two weeks down, six to go.

so last night (friday night) after work me and the girls ate in the one restaurant in the basement we hadn't been to yet. it was actually really good! it was like spicy chinese food or something like that. then we took the subway to wongfujing which is like the times square of beijing. first we went to this huge bookstore that had at least six floors. we found the imported books and ended up by the math books (nerd alert). this older guy asked us if we were math students, where we went to school, and then he asked us what 1^pi is. ummm idk? 1? he said he was some kind of engineer and really likes to study complex analysis.

after we escaped the bookstore, we wend to mcdonalds cause i was sooo thirsty. when we walked out of mcdonalds, IT WAS RAINING. it hasn't been sunny here for an entire week. constant cloud cover for a whole week! i'm going to be so white when i get home. so we walked in the rain.



we went down this road that is a night market that sells all kinds of things including strange things to eat. jasmine and britni actually ate fried scorpions. not kidding. i have it on video. the scorpions are actually alive on the stick and moving around until you say you want some and they stick them in the frier for you. AHH!! they also had fruit covered in caramelized sugar stuff. kinda like a candied apple, but the sugar isn't that thick. i got one with green grapes and it was actually pretty good.

this morning i slept until around 11 and then we took the subway to the summer palace. it wasn't raining today, but it was still supper cloudy and foggy. the summer palace is where the royalty spent time in the summer because it has this tiny island in the middle of the lake and it is supposed to be a few degrees cooler on the island. it was all hot to me. it was so nice to see some water!! i miss the beach and the lake. when you go in the front gate, you have to climb over a mountain to get to the lake. then take a ferry to the island. the mountain was covered in what seemed like buddhist temples, walls, and watchtowers. when we were waiting to take the ferry these two chinese girls asked if they could take their picture with us. aww first time that has happened! it was exciting :) after walking around inside for a while, we took this random path back over the mountain and i thought we were going to get lost! but we didn't.