beijing okay

Saturday we all trekked to literally the middle of nowhere to this small village in Chaoyang (still in Beijing... this city is tremendous) to see an art show and meet a friend I'd been e-mailing back and forth since before I'd come to China named Wei, and we also met her friend Blake, an American who speaks incredibly good Mandarin. She had a few drawings in the show, and as a whole the show was decent, but hit and miss. Afterwards, we all ate pickled chicken's feet skin, spicy cold tofu, radishy salad, stewed pork and baby eels in a cavernous restaurant and then drank whiskey at Blake's house until the wee hours.

I'm swamped with tutoring jobs, so I'm no longer worried. I have five students already, and one I am meeting Tuesday through Friday. I have Mondays off, but work a little bit every other day. I want to start taking classes soon, and there is a local school that provides incredibly cheap Mandarin lessons. I might do that along with hiring a Chinese tutor.