noodles and kung fu.

At work there are only four of us Purdue students in a section with at least twenty Chinese students. We are the only foreigners, and thus, novelties. There's Val, who has beautiful dark skin thanks to her Mexican heritage... Christina with adorable red hair... Chris who is 6'3" and towers over everyone in this country and me, the girl with the "beautiful name." As a group, we stand out in a crowd among our Chinese counterparts (except sometimes, as Christina said, Val and I can be hard to point out due to our dark hair). All of the Chinese students are eager to practice their English with us (which is all really impressive and makes me feel guilty for not knowing Mandarin... and for never considering it as an option) and are so helpful.

Yesterday after work one of our friends said he would take us out for noodles, since we had asked if he knew any good noodle places. Well, in true Chinese hospitality for guests, our entire group from the cycling venue went out with us... and when it was time to pay the bill, it had magically been "taken care of" for the four Purdue students. We were obviously grateful, and laughed when we found out that they had all been discussing in Chinese how they were paying for our meals... right in front of us (another practical example of why Mandarin could be handy).

The food was great too... I had a spicy noodle dish that tasted like the best Pad Thai I could imagine, tasty tasty spring rolls (not like what you would expect from a spring roll, though) and some popular dessert known as Bing Shan or translated, "iceberg." It is a pile of shaved ice topped with everything. And by everything I mean black, red and green beans... mango... mashmallowy things that were not American marshmallows... several kinds of jelly (like what we would consider jell-o)... cherries... different marshmallowy things... and all kinds of other surprises. The crazy thing... it was delicious. All of it. We even got another mound of shaved ice with just black beans on it... also delicious. I am amazed at all of the new tastes I have found here... things I can't even explain because I have never experienced anything like it before.

After dinner (all still wearing our matching volunteer uniforms) we headed to movies because (again, in great hospitality) one of our friends bought us all tickets to go see Kung Fu Panda. The movie theater was the craziest place I had ever seen and looked like a city inside. I didn't know if I was in a hologram or if I could really reach out and touch it. I feel like a lot of thing here are like that... over-the-top extravagant with bold colors and unlikely design.

Since we were early for the movie, the arcade seemed to be calling our names. After crashing my race car and tearin' it up on the basketball court I made my debut at arcade shooting games. Yes, I played House of Death IV with my automatic machine gun and killed lots of zombies. I must say, it was unexpectedly fun and I hope to shoot many zombies in the future.

As for the movie, if you haven't seen Kung Fu Panda you're missing out. It was in English with Chinese sub-titles, so that was great for us. Plus, watching a movie set in China while in China was pretty cool. (I would compare it to watching The Little Mermaid while actually under the sea.) Some of the jokes were things I think I only understood because I've been here for almost a month. The animation and graphics were great and Jack Black, always a favorite of mine, was a pretty awesome panda.

We treated ourselves to a taxi ride home rather than the subway and got back home at almost midnight... a long day indeed. I showered in the hottest shower I've had since I arrived (my logic is that the later in the day you shower, the hotter your water... 8am showers are still pretty icy), and fell into bed.

Another great day in China.