Thursday, July 5, 2007

Qi Yue Si Ri (Fourth of July)

Happy belated Fourth of July from China! Yesterday was definitely different from a traditional American Fourth, but I had a great day nonetheless.

After classes in the morning, Scott, my roomate and I decided to treat ourselves to Pizza Hut for lunch. Pizza Hut over here is an upscale dining experience, kind of like a very trendy California Pizza Kitchen. They had real bathrooms with toilet paper and soap, a pink "We Love Our Customers" sign on the back wall, and mixed drinks on the menu. I got a cosmopolitan and it was delicious. Anyway, the three of us stuffed ourselves with pepperoni pizza, American style. Then we headed back to the dorm to catch a Chinese calligraphy class (taught in all Chinese) and Tai Chi lessons on the soccer field on campus.

After Tai Chi, I joined in a soccer game with some Chinese students and some other study abroad kids. It was a lot of fun, even though I just kind of ran around aimlessly trying to look like I was doing something while at the same time staying as far away from the ball as possible. But, I do think the little guy with the Del Piero jersey was getting annoyed at my tight "man-on-man" defense.

Then, our school put on a really nice Fourth of July barbeque for us, complete with fried rice, beef kebobs, bean curd, and roast duck. They played loud heavy metal music the whole time- I think they were trying really hard to make it "cool" for us. It was so sweet, and the food was awesome.

After dinner, our study abroad group went to Bar Street, which is aptly named because it's where most of Tianjin's nightlife is located. We took over a place called Scooters- by the time I got there a little bit later than everybody else, by which time those crazy American students had guzzled the bar's entire supply of frozen drinks. We all headed to a karaoke/ disco bar next and sang Backstreet Boys songs together. A good time was had by all.

Today has been good so far. I had lunch earlier with my first real Chinese friend. Her name is Shawna, she's an English major and is interested in traveling and shopping. Her family lives in Tianjin and she's all ready to show me around town as soon as she's done with final exams.

Well that's all for now, more later!!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

i'm sorry -- but i am DYING thinking of you playing soccer. not becuase of you, but because of your use of the term "man-on-man defense." i'll always think of Paul at lacrosse camp when i think of tough defense. :-)