shut your month.

The final day of the three-day-tour we all looked a bit rough. It has been in the high 30s here, extremely humid and even quite sunny. I drink so much water, and sweat every drop of it out. Everyone just looks like soggy noodles. But, the third day of the tour was a day at the Summer Palace, a perfect place to spend a hot China day.

The Summer Palace is where the Emperors of Beijing would spend their summer months. It is essentially a vacation plantation; series of buildings, temples and gardens with a (man made) lake overlooked by a (man made) hill. For the modern day tourists, there are also restaurants and shops tucked into the mix.

We got there at about 10am (several of us still feeling the night before, oops) and decided the last thing we wanted to do was walk. Luckily, one of the most popular things to do at the Summer Palace is rent a boat to take out on the lake. Split into two groups of six, we rented six-man paddle boats and (not without some language barrier difficulty) headed for open water.

I guarantee my boat was the better six, based on the conversations about "The Old Beijing Traffic Jam" (a lewd game about making up inappropriate names of potential sexual actions) and names like "Nicole Bel-Aire" (another lewd game involving the creation of names that would be adult-entertainment aliases). Forgive me, but you must know how hilarious this group of people has become together. Picture six kids in a paddle boat in a Chinese lake laughing so hard they are drawing attention from passers-by. Honestly, this group of Purdue students works so well together. Never a dull moment thanks to our perfect rhythm of humor, argumentative conversation, inappropriateness and just general ridiculousness. I think we are all having the great times that we are because of the friendships we are building. And, honestly, what else do we have to do besides talk to each other? We don't have TV, movies, board games, athletic equipment or cars... so we are all we have for entertainment. And trust me, it gets entertaining.

Post Summer Palace we went to some ruins... the ruins of what I am not really sure. Some element of understanding gets lost when you travel in large groups in sweltering heat. But I'm pretty sure the ruins and gardens were part of another vacation spot for China's elite.

The evening's activities included dinner and the traditional Peking Opera. Dinner was perhaps the most interesting meal of our three day tour... several of the dishes at this one were, well, interesting. The first thing that rolls out is a pile of, what look like scallops, but are actually gelatinous tofu... we think. The one and only Lauren Harrington and I dive right in... letting everyone know whether or not they should try it. The answer is yes... but only to see how awkward it is.

No one likes it, and is so creeped out by the jiggle of it, that no one even wants it on their plate. To be polite, we casually plop the jell-o tofu into our tea... out of sight, out of mind. Later in the meal, I almost accidentally drink my tofu tea. This spawns one of our "great ideas" to dare someone to drink the tea... tofu and all. The prize for this: one cold beer. Worth it.

The victim takes the tea down... not without difficulty, and not without very strange faces. Some sips of Coke to wash it all down... and its all over. Respect was earned. But why would it stop there? Two more tofu-teas are slid his way. One more makes it down... number three is a no go. Meals are usually this eventful, again, this group is a riot.

From dinner we headed to the opera. Five of our tickets were in the so called VIP area; I was bestowed one of these tickets. The theater was pretty bare bones... kind of like a movie theater... so the VIP area was just an area up front with tables that had delicious tea for us. Our seats were, however, about eight feet from the stack of speakers.

Peking Opera is one of those things that can't be described. The sets were very simple, costumes and makeup completely elaborate and the performance... well, the singing was quite shrill. The high-pitched almost screaming songs were blasting those of us sitting by the speakers. There were also English subtitles on large TV screens; translation was minimum and very choppy... most of us couldn't figure out the storyline. All of this considered though, it was a pretty fun experience. Especially when subtitles were wrong and said things like "Shut your month!"

And so our three day tour came to an end. Farewell "number bus six."