chinese(电梯= electric lift), and I've never realized how weird the English words are until I tried to explain them) I went around the pillar area exhibt a couple times, because there are multiple layers in it, but limited ways to get back to the normal exhibition area. Additionally, the escalators there only went up, some floors were inaccessible by stair, and the elevator appeared to be broken. But it was pretty neat to see some of the pottery etc, though sadly calligraphy and painting exhibits were both closed, and most of the artifacts were from the Qing dynasty (not old by Chinese standard, but old by American ones).

Pollution had returned!

Oh this is from morning run- you may note the absence of the camel building, which I now know is XiZhiMen.

We went out for Hot Pot! Yumm so many vegetables! 

And they heard I liked garlic, so here we have 2 pickled cloves, of which I was goaded into eating about 1. 

Alright, this is out of order, but I'm too lazy to fix it right now. This is funny because it is exceedingly obvious that the translation is not complete- there is no way so many Chinese characters condensed to one English sentence.. 

And the next day, no pollution!

Thursday! So after a brief directional mishap, I met 高琳 at her school, we had our usual cheap and delicious dinner, then we were off to her performance at a Chinese New Year celebration. We had almost front row seats! Look at all those fruits and what nots. People passed around the plates so everyone could try some.

Ahhh pictures why did you load in such a strange order? Anyways, this is my new favorite bread based food item. It has red bean and walnut paste in the middle. Indescribably hearty and good. 

Back to the performance! It was super packed, you may be able to see all the people standing in the back.

OK, so interspersed among the musical etc performances were these games, which were pretty funny to watch. The hosts asked for 8 girl and 8 guy volunteers, then had them pair up, all without anyone knowing what they were doing. Then the guy put on a blindfold, carried the girl, and he had to pop balloons tied to a chair while in this predicament, then pick up a pingpong ball. 

Another really funny game- 1/2 teachers, 1/2 students, they both put balloons around their ankles, separated into two teams, then havoc ensued as they tried to pop the other teams balloons while preserving theirs.

And the best part! 高琳and fellow dancer performed a traditional dance. Very graceful. After they finished we made a discrete exit so I could study for my Friday morning oral exam!

Oh my gosh how am I not done catching up yet... I'll post this weekends happenings tomorrow, got to do some homework now! Hope this find you all well!