Welcome to My House
This weekend marked the Mid-Autumn Day festival in China. We were off classes Thursday through Sunday 🙂 (though many of the locals had to go to school today – Sunday – in order to make up for missed classes on Friday).
Though I decided not to travel to Chengdu this weekend, I still had one of the craziest 4 days of my life full of rave and Chinese massages.
Thursday night, the night of the actually moon festival was also the night of the full moon. If anyone’s ever had a moon cake, this is the weekend where the moon cakes are out full force in China. One of the Chinese roommates in our program graciously invited two of my friends and I out to dinner with his family. We were welcomed and treated like one of their own, and I walked out of there fuller than I think I’ve ever been. The almost four course meal was filled with almost every type of food imaginable from carrots to … yes, bugs. I said I’d try almost everything here in China so I knew once I saw the bugs that I was going to have to eat it, and surprisingly it wasn’t that bad, though the whole time I could only think “yes, I’m actually eating a bug.” Besides that though, we were treated to wonderful dumplings, and this good pork dish just to name a few. I’m really honored to have experienced such hospitality here in China, especially on a holiday that is meant specifically for family to be together. 
Bugs aside, Friday was equally as crazy. There’s a ton of music festivals here in China all around this time, but we decided to hit up STORM ft. Flo Rida and Alesso. I went into the festival expecting to experience another Lolla, but the experience was entirely different. First off, the cab ride to the festival was almost an hour away (ended up taking us 2). It’s always a good time to try to communicate with the cab drivers – and ours was just finding my minimal Chinese very entertaining. In the US, we grow up saying “thank you” almost all the time, but they don’t do that that much in China, so my cab driver was laughing at me every time I would say it.
I’m going to say I prefer Chinese concerts to American ones, only for the fact that being a foreigner, it was surprisingly easy to get up to the front. And by the front, I mean the literal front. The crowds at the concert were no where as large as Lolla, but there was also a lot less jumping for it being an EDM ish concert. That being said, we now get to say we celebrated Flo Rida’s 37th birthday with him here in Beijing, and that’s something not a lot of people will get to say ever. Also, it was pouring rain when we reached the concert, and concerts in the rain are always a sign that the night will be crazy.
After exiting the concert and receiving my free gift of blue mascara and eyeliner (!!!) we decided to go to a salsa club. It’s always a good time to experience a taste of what the Chinese think foreign culture is like, so after almost 3 hours of dancing to El Taxi and Danza Kuduro, we called it a night.
I capped my weekend off by getting a Chinese massage, which on it’s own was also an interesting experience. The only thing I had remotely experienced massage wise in the US was when I went to Physical Therapy and my therapist massaged my calf. But a 60 minute Chinese massage involves the therapist literally straddling you and popping all parts of your body that you didn’t know could be popped. It also really hurt which is not the relaxing experience I thought I was going to get, but after a day of jumping and dancing, it felt good after.
So that recaps my crazy vacation weekend here in Beijing. The weather has finally started to get cold, which kind of sucks for me because I didn’t pack any warm clothes – so I guess that means more shopping for me:)