It is hard to believe three months have gone by and that the students are currently in flight on their way home. It has been an amazing semester filled with food, fun, more food, more fun, and even more food and fun! Our final banquet last night was representative of the last few months. We ordered a bit too much food (read: waaaay too much food) and hilarity ensued. For the entire last half of the meal we were playing a variety of games, the loser helping finish the food on the table. We all started by eating a dumpling or two when we lost, switching to a tiny piece of lettuce by the end of the evening.

It has been inspiring to watch the students simultaneously work so diligently, learn so much and laugh so hard. YangYang and LiangLiang: You should be proud of how much you have accomplished this semester—we certainly are!

The end is near! Its been 3 long months in Beijing but I’ve enjoyed my time here and everything I learned. 3 full forms, a ton much more Chinese than I expected to learn before I came, and a lot more in between. Although the city of Beijing is a city and therefore doesn’t appeal to me very much (I am not a big fan of cities), all the people I’ve met along with the things I’ve learned have made my time here great. I’m looking forward to continue expanding my knowledge on what I’ve begun to crack the surface on here.

Well it’s the last blog. In a few short days I’ll have to say goodbye to China, for now. I definitely plan on returning here for a semester abroad.

Today while wandering around panjayuan I got to experience a new meaning of the word fast food. I was walking around with a cup of instant noodles, and before I knew it the noodles had exploded up and into my face. I looked around and saw a man going the opposite way looking back, not even bothering to apologize ((but looking fairly scared.)) I was, understandably, fairly furious at this blatant display of rudeness. However, I realized there was nothing that man could do for me, so I walked over to some people who had seen the whole incident and asked if they could give me some napkins. They all reached into their purses/bags and I was flooded with napkins and people making apologies for the man ((as well as a few comments on how tall I am.)) It was a good experience to show how rude and how nice people can be.

It was also the first time my food has tried to eat me…and hopefully the last.

From Beijing for the last time,
Jesper

This evening we got to see one of the best Acrobatic shows in China. YangYang, the social butterfly, ended up befriending the only other people from Indiana in the crowd while simultaneously sitting in front of the youngest kid in the theater. (We tried to switch seats with them, and they refused!) As entertaining as it was watching YangYang try to fit his frame into a seat made for someone a foot and a half shorter, it was even more entertaining watching what can only be considered a hip river-dancing juggler, crazy contortionists, and 15 people on one bicycle. Click on the picture in this blog to see some more photos from the show!

On Monday we took a trip to Henan province to the shao lin temple and few other temples and Shao lin schools along the way, it was nice to get out of Beijing and see another part of China for a few days.

we were there for two days, the second day we went on an adventure through the beautiful and big mountains on a quest to find where the Shaolin Chanwuyi monk Master Shi de jian lives because we knew he lived somewhere in the mountains we were in. It was a good 4 hour hike along the edge of the mountain and up what seemed to be never-ending steps to get there, and when we finally got there we met one of his students who said he was meditating and no one knew for how long so we didn’t actually get to meet him, but nevertheless it was a great adventure and day and we got to see where he lives and studys/teaches.

Well it’s been an interesting week so far. I’ve spent 80% of the time sleeping (mono!), but I’ve gotten more into the routine of doing qi gong which is good. It’s a bummer that I’ve missed out on a couple of awesome things this week, but I’m definitely coming back to China at some point. And it could have been sooo much worse. Anyway, it’s just sad to see the time pass so quickly… I did go to Nanluoguxiang and spent one last hour walking up and down the busy hutong. I bought a few souvenirs and said my last goodbyes to the crazy stores of Beijing.

funny story form a while ago…we had tai ji class at ritan park one day and during our breaks one of the younger teachers, Xiao Haizi, was mimicking a monkey walking and then jumping on to a branch about 2 meters high (as tall as Jesper) and hanging upside down from it. He had done it a few times and then called over Zhang lao shi to watch. This time, he didn’t actually lock his feet around the branch so he feel upside down from the tree basically belly flopping on the pavement. he got right up but hurt his ankle and had to limp around the rest of the day and than to the bus. we didn’t see him at the classes for about a week or so after that but needless to say Zhang lao shi thought it was the funniest thing and couldn’t stop laughing, along with the rest of us.

So we had our first thunderstorm in Beijing a few days ago. Besides knocking out the wireless internet, it wasn’t so bad. In fact we got to see awesome lightning streaking across the city skyline, and that was…pretty cool. The most interesting result of the rain was the aroma it created. I was standing outside of my room, and ((thanks to a bizarre roofing job where there are two roofs above my hallway that aren’t totally overlapping…at all)) being rained on, when I noticed the aroma. The aroma was like I standing in the middle of a rain forest, not in the middle of Beijing. For a split second, my mind felt like it was back in Africa. Nothing around me made me think that, except for the aroma of rainy trees. The morning after I had a similar experience when walking to breakfast. I was walking down a hutong and hit by the undeniable whiff of Noordwijk. It felt as if I would turn the corner and see my family standing there on the beach. I believe it was because there’s a type of plant growing in that hutong that, when wet, smells exactly like the foliage in Noordwijk. Both of these experiences were…strange to say the least

so about a month ago Zhang lao shi said that hopefully we would be able to learn the whole 5-7 min. tai ji form by the time we left, and weve learned it with 3 weeks to spare! that means we get to spend the next 3 weeks really going through each movement and fixing mistakes instead of learning new movements until the end which is awesome. I had my doubts that we would be able to learn the whole thing while we were here because i didn’t actually know how long it was or how close to the end we were so I’m very happy we learned the whole thing!

Well it’s been another week. Can’t believe it really. This week started easing back into classes. Had some talks with the Fuyuyuan at the hostel and found out that Fanfan is supposedly leaving. Sad faces all around. On a sillier note, as Jake and I were heading out to dinner last night, a guy was holding up has dog and making him wave at us. The dog was almost as big as the guy. It’s been just another week in the strange city of Beijing.