Registration day

Yesterday (Wednesday) I had to register at my university. They said it wouldn’t take so long. Actually the registering part only took 5 minutes of my time. The waiting time however was 90 minutes before I could register. After registering they told me to sign up for the medical insurance. I don’t know why, because I’m already insured, but I had to else I couldn’t register…
So another 300 Yuan is wasted.
On every piece of paper the Chinese people put a stamp. I don’t know why. I think they love to do it. Even in the supermarkets they put stamps on all the receipts, preferably 2 or 3.
The only thing left is collecting my student cards. Not 1, but at least 5 I think. One for use on campus, one for getting food at campus, one for the library, one for sporting and one ID card. Why not one card? They couldn’t answer.

I was surprised in the bus too. All the people will stand up for the older people. In Holland we will look to the older people and won’t offer if they want to sit on our place. In Beijing the younger person stands up and the older person must sit there, even if he/she doesn’t wants to.

Then there is the area Wudaokou. That is an area near to where I live and where almost everything is happening for the students. Like pubs, bars, shopping malls, etc. The Asian people say they don’t get drunk fast, but yesterday most of them failed to prove it. After a few drinks they were almost wasted..

Before going out and discovering the nightlife we went with a group of people to the other side of town to eat the roast peking duck (peking eend). This was in one of the most famous restaurants where you can eat the duck. You order it and after 40 minutes preparing time a cook will come to your table with a trolley. On the trolley is the duck and he will chop off all the eatable pieces for you. He starts with chopping of the ducks’ head and afterwards he will start preparing the other pieces. He puts it on the plates and a waiter serves them to you. As last surprise the head is chopped into 2 pieces and you should eat it too…
I passed for it.
I already had tasted something else I didn’t like. As a side dish somebody ordered one plate of jellyfish. Just as I thought it looked liked jelly, but it didn’t tasted like jelly. It is very though and you have to chew very hard before I could swallow it. The cook soaked the jellyfish with vinegar, so it actually tasted like vinegar.

After finishing the duck we went outside to a food market. All kinds of ‘strange’ dishes are prepared there except for coconut juice and sugared apples and grapes. You could eat there small and big scorpions, hearts, starfishes, lizards a complete young chicken (kuiken) and more like that…
After the jellyfish I didn’t had that much appetite anymore, so I didn’t try anything of it.

I can’t post any pictures due to the Chinese firewall, but soon I will post some on my Hyves profile page!

When I have more news you will hear from me again!