A New Home

This was to be my bittersweet, final breakfast with Baba and Mama. Wanton dumplings in broth and huajuan, obviously. I took my time getting ready for school. I packed my bags and set them by the door. Baba wanted me to come back to lunch one last time, thus I could take my stuff then. I brought all my dirty laundry to wash at IES and so I wouldn't have more to carry later. I threw my clothes in the wash then, it turned out, we'd be having a check-in with Jeremiah at 10:30 so I got time to kill and got a lot of writing done. At 'class,' Jeremiah and IES director Brian talked to us about our final few days and thanked us for an awesome time.

By 11:30 we were done so I returned home to get more time with the family. Baba began to cook, and this time I joined him in the kitchen to see him at work. He's a pretty good cook if I've ever met one. He whips things up so quickly and does a nice job of cutting vegetables as well. He's probably been doing this for years. Baba and I ate right away. This soup of cooked melon slices and fatty meat, fried chives and the gross sweet pepperoni (the pepperoni still had an odd taste - like an expired, sweet taste), and huajuan for myself. 

Lunch ended and the TV came on as per usual. Baba kept nodding off to sleep but when he wasn't snoozing, he'd be checking out the window to see if Mama was on her way back I assumed. I was supposed to check in at the dormitory at 1:00 and that's when Mama finally arrived. I decided that I wouldn't hurry off but rather stay and spend more time with them. However, this spending time ended up being no speaking in front of the television for another hour before I called it quits. I asked for one last group photo then they escorted me all the way to the elevator. I'll really miss these guys. I truly hope to return and stay with them, but with better Chinese speaking capability. 

The weather was awful today. The smog made it difficult to breathe and unfortunately I'd gotten used to semi-clear weather from the past few days. Now it was so bad that you could look directly at the sun like it was the moon. 

I got into my room and ended up rooming with another Ole. I was the substitution for his Chinese roommate that left for home. I had to change the sheets and tidy up then I moved all my clothes into the drawer and closet. Next, I brought my laundry to hang on ropes the old roommate left up. 

After I got settled, two other classmates and I went off to do a religious site tour in the city. This was one of the tours we had to design for class. The first site was the Catholic church. It's location was odd, being across from a huge shopping plaza and between two towering apartment buildings. It was a quaint, gothic cathedral with well-kept grounds. Next, we had to visit the Lama temple and Confucian temple but they closed by the time we got to them.  

We returned then went to dinner behind East BeiWai, the restaurant capital of the neighborhood. We  sat in at a kitchen-sized place with a closet-sized kitchen. Truly off the main drag. I got this egg and tomato noodle soup. It was pretty good but I was hoping for some fried noodles, I'll have to return here for them. We headed back and joined a few of our guys playing hackey-sack under a streetlight. When more people came, we headed over to Helen's. It's a place almost exactly like PBD, with American music and a log cabin feel. They serve American breakfasts and meals like lasagna and burgers for a relatively cheap price. I was there for a while until the friends I was with decided to go out on the town. I headed back to the dorm for my first night sleep there.