After leaving the "party" I went home and ate my lunch quickly before heading to Kyrgyzstan, sorry, far west Beijing for some teaching. This turned into an all afternoon affair with my boss taking me and a coworker out for dinner afterwords. At the end of the day I'd spent close to eight hours listening to and speaking (occasionally) Chinese except for teaching or critical communication. It was a good day for learning Chinese.

That said, I'm still not happy with my Chinese skills. Sure, I've only been learning for four months. Sure, I can read several hundred characters. I can't have a conversation with a five year old. There are dogs here that understand Chinese better than me. The biggest problem is that I don't have to use Chinese every day. When I do use it, it's usually for simple tasks where I'm already well versed in the required vocabulary or phrases. Ugh. I'm optimistic though... Since I got to China I've been haunted by other people's stories of a language "clicking" after a certain amount of time living in a country. I call bullshit. It doesn't click. It slowly sounds less and less like gibberish, but it never happens suddenly. It happens slowly. Frustratingly so. Every time I think I understand people, I run into someone with a thick accent who doesn't make any sense. Patience weihan, patience.

But enough about that...

On Wednesday of last week, Beijing got some real snow for the first time this winter. It started snowing late Wednesday night and didn't stop until the middle of the afternoon on Thursday. It wasn't a heavy snow though, so only a few centimeters accumulated. Anyhow, it was really refreshing. The air felt a little bit cleaner. The white snow everywhere disguised how filthy this city normally looks. Hopefully it'll do it again this winter so I can practice writing naughty words in Chinese on people's cars. :)

Right about the time all the snow from Thursday had melted, Very returned to Beijing. We met up around lunch time for a little dao xiao mian (blade sliced noodles). After this we went back to my apartment to take a nap (Very was running on about 3 hours of sleep and I hadn't gotten much more myself). Later that afternoon we went out shopping, first looking for fireworks near my apartment then looking for random household items. We didn't see fireworks anywhere and Very still isn't sure how much an electric heater should cost here.

On Saturday night, Very and I went out to eat at a fancy restaurant. We're talking English menu and English-speaking staff fancy. ;) Well, the food was wonderful (and vegetarian!) and filling but at the end of the meal I got a familiar rumbling in my gut. My old friend IBS was stopping by for a visit. Between the restaurant and my apartment, I had to stop three times to use the bathroom. Very was quite the understanding companion. Luckily when we got back to my apartment the worst appeared to be over (funny how it only strikes when squat toilets are the only ones in range).

Until I woke up the following morning...

I woke up on Sunday morning with a pounding headache, a sore stomach and a desire to throw up. Long story short, I emptied my stomach in a couple trips to the bathroom and spent most of the day lying in bed. It sucked. Miraculously, this is the only time I've gotten food poisoning in China. I think from now on I'm only eating at seedy hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Those nice places are too sketchy. Discussions with Very pinpoint the yogurt that came with dinner as a likely culprit. That was the only thing that I ate on Saturday that she didn't also eat.

On Monday I woke up feeling much better. This was a good thing, because I had to teach at the Kindergarten that afternoon in front of the kids parents. I made it to the school on time, a little hungry but ready to go. My boss was very happy with my performance... and the gravy train that is my part-time teaching job kept a rolling down the line.

Also on Monday, Very spent all of the money she had in savings and then some. She was the lucky recipient of about half a year worth of bills (rent, gas, water, electricity, and two months of phone and internet) and her roommate is currently home in Taiwan. Needless to say, she wasn't particularly excited about all this. In fact her rent was late, so she spent Saturday and Sunday night at my apartment because her landlord changed the locks on Saturday after she got home. On the bright side, she landed a part time gig teaching English between now and after Chinese New Year when her old job has classes for her to teach again. She also got in touch with her roommate, so the rest of the rent won't have to materialize out of thin air.

Very's short teaching gig is in a city in Hebei Province, which surrounds Beijing Municipality. Ergo on Wednesday, Very left Beijing after being back for only five days. This time she won't be gone as long. Also, when she gets back we're going to a moderately nice restaurant...