my wordiest post?

sometimes i think i've had more than enough of the salty food, the starchy mian/mi fan, the grey skies & dry air and feeling friendless at times, but at other times, i know i will miss china terribly!

we just got back from yet another tiring trip on mayday... this time to inner mongolia - this northen land further north of beijing was one of the reasons why i chose to come to beijing! but then again, "near" is always relative... cos we were on the minibus for about half of the 4 day trip! exhausted from that, plus a freezing night in the monogolian hut (蒙古包), and bouncing up & down, clinging on for dear life on our galloping horses. But it was all worth it i think. the vast grassland -even without its fully-grown beauty-, the boundless desert... marvel at Creation! it makes you wonder how anyone can stand living in the boring city :P

then today we spent half a day stocking up on fruits and snacks -ie.instant food/chocs/sweets/cookies- at the market+supermarket, making Junda faint at how much crap we girls intake...(btw, why don't guys snack? they dont know what they're missing out on!) there's just so much variety here for everything to feed their 13million population. from the dirt cheap range to the gasp! 35rmb toilet paper we bought :(

at nearby wudaokou, i wanted to buy some hard-to-find english books from the di tan 地摊 again but the vendor ran away from the police before i could figure out how much to bargain down! the vendors along that narrow stretch do leave the place really cramped and littered, but it's another characteristic of china that i love! fun to wonder along and see pple browsing and bargaining =P it's actually a pretty smart move to quote a high price and bargain down if the customer can - something that's probably very appropriate for a country with a large poor-rich divide and increasing numbers of foreigners.

hmm there are still some initial awkward moments when i dont warm up to pple quickly - a characteristic i dont like that doesnt go away just because you run away to china. was almost beginning to enjoy jogging by myself, checking out the korean hairdresser by myself- haha sounds so pathetic~ 这就是孤僻的慧娴~ but i know we are made to be "people people"! enjoyed this trip prob also because we travelled in a big group - 9 exchange students and 8 others. playing silly games like we did on judo japan trip =) laughter and 互相挖苦. Thank God also for bible study... and looking forward to CS Lewis seminar this sunday and 话剧 next week! i'm not not here to watch dvds in my room :P not that we can any more, with 2 cheem-chinese assignments due next wk!