A Happy Ending

Well, today is my last full day in Beijing before I leave to meet my mom in Shanghai to travel around a good bit of China and Japan early Tuesday morning. I'm really really excited to see her and the rest of China, but it's also going to feel weird leaving Beijing, which has in a weird, semi-sick kind of way, come to feel a little bit like home after 9 weeks, though I'm very glad its not! I'm definitely so grateful to have been able to spend the summer here. It's been spectacular, but I'm also really excited to get back to the states and say, see a whole piece of meat that's a size that would make it hard to eat with chopsticks (Xianzai wo hui young kuaizi, by the way!).

Yesterday morning, I slept in too late to get my usual MickeyD's pancakes and sausage (or "the big breakfast" on a hungry day), so I went to the basement of our grocery store to grab one of these 1.5 yuan egg on pita things that are really good before church. I went outside to eat it and a banana I had picked up quickly, and while I was sitting, some old Chinese men (the daily squatter type) were intrigued I guess, and came over and stuck up conversation (IN CHINESE!) and I actually could understand (ok, parts) and conversed back (ok, badly)! But still, it was just really cool to see how far I had come from clueless two months ago. I talked to them for a solid ten minutes or so (one of the men spoke a few words of English, as did some random and intrigued, eaves dropping passers-by, who helped out the flow of the conversation - at one point there was a group of about 7 just standing and watching us interact, ha), but by the end, he asked for my email, so I asked for a picture, which prompted him to want a picture with his camera, which was at his house in the hutong really near by. (Don't worry, Mom, I stayed outside where things weren't sketchy or dangerous, there were lots of other people around, and I could've easily taken this guy had it come to that...), but he lived in a classic hutong courtyard, which was REALLY cool to see. Anyway, a really fun morning.

Since its the last couple of days, I've been taking a lot of pictures, so here are some other snapshots from every day life over the past couple of months.

The office. And a close up of our classy motivational posters. Ha.

This is my Chinese teacher, Zhang laoshi (on the right). She's my absolute favorite person in China. LOVE her.

Xiao Xin's, one of our favorite cafes in the hutong. Home to excellent omelets, milkshakes, and free wifi. Also frequently plays Christmas music?

Here we are in the restaurant attached to our hotel with the menu they translated for us over the course of a couple of months and our favorite fuwuyan!!!

I'm not really sure what my internet situation will be like the next 3 and a half weeks or so, so I'll just say ZAIJIAN! for now, and hopefully I can talk to y'all in person/phone once I get back 'round September 10th!