Had a completely insane day yesterday. Starting at 5am in order to catch a bus to our other campus (1 and 1/2 hours away). All we were told was it was an Athletics exchange so I am quite sure I was not the only one astonished by the thousands of people who were milling around the stadium. We entered using the newly acquired marching skills. Fortunately due to me not wearing long pants, the duty of carrying the banner was taken away from me. Unfortunately, apparently its okay for the guy out front carrying the sign and leading the entire party in to wear shorts. Lucky me.
So I lead the 80 people from my school in while the crowd madly cheered. After a marching lap around the track we were set free. I wandered around with some Korean friends, had a go at banging the big drums that were being used to whip up support for the athletes. Hopefully get the pics up soon. I am getting worried my ego is going to take a hell of a knock when I return to NZ, as here I am told on a daily basis I am very handsome and the athletics exchange was like a jackpot for my self esteem.
Last night my class (around 14 people) also went out to dinner together. My class is mostly Japanese with a handful of Koreans thrown in for flavour. Turns out they don’t ‘sip’ beer, rather they ‘scull’ it. This tested, overpowered, tied up, then proceeded to beat the shit out of my plan to drink sensibly. After almost heading back to the dormitory at 11pm with some Korean guy, I stayed a little longer to wait for a French friend to finish his beer. While we sat down and waited the Korean proceeded to tell us he liked guys, and we are pretty sure he thought I was going home with him. Yeah so that was an interesting revelation, which then resurrected my plan to drink sensibly from now on.
Today is also the national holiday, 60 years since Communism started in China. Actually I probably should have mentioned that first but I am still shaken from last night. Cannot actually see anything that is different but there are some big parades and stuff happening in Beijing (according to the television at least). I might have to ask someone how exactly I am meant to be celebrating.