McDonalds, Shopping, Hilarious Hilary, and the Performance of a Lifetime...

So have you ever wondered what McDonalds tastes like in China? if you are like me then the answer is yep. Even though I really cant stand eating fast food and would avoid McD's at all times in the states, I figured I had to have a go at it in another country...because surely it is a little different right? wrong. it tastes the exact same. more or less a let-down except for the fact the burger cost me an even $5yuan which converts to somewhere around $0.60 cents US. not bad...but not really worth it either, my stomach hurt for the rest of the night.



Im not sure if Ive mentioned it already or not, but Pat's family friend Rick who lives in Beijing with his family is awesome. (he took us to see the great wall) And once again he has come through as an amazing host. His family and the three of us guys hit one of the local shopping malls in Beijing that was packed wall-to-wall with knock-off designer brands and cheap clothing. So ya, we did a bit of shopping..beijing style...haggling down the price nearly 90% off what they start at...because thats just what you have to do here...very fun but very exhausting as they can be very aggressive to get you to buy one of the thirty thousand pairs of fake nike air jordans. Quite the shopping experience...



The next night after our 8th day of class in a row without many breaks at all, we were invited out to dinner with one of our bosses, who for her sake will be unnamed...haha just kidding, read the title nitwit. So ya, i must preface this story with describing our boss...she is a rather petite asian woman maybe a few years older than us. ok back to the story, so our boss thought it would be a good idea to take us out to western food because it was her friend's resturant and this night was the grand opening of the resturant, so it was a special night for them. if it weren't for that we likely wouldnt have dared to set foot in a western resturant in china, but it made for some entertainment. So ya, dinner was ok, they brought us red wine with dinner and it became clear this was their first experience with red wine...so diogo, pat and i had to show them how to serve it.
...Continuing their inexperience with red wine, to celebrate the night people kept coming over to our table and cheersing with us, however cheers in chinese means bottoms up and sure enough each of them would down nearly full glasses of red wine in one gulp. eww. We also thought it would be funny to get our boss a little tipsy for the night just to mess with her...and stereotypes shine true as a petite asian woman cannot in fact hold her liquor. 4 bottles of red wine down and a few beers for pat and all 4 of us were "smashed" as our boss repeated over and over to us.
It was hilarious! especially because us 3 dudes were in far better shape than our boss was and we had to carry her home while she yelled at pat that she was our boss and that she shouldn't let him drink, and pats cunning reply was simply "ya only for 1 more week..." haha we had an awesome time

Then our story brings us to day 10 of teaching the first group of kids and the final presentation for the kids. The presentation was for the parents to show them how much english they learned over the week. It was truly the performance of a lifetime. complete with backstreet boys sing a longs, 3 seperate plays about a resturant with jackie chan, a wedding, and a birthday. oh and of course there were the short skits on cinderella and sleeping beauty. the kids were awesome and most surprisingly talented. We ended things with gifts and cake, which turned into a giant cake fight on stage and i think i may still have frosting stuck in my ear...