Nini, Yingying...one of them is a Panda...

Ni hao!

Today me and Noora set out for downtown Beijing, but first we were told we had to do preschool with the kids. One of the supervisors told us it was no big deal, no need to teach them since it was a friday, just let them play. The only problem was there was 8 kids, and two of us. Do the math and thats four kids a person.

There were six boys and two girls. The second the nannies left the girls proceeded to BAWL their eyes out, and the boys made use of the time by hitting each other and throwing things. Awesome. Preschool was only 45 minutes and it was pretty fun...and messy. To keep them from smacking each other we let the boys play with the chalk, needless to say, everything got drawn on. One kid had a 2l Sprite bottle and proceeded to collect as much chalk as he could and shove it into the bottle. Weirdo. I finally managed to keep one of the girls from crying by blowing bubbles in her direction. She got a kick out of popping with her hands...until some other kid got jealous and smacked her in the face for stealing his bubbles. She started to cry and I scooped her up. She nuzzled into my neck making little owl noises until she decided that it wasn't all the bad and went back to play with the bubbles. Meanwhile, the other 5 boys decided that pouring out the bubble mix was way more fun than blowing bubbles. Once they all left we had to spend just as much time cleaning as we did playing.

After that the driver picked us up and we were off to downtown Beijing!

I nearly pissed my pants about 80 times on the way as we swerved in and out of oncoming traffic, without seatbelts. We arrived alive and made our way through the forbidden city. Even though there were a handful of western tourists, the majority of the locals had a field day staring at us.



I have about a jillion photos that look just like this. See the smog? Blech!



I took a picture of this dude because he looked cool.



It's me! Trying not to fall into the river.



Forbidden City




A badass tree




Some locals, chillin



A turtle with a dragon head
Yup


We exited the Forbidden City and I could see Tianamen square across the street. Most streets are so busy in Beijing that you cant physically walk across them. Instead you find these creepy underground pathways that are cramped and dark.



Here is a amazingly interesting video of everything I just described A small dark space underground used for walking. Oh also, the dude in front of me was a soldier, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE! UNDER UMBRELLAS, IN GLASS CUBES! DRESSING THE SAME AND WALKING IN LINE! Awesome.


To be honest, Tianamen was pretty uneventful. I don't exactly know what I was expecting, other than a giant ass square. I think the fact that it was 80 billion degrees and smoggy as all hell didn't help.

We tried to enter the hall where Chairman Mao lays in carbonite, but it had already closed. Damn.

I also got to try out my phenomenol Pimsleur Chinese on some of the locals as we looked for the KFC where our driver was meeting us. I managed to say to them (in Mandarin) Excuse me, may I ask you, where is the kentucky fried chicken located?
Also awesome.

After locating KFC, and our driver, we ventured over to a place one of our supervisors said was an awesome marketplace.A Except that it wasnt a marketplace. Instead, we walked around a stretch of street with shops specifically catering to rich western tourists. We ran by Cartier and Chanel and managed to find a weird little backalley selling all types of wonderfully terrible things!



First we saw a ton of food vendors. I SAW A CORN ON THE COB STAND!
That woman was right, I wrote it terribly.



This dude was selling scorpions and seahorsies on sticks. I bet people don't even eat these and it's just western people like me to take pictures of and go "ZOMGZ LOOK AT THIS! CHINA EATS SEAHORSIES!" A woman here speculates that only men eat them to make themselves more manly *shrugs*



These were all glazed fruit sticks. The strawberrys in the front are courtesy of a young street vendor who demanded to see the photo and then gave me thumbs up.




After the food was a marketplace. I bargained for a Mao watch, each second that passes Mao waves his hand. The woman wanted 200 for it, but I talked her down to 55 (9 bucks). I know that sounds good, but I feel like I could have gotten it for less.

The bartering here is hilarious. You walk up and appear mildly interested in a product. They show you the outlandish price. You shake your head and demand less. They smile and say "Only for you good friend, a deal" and knock down the price by 10 rmb. You demand your price and they are shocked that you would ask for that much. Don't you know they're selling high quality goods? After much dileberating you walk away and then they RUN after you saying YES YES 20 RMB YES YES! then give you what you want.

The woman was trying to convince me to buy two watches.
You never know when you'll need another.



These are what the stalls looked like.

At the end we ran into this:



It's a Taito Arcade!
Taito is a smaller video game company (not like Nintendo or Sony) who got bought out by mega JRPG people Squeenix. Best known for Bubble Bobble



Here's the one photo I got before the man with the giant orange card told me not to take anymore pictures. He couldn't stop me from videotaping this dude though.



I know the video looks kind of normal. Just some dude playing DDR. Except that he's not playing! HE'S DANCING TO NOTHING!
NOTHING!
weirdo.

After that I went to the OFFICIAL OLYMPIC STORE. Except that it isn't, because I've seen about 10 since I've been here. There was another OFFICIAL OLYMPIC STORE on the other side of the street.

They sell a bunch of useless olympic crap

Like this crystal plate that is impossible to eat of off!



Or thes weird crystal figures!





Closeup of the Panda



Here are the five weirdo mascots in all their glory. The yellow one is Yingying, the green is Nini I think...wait, all of that might be wrong. I know that there are two girls (the blue and green) and three boys (one is a panda).

Meanwhile, the only thing worth buying:



ISNT THIS SO COOL?!
IT WAS ONLY LIKE, 25 BUCKS!
The only reason I didn't buy it was because it was too big.

Instead, I bought this:



It says: Hello! I am Nini! Then something else.

Tomorrow I leave super early for downtown, will update!