big accomplishment...and other stuff

Ugh, please ignore that lame-ass drunken entry. I'm feeling totally fine today btw.

So last night was pretty successful. The first big accomplishment was my boyfriend and I went to a new restaurant by ourselves. Not a big deal? Everything is a big deal when living in a country where you barely understand a word! My spoken Chinese is limitied to say the least, and my ability to read, even more so. But last night we went to a completely different restaurant without any Chinese friend to help us - and we ordered our meals without a hitch! We actually looked at the menu and could read a little bit of it! Enough to find a few dishes that we knew we liked. And to avoid a few things we didn't. It was so exciting!! The food was fantastic too, yippee! It may sound lame, but I was so proud!

Afterwards, we went and had a quiet beer with our friends, but decided to make it an early night. On the walk home we were stopped by two girls who wanted to find a certain bar. We gave them directions (it was only a block behind us, but hard to find) and were about to continue home. But we realised we didn't want to miss the opportunity of making some new friends so we decided to join them. It is a VERY small circle of people we know here, and meeting other foreigners is kind of exciting. Besides, our Chinese friends don't really go out at all - different lifestyle. Also they make a shockingly small salary compared to us. Makes me feel so guilty!

So, it was a fun night, and now we have more people to hang out with!

Anyway, my brother told me that I write about drinking too much. Is that true? I really don't go drinking that often....but I should probably write about some things that are more unique to life in China.

I live in a fairly small city here in China - a paltry 5.5 million! And it's not like Beijing or Shanghai where there are plenty of foreigners and quite a few people speak English. Here, well, we're still a bit of a novelty.  People don't hesitate to stare, or often point. The other day on my walk to school a young girl tugged repeatedly at her mom's sleeve while pointing at me. I looked back after they had passed, because I just knew, and sure enough, the whole family was standing staring back at me. And the other day, a girl - not a child, but a young woman - actually ran down the street to catch up and look at me. Yes, I'm white! Wow! Coming from such a multi-cultural society as I'm used to, it's hard to imagine what it's like from their perspective.

And on a lighter note, I saw a really funny sight the other day. There was a cute little puppy sitting outside the door of a restaurant, looking in enviously and wagging its tail. On the windows, in big bold Chinese characters, were some of the dishes on offer - DOG being one of them. Oh little doggie, if only you knew! Maybe its friend had gone in...and never came out . I wish I'd had my camera!

Ooh, long entry. Zai jian for now.