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I have been soo busy in the past week and have soo so much to tell you, but first i'm going to start of with today...today was a great day!
actually i'll start with last night, a big group of us went and did karaoke. we 'rented' a room for two hours and sang our hearts out to n'sync, the beetles, total eclipse of the heart, lola, chinese pop music, brittney spears...you know, basically anything you could imagine. I definately woke up this morning with a hoarse voice. some of the students brought their tutors with them to karaoke and they did karaoke with us. One of the tutors has been given the name 'Neon' (and more recently, Neon Glow) by her student. She loves it, and if you ask her what her name is (Ni jiao shenme mingze?) she replies Neon! N-E-O-N, Neon! Shes really cute and energetic, she helped us use the karaoke machine/electronic screen to choose songs seeing as it was all in chinese.
This morning (saturday) we went to the Qingdao Beer factory. Qingdao Beer is pretty famous, and the Qingdao brewery was the first in china. We got to go on a tour of the factory/museum and then got to drink the beer for free (at 11am). We also got to try 'beer nuts' and I got my picture on a Qingdao beer bottle! After going to the beer factory a group of us decided to stay in the area for lunch and shopping. we went to Tae Dong, which is a huge shopping street. It is a street where cars don't drive and there are stores everywhere. I didn't get anything but just looked around and took everything in. afterwards me and two other girls went to the beach. It was a beutiful hot day (one of the only ones so far, we've actually be quite lucky, its always nice on the weekends and really cloudy and windy and cool durign the week). We stayed at the beech for a few hours (just relaxed, napped...) We didn't have our swim suits with us, but I think we're goining to go back tomorrow. There is tons and tons of seeweed on the beach, but this seaweed isn't like anything i've ever seen before. its bright green (sortof looks like the cookie monster shedded everywhere) and is in piles along the beech and in the rocks. there was a tractor on the beach picking it up and people 'raking' it into piles, but it didn't really make a difference. The water was sortof cool, but definatley swimmable. The bright green seaweed was in the water, but for some reason, there was a clear area where people were swimming, mind you, this area was surrounded by green goop and by the end of the day the greenness was starting to enclose the clear area, creeping in closer and closer. At the beach there are brides everywhere! I don't think this is something I can explain or even pictures can describe. its like nothing you've ever seen, theree are brides scattered throughotu the beach and on the rocks getting their pictures taken (its as if they are seals scattered on the rocks by the sea, there are sooo many). They are all dressed up, but most where sneakers/walkable shoes and are followed by a camera guy and a few others who assist by holding out their extensive veils so they fly perfectly in the wind. These brides climb rocks, walk out on the rock path/pier towards the ocean...to pose for pictures. its funny, we see some of them coming back when their done lifting up their dresses to walk and they will be wearing jeans and sneakers underneath...I'm not sure if they actually got married that day and then go to the beach for pictures, or how it works...but its pretty entertaining. When at the shopping street earlier there were rows and rows of stalls/stations where i guess they can presumably plan their wedding pictures...(and weddings? i'm not sure).
Yesterday was also great day for meiguoren sightings...(meiguoren means american)...wherever we went people stared took pictures asked to pose for pictures with us...It all started at in the morning at the beer factory. We had just sat down at a long table after the tour and were waiting to try the beer (they brought us cups and pitchers), a chinese lady was sitting next to me and a chinese man diagonally across from me. He started to take picture(s) of 'supposedly' just the lady next to me, but was obviously taking a picture of me, or me with her. The lady then got up and someone else sat down next to me..adn guess what, he started taking more pictures. So I decided to get in on the fun instead of having them slyly, or not so slyly, take pictures of me. I posed with them, held up peace signs...I think at least five people took turns sitting next to me. Once they were done they moved to the other side of the table and took turns posing with one of the guys from our trip. Throughout the day I would see people taking pictures of us...I guess we are sortof like celebrities. Later on when I went to the beach with two girls we were walking down to the beach and a group of young girls (maybe our age) were looking at us...and finally got the courage to ask for a picture...so of course we posed, peace signs and all. While we were posing with them a group of chinese guys came down the stairs and got excited and started taking our pictures, so