Visitors!

Still so busy, however I found some time to write another blog.
Now some days have passed since my mother and brother have left. They were in Beijing for a week some days ago and of course we did a lot of things.

They arrived on Sunday morning in Beijing and after arriving in their hotel to tried to get to my place. Of course this was not easy, because their Chinese is even worse than mine. After an hour however, they managed they find my place and see me. I asked my mother to bring some stuff, like Stroopwafels, Drop, Pindakaas. She took of course a load of stuff and actually more than I wanted. After chatting and when they meet my roommate, we went to Beida and I showed them the place where I study. After that we went with my roommate to a Korean bbq. And just as me the first few weeks, they were surprised by the price as well.

Monday they had a day for their own, since I had to be on campus whole day for my classes and assignments. Tuesday however, I was free after 12 and we decided to do something afterwards. After they finished watching the Temple of Heaven, we went to the Summer palace which is near to Beida. I heard it was a big complex, but it is really huge. You can spent their a whole day if you want to, but you will get to tired of walking. On top of the hill there, you have a nice view over Beijing.
After finished sightseeing at the Summer palace, we went to Zhongguancun to have some real Chinese food with some friends. Even though they have never eaten real Chinese food, they liked it a lot.

Wednesday was the same as Monday. I had to go to class again for whole day. Thursday and Friday I am free, so we spent those two days together.
First we went to the Lama temple and a striking thing was that everybody used the scented sticks(wierook) to pray. Literally at every spot in this complex people were praying to Buddha. and everywhere was the smell of the scented sticks, because everybody was using that. After we have seen the giant Buddha and had enough of the smell of the scented sticks we went to the Olympic stadium. Most of the things there were already broken down, but the Bird’s nest and the Swimming Cube were still there. The structure of the stadium is quite impressive and big too. But if you don’t have too much time in Beijing I think there are better things to see. However in my case it is definitely worth a visit. Everywhere are still salespeople that try to sell you their stuff for some money. Very annoying.., but luckily not as bad as in Turkey or Egypt.

Afterwards they wanted to see the fake-market, so I took them to Xidan. This was for me the first time as well. If you need to buy some cheap clothes this is one of the places to be. However 2 days ago I found the Wudaokou shopping street, which is basically next to my house.. Salespersons everywhere again and because they know you are a foreigner they charge at least 3 times the price as for local people.
After this we got hungry and I took my mother and brother to the famous Peking duck restaurant in Wangfujing and afterwards to the food market with all the insects I already told you about.

Then it was already the last day for them. I had to do some homework, so we decided to meet in the evening and go to a Chinese acrobatic show. That was quite spectacular and the acrobats did ten different acts and were quite astonishing. They went with 5 motorcycles in one big ball and someone was walking on a rope for example. However my mother took all the pictures so I can’t upload them earlier then when I’m back home again..