It can rain here in Yantai. I mean, downpour for hours. I got caught in the rain Friday after our test and got soaked through the bone. The first time that happened earlier in the week I got a little sniffle/cold that lasted a day or two. Luckily this time no such thing occurred.
Today is a bright and sunny day so I decided I’d go to the beach and work on my tan. It really is a pleasant beach contrary to what people have tried to tell us. I also met a recent Yantai graduate and his friend and conversed with him for a while. They wanted to take a picture with me, so I did. Funny really, haven’t had that many people come up to me and ask to take a picture with me before. It’s kinda like being a mini celebrity.
Yesterday I spent nearly the entire day in the room either sleeping or reading. For dinner we went to the University restaurant and made dumplings. I’ve made them before so mine didn’t look quite as sorry as some of the other kids, but you could tell some people were really into cooking (since theirs ended up looking like what it was supposed to look like instead of blobs). We also had a giant cake because it’s Adam’s birthday today. He’s 21 and planning on writing his essay. There really is no fun in turning 21 overseas.
For the Forth of July we went to one of the two bars downtown called Babyface. It was different and once you got used to the pulsing music and darkness/flashing lights, it was a lot of fun. We danced a whole bunch and made a few new friends. There was another group of foreigners there and as we were leaving we were talking to one of the guys who happened to be British. He said that they were from all over (America, England, Russia, Finland) studying Kungfu. One girl wacked him with a glow stick when he said he was from England (the poor guy was so confused) and then proceeded to lecture us on how we shouldn’t flirt with “national enemies who taxed us without representation” on our day of Independence. We then proceeded to sing the National Anthem as we walked back to the dorm. It was amusing to say the least.
The most irritating thing about Yantai would be the multitude of mosquitoes in our room at night. We can kill four each night and still miss two or three. Everyone is has tons of bits; they like my arms for some reason. I’m not sure how they get in since our window screen is always closed.
My apartment in Beijing didn’t have any mosquitoes nor a roommate. Now I have both. I like my roommate a lot. Her name is Gamble (and that’s her legal name) and she’s one of those adventure types who’s been all over Cambodia, Indonesia, and China. Probably some other places I’m forgetting. We get along quite well with the biggest difference between us being our sleeping schedules, but it doesn’t bother us. I easily sleep through her up through the entire night, and she sleeps through me being up around 7am in the mornings. But otherwise we have fun together.
Not much else to report currently, other than I’ve begun to dream in Chinese about half the time. It’s weird and vaguely frustrating since I know the Chinese isn’t always right and I’ll try to fix it in my head while I’m dreaming. Very bizarre and awkward to do.
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