Bei....jing bei-jing BEIJING

Weebly kind of sucks. I had several paragraphs typed then clicked on the scroll, then hit the delete button to erase a couple of words, then bam, I'm on the previous page and everything is erased. STUPID WEEBLY.

Let me try and regurgitate what I typed before.

Ni hao, I am in Beijing. Came here for a little escape from Baoding, for a quick city fix.

It's really easy to come here, just walk to the ticket office (smack dab next to campus) and buy a ticket for dirt cheap, and bam I'm in Beijing the next day. I love this city, flaws and all.

I would say the biggest flaw is the pollution, but that's no secret. I read a Beijing magazine awhile back that had interviews with local ex-pats. One was an artist who said he thought the pollution here was beautiful, that the milky skies added an air of mystique. Walking around today, I tried to reason with him and look at it the way he did. But I just couldn't. I'm normally a very positive person but I just couldn't help but look at it as another example of human mistake. But at least Beijing is more clean than Baoding.

I went to the Yashow Clothing Market today to buy some clothes. I had pretty decent luck. However, I had a bad experience with one of the sales clerks. Most clothing markets you can bargain at, and it's a bit of a game to test out your bargaining (and Chinese) skills with them. I was looking at belts, and wasn't sure if I wanted to purchase any. At first she seemed totally nice, in a not-so-fake way like most of the other salespeople. Plus she was a bit young and seemed relatively honest. I'll admit it's annoying getting hassled by everyone to buy shit when you're just looking around. So I took ease with her, she didn't seem so eager to sell but more to be friendly. Cool. So I was debating on a belt, then she told me her starting price: 250 kuai, only because I spoke Chinese (if I hadn't, the starting price would've been 400). 250 kuai for this huinushka? No way. The quality of the belt was shit. I wouldn't have been surprised if it fell apart in three months. I said in Chinese that the price was expensive so she asked me what my starting price was. "15 kuai," I told her, knowing perfectly well I was going to move up from that price, since that's part of the game. She instantly got pissed. "If I had known you were going to say that I would not have shown you any of the other belts! That is a joke!" Her demeanor totally changed. I could tell she was new at this, but still, it pissed me off. It made me not want to buy anything at all, so I said, "Ok cool, see ya later," then I heard her yell 70 kuai or something, but I just ignored her and left. Truth is I could really use a new belt but to have someone openly insult me like that left me with no desire to purchase one.

Tomorrow I plan to get work done. I want to come up with a skeleton of a syllabus for next semester and do some writing. I've been on a considerable hiatus from writing lately and it's time to come to a close. I have two prose ideas that have been floating in my mind so it's time to make them come to life. Other than that, greetings from Beijing!!!

xox
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