Day in the Life of a Smogster?

Some days in Beijing there is a hint of blue in a gray sky, other days you can't see your hand if you hold it out in front of you. Today is one of the latter days. Beijing has days where the air pollution is so bad that you will see many people
a) with face masks on ranging from surgical-esque masks to fancy colors/hello kitty/the like.
b) gasping for air
c) going slower than normal
d) wearing a scarf over their face
e) reaching for an inhaler
f) or actually, you see less people.

Today was one of those days where I wish I had a, was doing both b, c, and e, and wish I did d as well.

This is the view from my window today:


Normally I bike about 10-15 to and from school, then again I also speed bike. Beijing is bike city and after a month of being here biking for hours is nothing. After biking home today I was gasping and wheezing like crazy. Some days it is clear and other days it's worse than this one. Then again, Beijing is the air pollution capital of the world currently. The one advantage of it being smoggier is that it's generally quieter and people honk less, because less people are out. You would think there would be more honking because people have more trouble seeing each other, but this is Beijing.

On a completely other note, here are some of the pretty cool cats I've met/hung out with today.
This is Pierre. He is from France. He's doing the Nuclear program and gets to have fun classes about environmental programs in Chinese that he can't actually understand.



We went to this really cool noodle place that Tiancheng's cousin Tianxi showed me. There are no foreigners here at all and there are absolutely no pictures on the menu or any english spoken. However I was able to order spicy beef noodles. (很辣牛肉面条). When I first came to Beijing, this was one of the first meals I had. That day, I had a lot of trouble eating the soup/noodles with chopsticks and it was super hot and spicy for me. Today, I was pro with the chopsticks (it's learn or starve) and it wasn't spicy. I think after a month of eating spicy food in Beijing that if it's not really really spicy it just tastes normal. Non spicy things are starting to taste a little bland.

Then the I had the fun of speaking class today and comprehensive (writing mainly but with speaking and listening too...it's super fun).


Pictured left is Taku (Japan), Mohammed (Saudi Arabia) and Dawei(David)(Hungary). They are all pretty cool!



Pictured above are: Clayton (US), Lydia (Canada), Mohammed (Saudi Arabia), Me (US), Anthony (UK/Australia).
Clayton and Lydia sit in front of me and Su Mo Han (Mohammed), and Anthony sits behind us.

Pictured below on the left are 2 South Korean students in black and a Dutch student in Blue. In the middle picture my speaking teacher just finished braiding Lydia's hair. She french braided my hair and Lydia's hair today during the xuexi (break) in class. On the left is Dawei (David) asking my comprehensive teacher something about tones.



Depending on what class we have, there are normally 6-10 students. We stay in the same classroom and our teachers rotate. We always have class from 1-5 pm Monday through Friday. Basically we have tingxie (dictation quizzes) and exams everyday. I'm studying constantly here. We joke around a lot and today someone said a lot of things in the wrong tone and our teacher said a) she couldn't understand any of it and b) he said some pretty funny things because he pronounced them wrong and said good horse instead of number and then some other things. Our class couldn't stop laughing.

I'm totally ready for nap time now though, ha. So more later.