Thursday (7/14) my roommate and I took the subway for the first time to Tiananmen Square. I usually ride my bike everywhere but to get downtown that would be an hour and a half bike ride. We were there just before 8pm, at 8pm exactly the lights come on and all the surrounding buildings are lit up. It was very cloudy, couldn’t see the sun setting at all. Many days it’s like this, maybe its the pollution, I don’t know. Some guy wanted to sell me a Mao book, I said 5 kuai, he laughed, he wanted 40 ($5).

After Tiananmen it was time to eat dinner. We decided to walk towards the next subway station to see more of the city and then find somthing around there. Before we got too far I got a bright idea, to ride in a rickshaw. I had never done that before, it was pricey because we were around Tiananmen, it was worth the 30 kuai though (almost $4). So we were on our way, it was great actually, we were both tired and we also got a great way to see things. I talked with the driver and told him we wanted to eat something so he took us through some back alleyways, we would not have found our way there by ourselves. Ate dinner at a small restaurant, we got a young kid to talk to us and then he wouldn’t stop, he was saying all the English words he knew, he was pretty smart. I told him to not stop studying English.

My roommate is only 18 so he doesn’t drink back home. Here you can get a 22 ounce bottle of local beer for $.25. We each had one. Had a good time that night.

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