day off

today was our first complete full day off, with no testing or GRE preparation duties. Dan and I decided to explore more of the city. First after a little time, we bought a bus map, which I hope will be indespensible as I want to learn how to get all over the city on buses. Buses are quite nice here, relatively clean and uncrowded (compared to Beijing) and they cost about 12 cents (1 kuai). We decided to go to Zhongshan park, or in English, yatsen park (after Sun Yatsen), the largest park in Qingdao. At the bus stop, we met a 15 year old girl and I had a very nice conversation with her about how Taiwan is a part of China, and that the Taiwanese should hold Hong Kong up as an example of how to integrate into the mainland's governmental system while still being autonomous. We also talked about American foreign policy towards Taiwan, Chinese development, and Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. It was good practice for my Chinese, although I must say that I did not catch everything she said. Nonetheless, she was very friendly and talkative, we exchanged phone numbers, it will be a little strange to make friends with a 15 year old, but it will be good language practice, and she offered to show us around the city.
The park was nice, it had a little restaurant where I accidentally ordered "tofu with thousand-year-old-egg slices." The thousand-year-old-eggs are black pickled eggs, and I must say I am a little afraid of them. It was worse for Dan, who does not like hardboiled eggs to begin with. When the dish came, we both stared at the tofu in a brown sauce with chunks of black gelatinous looking egg. It did end up tasting better than it looked, and I even liked the tofu, although the egg was too much. We didn't get to see that much of the park, and I think we saw the more raggedy areas, including a closed amusement park, but there were some very nice parts including a rose garden. There was a zoo in the park, but we didn't go in. In the front, there were lots of colorful displays made of silk stretched over what looked like metal frames in the shapes of horses and people and gods and designs, we couldn't figure out what they were for, there was one about the 2008 olympics, so maybe they had something to do with that. In the park we met a middle aged couple who gave us some ice cream and practiced their english. They were very friendly, although sometimes their English was incomprehensible.
It is very hot here, and quite humid. The weather says we will have thunderstorms all week here, but so for it is just partially cloudy and in the 90s everyday.