Bookworm (February 6)

On Friday, I went to Chinese class and cooking class for the first time. We left from the school at about 12:30 and caught the bus to the restaurant. It took about an hour to get there, but once we walked in, we were greeted by girls standing in two lines by the door. We were led to the second floor and brought to a table with our teacher already sitting there. We sat down and our teacher began speaking in Chinese. Wentao translated and told us information about Sichuan and Chinese cuisine, how there are 8 different major types of cuisines in China, how long it takes to become a chef in China (about 10 years), etc. We were served lunch and after we finished eating and asking questions, we were given a tour of the kitchens and the restaurant. The restaurant is very fancy and hadn't even opened yet, so we were the first group to see it and to be served in it.
After our class was over, we all split up and took taxis home.

On our way to the restaurant (These pictures were taken while in the taxi on February 13 , the second time we went to class)




Metro! Wentao told us this is a German store with all types of imported food. We have yet to check it out.













The restaurant








Later that night, we wanted to go out since this was going to be my birthday weekend. We decided to go to Bookworm, a library/lounge place. We (Marit, Gloria, Narry and I) arrived around 9 with a taxi, found a place to sit and waited for everyone else to arrive. We ordered drinks (I had a "Mojito", which was more lemony than pepperminty and it tasted like it had no alcohol in it). We sat around and talked for a couple of hours. They had live music playing. I moved around a little and sat with different people. I met some Australians and New Zealanders and even the owner of the place.

Bookworm





Gloria and Laura were playing a game they learned on New Year's from some Chinese people. You and another person have to throw out your hands at the same time and show either no fingers, five fingers or ten fingers and yell either zero, five, ten, fifteen or twenty in Chinese. If when you add up the total shown on the fingers, you said that number while you were throwing your hands out, you win and the other person has to take a sip of their drink. If no one gets it right, you keep going. This game is really fast and I think the point is to make drunk people drunker.



At one point, I was given a kitten to play with. She didn't want to play with me at first so I used my hair to lure her in.









After Bookworm, a couple of us went to check out Paname, a club, but decided not to stay because we didn't really want to. We went home and Gloria and I played cards for a while.