Weekend After Midterms

So last Friday I finished a set of pretty tough midterms; I was just glad to get them over. Friday night I went to this punk rock/hardcore show (concert) at this venue not far from school called "MAO Live," which probably holds about 300 people. It was was really sweet place, except that with everyone lighting up cigarettes I felt like I lost a few of years just by standing in the room for a few hours. The bands' music reminded me of some of the stuff I listen to back in America, except in Chinese. Then again, at times they were screaming so loud, even if they had been singing in English I don't think I would have understood. But overall it was cool time to see another side of Beijing.

Saturday I tried finding this open market that sells second hand stuff but ended up giving up when I couldn't find the right bus stop. Ended up in place called “国贸” （guomao), it's the part of Beijing with a lot of sweet looking buildings that house multinational companies and some embassies. I'd been there before but this time had my camera. Beijing doesn't have a skyline like Shanghai, but there are a few impressive skyscrapers. The first picture is almost-complete China World Trade Tower. Second and third pictures are of the almost-complete CCTV (Chinese government television company) Tower. This is, in my opinion, the trippiest looking thing in Beijing.
Fourth picture is just some random new building that I took a picture of from the bottom.
And the fifth picture obviously isn't a building; I took this picture just give everyone an idea of the stuff that people transport on those 3 wheel motorized bicycles that I was talking about before. They put everything on those bikes. This particular one has a lot of stuff on it, but I've still seen bigger and crazier.


One more thing: Moment of the Week

My roommate and I eating dinner together in the dining hall, I'm helping him practice his English...

Me: "How's your food, Joseph?"

Joseph: "I am spicy."


Don't worry, I corrected him. That's it for now, I suppose. It's getting to be pretty cold again (well, for me... I'm not as tough as my Montanan relatives). The highs will be in the low forties this week. This upcoming Saturday EAP is taking us on a day trip to some old village/tourist trap about forty miles outside Beijing. I'll try to post something after we do that.