晚睡， 早起 （Sleep Late, Wake Up Early)

My plan was the post every Sunday, but alas, I missed last Sunday. I was still much too tired from climbing the Great Wall on Saturday. Our second excursion involved an overnight stay at the Great Wall and getting up at 2 am so we could climb the Wall at 3 am.

View from the patio outside our hotel:

We had hoped to see the sunrise, but it was too foggy to see anything. Still, it made for good photos. :P


I'm getting used to all the work we have to do. It's basically just homework, preview next lesson's grammar, and prepare for 听写 (quiz) every night. It's not too bad... the difficult part is remembering all the new characters because we learn about fifty new ones every night.

We always have some sort of activity on Wednesdays that we have to summarize into a 报告 (report) and recite for our oral exams on Fridays. So far we've interviewed 首师大 (Capital Normal University) students and bargained at a flea market. Tomorrow we're going to the park at 6 am to interview locals. Oy. And we still have class at 8 am tomorrow. xP

I'm really enjoying my time here. The only thing that isn't great are my hour long sessions every day with my language partner. It's just somewhat awkward talking to her because she speaks to me very s l o w l y and tries to use words she knows I'll understand so we end up having almost nothing to talk about. I've been told we can switch language partners, but that seems like a hassle. I guess I'll just talk to talk to my language partner and ask her to speak normally to me.

Also, I'm in love with pejoy. It's like Pocky, but there's filling on the inside as opposed to a coating. I'm not sure if they have this in America. It's soo good. Mmmm.