Weekend 1 in Qiqihar

On Friday night a bunch of the foreigners from our school Aoqi got together with the famous 'Uncle Dan' of Qiqihar. Uncle Dan is a local Chinese man who also owns a school in the area and just loves taking care of the foreigners here. We took a taxi over to a restaurant near Qida and had a really fun night eating good food and drinking Chinese beer. We met Steven, another American and teacher at the university and his girlfriend Bonny. Strangely enough Steven is from Boston and is currently applying to Tufts' Fletcher School. His girlfriend Bonny is an English major at Qida and they met when Steven was her teacher.

With Uncle Dan (China), Sarah, Jerra, Scott (all US), Werner (South Africa), Steven (US), Ian (South Africa), Mary (Philippines) and Keir (Australia):

The evening was pretty much all fun until a man at another restaurant nearby started hitting a woman at his table. It was absolutely terrifying. I have never seen a real fight, let alone a man hitting a woman. Of course we were all freaked out. The guys all wanted to go over there but if a foreigner gets involved in local affairs then it is immediately seen as the foreigner trying to muddle in their business. It would have turned into foreigners versus Chinese, which would not have helped. Luckily one of the local guys at the same restaurant went and restrained the guy, who was pretty big! No police were called and the whole thing was just forgotten. It really was an eyeopener to the cultural differences.

At the same time as all of this fireworks and firecrackers were going off all over. I guess it was another holiday. This time they set off the fireworks to the money god, hoping to bring good fortune in the future. Fireworks go off all the time here. Some were going off at 7:30am this morning like it was no big deal. That's just how they do it here. You'll be in a classroom and then have to pause for several minutes until the fireworks/crackers are done.

On Saturday Sarah, Scott, Jerra and I went to explore Longshan Park, which is right by where we live. I should explain fast. Sarah, Scott, and Jerra all came to Qiqihar late due to visa issues and an illness. Sarah will probably be staying here in Qiqihar with me while Scott and his wife Jerra are going to be moving to Harbin next Friday. Anyway, we went and walked around the park, avoiding the zoo (which is apparently worse than the Beijing Zoo, didn't know that was possible). We were going to go boating on the lake but it was pretty expensive and there didn't seem like that much to see. We ended up stumbling upon an amusement park. All the rides were about $1.50 each so we only did one but it was an experience to say the least.

Using the miniature setting on my camera:

A view of the park:

Another view:

Peacocks in the zoo (the small part we walked through):

Boats on the water:

Live animals for prizes. If you throw a ring around it you get it:

Super skinny ferris wheel:

In the afternoon we went to try and find a DVD store since the internet here is too slow to stream anything. We eventually found one without a great collection. We'll have to dig around some more but the store was closing when we got there so we'll see when we go back! We tried to play some cards last night but none of us could really remember the rules. Other than that we walked around the night market some more. People are already selling thermals which gets me a little nervous! Today we made another trip to Walmart to buy a few things for the week.

The closest thing to a jianbing. Not as good as the ones in Beijing though:

In other news I have only been here for a week and have already finished a whole large jar of peanut butter. Oops. Luckily they sell that here. I also finally signed my contract, which ends January 31st.