but!

china isnt all koreans and good eats.

this is one of the non korean girls in my class.

and this. is a beetle that came freeze-dried in my fangbian mian (ramen noodles, roughly).

[read,] eat, sleep

on weekends i usually visit with at least one aunt. two weekends ago i was at qing gugu's. we made steamed dumplings. which i dare say are better than the fried ones i love so dearly at home. and! deep-fried, meat-filled eggplant. pure genius.

this isnt me. this is katie. the korean roommate. she is passed out from too much studying. id imagine i look like this too. only i pass out from too much eating. and my gut probably shows.

it is friday night. im meeting up with the korean girls from my class in a while. they love yelling my names at me. both english and chinese. and then having me repeat the korean words theyve taught me. but in the meantime. im in my room with just one korean. watching her talk on the phone. and trying to pretend that im not actually taking pictures of her with my phone.

ive been eating a lot. maybe youll see pictures of this soon, too.

all of the girls in my class, minus the thirty year old swiss, went out to dinner on wednesday night. thirteen of us piled into three cabs that took us cross town. we went to a small sandwich place that was ridiculously overpriced--30rmb for a sandwich (about 3.75usd). service was slow as they werent really equipped to fill 13 sandwich orders all at once--about two sandwiches came out every ten minutes. but our extended meal was nice.

there were five yidali ren (italians), five hanguo ren (koreans), two riben ren (japanese), and me (meiguo ren). we spoke to eachother in bad chinese and better italian, korean, japanese and english.

revised addresss

the previous address probably works. but from now on. things should probably be sent like this:

china 100089
beijing, haidian district
xisanhuan north road 83
int'l culture plaza
ellen chu 1002

BIG to small.

also! maybe youre already getting things in the mail. probably because i think youre pretty great. if not. probably because i dont have your address... whats your address?

ill send you things. i like going to the post office. i get to cross a big street. and use simple chinese.


the third ring road that i cross to get to the post office.

you are the picture!

gugu and gufu.

yesterday tong gugu and her husband (my gufu... can someone help me with all the names of the uncles?) took me to northeast beijing, a district called dashanzi. there there is a community of artists (residences, studios, galleries, coffee shops) called 798 space. it occupies an industrial area that was built by the russians in 1959. we walked around for a while. and it was really really nice. the picture above is from an installation/interactive/web piece called you are the picture. (check it out: http://people.apiece.net) it was neat. i think tong gugu liked it, too.

after wandering around for a couple of hours yesterday. by myself. on foot. by subway. and on bus. i found myself in tiananmen square.

the weather was fantastic. and i was thrown off by the number of white people when i surfaced from the subway in tiananmen square.


uniformed men in tiananmen.

jiaozi he nian gao!

today yu gugu fed teping and me LOTS. we feasted on rou wanzi (meat balls). nian gao (sticky rice noodles...). jiaozi (dumplings). hong shao rou (pork).



teping recovers from an eating coma.

family!

i have a lot of family in beijing. which has been/is really great. briefly: its mostly my dad's cousins who live here. im not exactly sure how many there are. but my experience so far this time has revolved around four aunts ('gugu') and their families. quan gugu, qing gugu, and tong gugu (all sisters), and then yu gugu.

they feed me. really well. at first when i told them 'shenme dou keyi/xihuan chi'('i can/like to eat anything'), they didnt believe me. but i think ive proved that to them in the past two weeks. most of the time i spend with them revolves around eating: someone will pick me up in the afternoon and i go sit and talk with them and snack on candy and prunes and peanuts while waiting for dinner to be served.



quan gugu with bird at qing gugu's.

68 degrees!

68 degrees came out tonight (thursday night, pvd time). ive only seen the layout digitally. BUT im pretty sure its one of the best issues to date.

there was a big party in list. apparently with pizza bites and wine. and a bunch of people that i miss like whoa.

i wish id been there.

someone send me a copy?

address!

ellen chu (1002)
int'l culture plaza
83 xisanhuan north road
haidian district, beijing
china 100089

IM BACK.

thanks to david, ive found a way to access my blog.

quickly:



i did my own laundry! in the sink! and now its drying! in the shower!