4) THE OLYMPICS - As demonstrated by the fur of the dog mentioned above, Olympic fever is EVERYWHERE. You can hardly wipe yourself with a piece of toilet paper (when, in the rare case that toilet paper is actually available, that is) without seeing the Olympic emblem on a sponsor’s label or the little Fuwa mascots (funny story here: apparently, the Fuwa were orginially called “The Friendlies,” but Chinese people with poor English pronunciation kept pronouncing them, “The FriendLESS,” so they changed it…).
It’s been really cool watching the city transform to get ready, and everyday there are more and more signs up, English recordings in places, etc… My favorite are the commercials they’re playing on TV. In one, they teach the Chinese people the official national cheer (two claps and then extending the arms while yelling Zhongguo Jia Yo! (Literally, “Add gas,
They’re also having things like “National No-Spitting Day” and “National Queue Up Day,” to help with the efforts. I’d say the results are mixed. They do have people lining up in the subways (in actually probably the most single-file lines I’ve ever seen, as enforced by “line monitors” who also help push people in when the subways get too crowded for people to force themselves in on their own). But as soon as the train pulls up, those lines dissolve completely and everyone crashes to the doors like it’s the fourth quarter of the super bowl and a fumbled ball lay just on the other side of the doors, (or starved ducks on a piece of bread…I entertain myself on the subways on the way to work by thinking up similes to describe the phenomenon).
3) THE T-SHIRTS AND SIGNS with poorly translated/ seemingly randomly chosen English words. So many excellent ones. I keep meaning to start a list of the best ones I see, but this is definitely one of them:
2) THE PARKS - “Park” is definitely an understatement, as many of these are old imperial gardens of the dynastic emperors. My favorite is Jing Shan, where you can climb up a hill onto a pagoda which overlooks the
Relatedly, the PUBLIC GYMS, which are scattered throughout the city. They look a lot like playgrounds, but if you look closely, they’re filled with exercise equipment. It’s all mechanical though- here’s the Chinese public gym version of a treadmill:
1) PEOPLE WATCHING - Not too much specific to say here, but it’s just fascinating and quickly becoming one of my favorite pastimes. I’m trying to figure out the best way to bring an old Chinese man home with me, so I can just look at him all day and think about how cute he is. And apparently it’s mutual, because we get asked to be taken a photograph of all the time).
around 
We were welcomed at the yurts which were to be our home for the night by singing Mongolians and some sort of Hada liquor that tasted a lot like Robitussin. We then spent the rest of the day getting a taste of Mongolian culture via a horseback riding, wrestling matches, a dinner ceremony complete with (whole) roasted mutton, after dinner party, and a nicely authentic lack of running water J. Horseback riding was especially interesting as our guide assigned me a horse which was apparently on the wilder side and so had to stay attached to his the whole time, so whenever this crazy Mongolian man decided to GALLOP somewhere (no, not trot, not canter, gallop! – I’ve definitely never gone that fast on a horse before) to round up a stray horse or ride to the back of the pack to check on something, I was forcedly RIGHT by his side. My friends supposed that the souvenir t-shirt I was wearing from a faux Tex-Mex place I had insisted on eating at the night before might have convinced him that I knew how to ride, but he didn’t speak English, so whenever he was about to take off, he’d look over at me and yell in Mongolian something which, as I figured out after the first time I nearly ate it, apparently meant “hold on”.
Riding the Dune Buggy - better than any roller coaster