we had to pose with them aswell. I'm sure we could've stayed there for at least 10 minutes as they took more and more picutres of us (each of them pulling out their camera phones...) But we had to move on so we quickly walked down. While on teh beach numerous people came up to us asking if we were meiguoren? (american) and took picutres of us, or pretended to take pictures of their friends right in front of us...but o so obviously just snapping photos of us. Another funny thing is when they come up to us and aske where we're from adn we tell them we are american they then asked the asian girl who was with us (from the trip) if she was chinese and when she answered no, she is american they can't believe it. It is as if its not possible for her to be asian and from america, thye say...but you look so chinese! (this happened every time someone would come up to us) Later in the afternoon on the beach when we were all sortof napping on the blanket a group of 3 guys adn 1 girl (maybe in their mid 20s) came up to us (yes all of our heads were down, relaxing...) and started asking if we were american. They asked for a picture, so of course we have to say yes...the girl lied down next to us on our blanket and posed for numerous pictures. They must've taken pictures for a good 5-10minutes with numerous different cameras. Then, one of the guys (i think he was older) asked to get in the picture, ok, that's fine, but I wasn't expecting him to lie down right next to me. They proceded to take more and more pictures with us - the three of us flanked by the two of them on our blanket. I just had to have them take one with my camera, I figured it would only be fair right? They stayed for a while until we sortof started to get up and plan to leave teh beach for the day. We were getting our things together and the girl was still standing a few feet away from us, just sortof watching...and as we were getting up she came over again and asked for a picture with me. Her boyfriend took a picture of teh two of us...and finally they left. Walking up from the beach we got a few more pictures, and by now I just get a kcik out of it. when I see someone trying to be secretive and snapping a picture of us I just wave and give peace signs and say 'Nihao!'. They always get really excited and say 'heloo helloo'. its funny.
After the beach we went back to tae dong because at night (starting at 5:30) there is a night market. They set up stalls selling shoes, jade jewlry, buddhas, towels, sheets, lighters, clothes, corn on a stick, mellon on a stick...Before the night market we went out to dinner, I decided I wanted to try something well, uhh, interesting. They serve barbequed (?) skewers with basically anything you could think of on them. I've had the chicken and lamb adn beef and eggplant (also the chicken hearts), and we thought we saw on the menu beef heart..so I said why not order it I'm in china and may never get the chance to try somethign like that again. we ordered a few skewers of it and when it came we had no idea what it was. It was white, cut into squares and on the skewers. The texture was sortof chewy...but its hard to explain...I have no idea what it was I was eating, but it was on a skewer barbequed with spices and sauces...and I ate it. we then went to the night market and stayed till about 10. It was so crowded, we always had to make sure we stuck together...I bought some jade jewlry (a buddha necklace!) we wandered around for a while, had taro soft-serve ice cream and just enjoyed milling about the nightmarket. After the night market we decided to walk down Pi Jiou Jie (beer street) where the beer factory is. It is all lit up and the streets are ligned with restaurants (with outdoor seating). When we walked by the people sitting at the restaurants of cours stopped eating and looked at us, maybe shouted a few helloos or meiguoren?. It was fun to wander down the street, I think we are definately going to go back one night and have dinner and stick areoudn that area for a while. They sell 'beer in a bag', we didn't see where you get it from, but we saw a lady walk into the restaurante where we ate dinner with a bag of beer. it is literally a plastic bag (like a shopping bag) of beer and she just poured it into cups at the restaurant.
I have a lot to study, we now have dictations every day (where the teacher says a word and we have to write the character...) so I have to go study. but love love all around and I definately need to write about this past week, I have so much more to tell you all!

xoxo
ZaiJian!

ps.I ate dragon fruit today and it was really yummy! Its bright pink on the outside and on the inside white with little black seeds (like kiwi seeds). It sortof tastes like a mild kiwi, it was really good. Two of the girls bought the dragon fruit, some mangoes, yellow watermelon, and lichi from the supermarket and we all cut it up and sat on the roof of the dorm and ate it in the sun! yum yum juicy mango (lily-it reminded me of when we ate that mango on the kitchen floor like savages...mango juice dripping down our chins..yes I had some mango juice drippage today and it was o so tasty!)

xoxo