Foreigners Flock Together

On Friday, I had a stroke of luck and ran into a blonde girl on campus from Chicago that happens to be here for an internship. She's here until August also! Upon meeting, she invited me to go out with her that evening to an irish bar in town where all the ex-pats hang out. Apparently there's a network of foreigners that live here, mostly Americans and Australians. I even met a woman from Dunwoody, GA! Everyone was extremely friendly and it was so nice to converse at a rapid rate in english without the aid of google translator. After the pub, we went to the only other ex-pat hang out in town; a bar called SoHo, complete with Chinese and Russian go-go dancers and a band from the Phillipines playing exclusively american pop music, lots of Lady Gaga.

On Saturday morning, i woke up early to take the train into Beijing. The normal seats were booked, but for an additional five US dollars, I was able to score a seat in VIP, where i happened to meet a Taiwanese woman that spoke perfect english and had surprisingly lived in Buckhead for several years. The Beijing train station was much easier to navigate than the local train station, as all of the signs were in English. Upon arrival, I met up with a friend from Atlanta and his 2 traveling companions. We proceeded to spend the weekend exploring Beijing, including a trip to Tiananmen Square, where we got to climb to the top of the gate. In 2 weeks, we are taking a trip to one of the less travelled sections of the Great Wall; it's supposed to be a gorgeous 7 mile hike with not many tourists. Overall, it was a fabulous weekend, and I'm so excited to have made friends with some westerners in the area!