MAN, what a day

It started out alright, just going to the center to "plan lessons", but the guy overseeing us pulled me aside and told me that the first session of summer camp for Tianjin was cancelled.. :( So I will now be in Beijing until the first of August, floating around teaching where I'm needed when people are sick, etc. Which is okay. I just want to teach! But then I had nothing to do today... Since I'm not planning for summer camp, and am not leaving for Tianjin, I don't really have anything to do. And it bummed me out. That, and I just felt left out of the group. I hear people talking about what they did the night before, and i'm like, why did no one tell ME about this..? :( It's probably because most of what they do centers around bars and drinking, but I'd still like to be invited, I guess, maybe. Because i haven't done ANYTHING yet. I went to the Temple of Heaven, and that's it...! So I left the center at around 6, went to my hotel, dropped some stuff off, and went back out again, headed for..... dadadaadaaaaaaa THE GAP! haha, someone told me how to get there! And I found it! I was expecting maybe a normal street, and it would be there, but no, the 'street' was just SHOPS!!!!! and shops and shops and stores and more stores!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :D Talk about retail therapy. TOTALLY WORKS. I bought five things at Gap and got 15% off (yes, I do get my employee discount!!), so I was soooo happy to find something familiar. Then I walked around a bit with my GINORMOUS Gap back haha, and went into a chinese jewelry/souvenir shop, and might buy some things later before i come home. THen I saw Hermes and Cartier and went in just to say that I've been in those stores :)

But it was SOOO difficult to be in China today. I did not do very well with the whole keeping my mouth shut and looking the other way thing. For example:

I went to the bathroom right outside our center (which is in a building on the 3rd floor of a malltype place), and I hear someone across the hall in the men's room hack up a lung, then spit..somewhere... And then I walk out of the bathroom, and he's standing in the entrance to the stairwell BLATANTLY smoking. SMOKING! In a building that specifically says NO SMOKING. I just stopped in my tracks, throw my hands up and say to him, "REALLY??" and walk away. geez... people..

And then I'm on the subway--ON THE SUBWAY-- and this guy SPITS right near my feet. and i can't help but say "SERIOUSLY??" GUH. I had a few more of those moments today... I just am so fed up with the spitting and smoking!!

That, and the smell here. It's like...rotting food, plus no one wearing deodorant, plus humiditysweat, plus rotten cigarette smoke. yuck. It's the worst on the subway.

OH. And little kids here, like maybe a yearish old or more or less, just POOP. ANYWHERE. The parents cut holes in the backs of their pants, so they run around with their little bumbums poking out, and when they need to take a poop.... Yeah, right there on the street. Or alley. Or MALL. THat was the worst... It was right outside the supermarket in the mall, and this mom was sitting down with her 2 year old kid in her lap, with his legs spread, and he was POOPING onto a towel/rag under him. POOOPING. IN THE MALL. Me and the other girls stopped and were like WHAT? then we walked quickly away... :/

So yeah. Those are the things that happened today.

I did see some interesting things in the shopping street, and will blog in another post about that, and include pictures and video!

A little preview!  This is...some guy? the last president of china?  not sure, but I had a guy take my picture, and then his friends, who were girls, were like, "can we take a picture with you!?!?!??!"  haha, so I got my pic taken with three girls in front of this statue thing, which is in front of the Hermes and Cartier stores. :)