So this is love...

(My roommate, Katie, at the Silk Market)
I'm absolutely falling in great like, possibly even love, with this city! The more I see and the more I explore, the more I like it. This weekend I had the opportunity to see various different areas around Beijing and further experience life here...SOOO much fun!!!

On Friday, my roommate and I met up with a friend of hers, Lenny, who has been living in Beijing for the last 7 months and working in the broadcasting sector for the Olympics. Being here several months, he's made many, many friends that we had the opportunity to meet. It was really enjoyable hanging out with "locals" (although none of them were actually Chinese, they had all lived here in excess of 4 years). It's a completely different dynamic from trying to figure out the city alone. My roommate, Katie, and I got to sit back and actually enjoy ourselves without having to put energy into translation and reading maps and such. All of Lenny's friends were really laid back and fun; and even better they were all soccer players!!! One of them even used to play for Manchester United for 4 years until he got injured...be still my beating heart...JUST KIDDING. But really you know how I love soccer players!

This was the weekend for meeting cool people. On Saturday while hanging around outside of our dorm, Katie, Tony (another friend), and I met this cool French Canadian guy named Yan. It is hard to find fluent or anywhere near fluent English speakers here in my dorm or in Wudaokou, the surrounding neighborhood. So we were all pleasantly surprised to discover Yan spoke English fluently and was from our neck of the woods, relatively speaking. The four of us hung out the rest of the day, getting to know each other, and discussing East vs. West. It was relaxed and natural and a breath of fresh air.

Katie and Tony decided we should show Yan around some of the attractions of the city on Sunday, since he had only been here 2 days. After discussion, we decided we would take him to Wangfujing to the Night Market. For those of you who don't know, this is the infamous street in Beijing where tourists go to eat all kinds of odd and disturbing foods, such as starfish, seahorse, honey bees, silk worms, sea urchin, scorpions, pretty much anything you can think of. However, upon arriving there, much to our dismay, the Night Market was closed for the Moon Cake Festival (an odd holiday in which Chinese people thank the moon by eating little sweets called moon cakes. It dates back to ancient China.) Luckily, Wangfujing is also the number one place for Western shopping. So instead of eating deep fried scorpion dipped in soy sauce, we decided to window shop.

Window shopping led to the desire to actually shop, and the four of us soon decided we would go to the Silk Market and see what kind of deals we could get. [Sidenote: The Silk Market is another infamous attraction in Beijing where thousands upon thousands of knock-off designer clothing, purses, shoes, etc. are sold. The price depends upon your bargaining skills. It's a typical Beijing experience that any visitor to the city must take part in.] It is safe to say, we didn't quite know what we were getting ourselves into. We arrived at the Silk Market, walked in the doors, and immediately the Chinese salespersons were upon us. Every stall had people calling out to us in English to come, look, and buy. These people are good. You haven't even seen salesman/woman until you've come into contact with these people. They shouted all kind of things, like "Sister, come try this clothing! This jacket made just for you; look perfect for you. I give you special bargain cause you speak Chinese." and a million other things all the while reaching out and grabbing us and shoving articles of clothing in front of our faces. Once you actually entered the stall, it was another experience. The salespeople ask for ridiculously high prices, and you're supposed to barter with them. But these salespeople aren't just salespeople, they could also be professional actors/actresses. I saw some of the most convincing surprised and offended faces from them when hearing offering prices from their prey (that was us); I even saw actual tears from one saleswoman. I can't fully explain it without you actually living it. It was a whirlwind. It was, at first, quite intimidating. But after awhile, quite fun. By the end of our shopping experience, we loved the place. Katie and I are already planning a trip back. And that was pretty much the day. The Silk Market wore us all out so we came back to Wudaokou, went to our favorite pizza place (yes, pizza in Beijing), and hit the hay. And that's actually what I'm gonna do right now. I hope this post finds you well. God Bless!!!

It's All About Him,

Kendall