I felt a bit of culture shock and was pretty miserable until I went out of my bubble/dorm room and went on an adventure exploring some of the nicer parts of Beijing today. Instead of blabbing on, I'm just going to compile a list of what I did...

-Figured out how to use the subway system
-Ate McDonald's
-Walked A LOT
-Having fun talking to locals in broken Mandarin and using the excuse that I'm a GuangDong ren (Cantonese)

The people here are really nice if they know you're a foreigner (but it can be bad if you're haggling). It's kind of frustrating sometimes. I look Chinese so the people here expect fluent Mandarin out of me. When I look at them with my blank "huh?" face because wo bu dong (I don't understand), they get impatient. Most of the people in the area around Beijing Normal University (Bei shi da, short for Bei jing shi fan da xue) or maybe just Beijing in general talk really fast and have a really strong accent--they add "ar" to everything. But I did get one compliment from a local, she said my Chinese was pretty good for a foreigner. Yay! I'm not that much of a noob after all.

I miss you people (sometimes) :D, so please comment and let me know how you're doing and/or ask questions about my experiences/the weather in Beijing/if I'm getting traveller's diarrhea/etc.