3 days of free days

So the past few days have not been very eventful, or had many things worth posting about. We have had (about) 3 days of nothing to do so many of us just wandered close by campus and ate at some random places. The food has still been very good, including going to a new restaurant by the front gate and picking out some random noodle/soup dishes to eat. The one I ordered had shrimp in it, which of course included the shell, feet, head, and antenna's. The soup was still pretty good, but I mainly ate the noodles and shrimp (it had some other questionable things in it... I think fish).

Yesterday I had to get up fairly early to take my oral and written placement test to see what level Chinese i would be taking. I did very well on the oral part, and the written part was pretty complicated but I was able to understand most of what i was reading. At this point I hope to be in level 2, or possibly 2.5 which should challenge me fairly well. After that I relaxed for the day, watched a movie and some shows and walked around nearby for a little while.

Today we left from the office at 10 and went to a tea house close by, the tea house is sort of a mix between a lounge and a buffet eatery. the lounge part is that you can go and sit in a room and relax for as long as you want, the buffet part is that you pay a fixed fee per person and get to eat snack type foods. the reason its a tea house though is because after arriving you get a menu which is a few pages long and contains only tea to order, which is free (basically) and they take out the tea for everyone to try. Ashley, Alex, Robert, and I stayed until about 1:30 or 2 before heading back the the dorm, while everyone else stayed until around 4:30. After walking back in pouring rain, I went to my room and changed pants (as I had no hood or umbrella with me when we left since it wasn't raining so bad) before going to grab some food and go to the office.

That is a short version of what I have done the past few days, it has been relaxing and enjoyable to not have to do so much but also boring at the same time. I have found myself eating easily 4 or more meals a day (but still spending a max of 15USD for an entire day). I enjoy eating the simple things that are nearby, including a Korean restaurant, a Muslim, a Japanese, and of course Chinese restaurant. The Korean place has spicy food mainly, but includes some things such as tuna sushi, and other various kinds of sushi. The Muslim place serves mainly noodle dishes and runs about 10yuan per dish (1.4USD I think), this place is extremely good and fills me up very easily. The Japanese restaurant has some very expensive "western" dishes including the "super deluxe DX mega cheeseburger''.... the translations are hilarious but it is still very very good. the cheeseburgers run about 28+yuan, (4.4USD and up) which is comparatively expensive but still pretty cheap for a cheeseburger that has....(wait for it).... meat, lettuce, onions, some mayonnaise type sauce, tomatoes, green stuff, some kind of bbq sauce, and also a fried egg. the sandwhich was about 8 inches in height, and was very tasty though not very western. The Chinese places are similar to "Pac-Mans" in the style of food they serve, and technically the Chinese restaurants include Pac-Mans for places that I eat. tomorrow I have a lecture to attend to, but not really anything else to do. I hope it isn't rainy as it is somewhat harder to explore far away when its so dreary outside, so I hope that its soon not raining.