Holiday Week!

Right. So remember on my last post, I said something about a busy week school-wise? Yeah, I had no idea. I think all of the teachers were trying to get as far in their lessons as they could before the break, which meant not 4 (like I originally thought) but 6 dictation quizzes along with a bit more homework than usual. Upside? We watched Mulan in my class at BeiDa. Unfortunately it wasn't in Chinese, but we did have a sing-along to "Be A Man". I also am now able to debate in Chinese about whether or not an adopted child should try to find his/her real parents. One of the lessons was on this subject, so as homework, she divided up the class into two groups and made us debate the issue. It was rather interesting to hear the arguments my classmates brought up for both sides, and to find out at the end what each person really thought about the issue.

After a crazy week filled with schoolwork, you would think I'd relax for a day, right? Nope. I went to KTV with my classmates and had a blast. KTV is the local karaoke place, and after midnight all their beverages are free, plus the rate is a lot cheaper. Guess when we went? If you guessed late Friday night/early Saturday morning, you have the satisfaction of knowing you are right. After that, I relaxed for most of the rest of the weekend.

Monday morning rolled around, and we were off to Chengde! We stayed there till Wednesday, and spent our time visiting the Putuo Temple (known for its Han-Tibetan Buddhism architecture), the Mountain Resort (a summer getaway for the emperor), and the Puning Temple (house of the largest wooden carved Buddha). We ended up staying at a hotel that was quite literally connected with the Puning Temple area. On the way to Chengde, we stopped at the Great Wall for a few hours to explore. All in all, the trip was a lot of fun, and I have some great pictures I can't wait to share with you! Really, after I post this, I'm going through all my pictures and picking out the ones I want to post, then probably posting them either today or tomorrow. I'm gonna guess I'll post them tomorrow, because there are a lot of pictures to go though. Somewhere around 500, I think.

The rest of the week I spent exploring some of the area with Pla and Rachel. We went to the Beijing Zoo Market again, and visited a nearby market that's located under ground (pretty cool, actually), and stopped by all of our favorite restaurants. We also played a lot of card games with our cool new souvenir cards from the Mountain Resort (5 decks for 28 RMB - wasn't passing that one up).

Overall it's been a great holiday week! The reason I had a week-long vacation is because October 1st is "National Day", and everyone gets a week-long vacation to celebrate. I'm not complaining! :)