Class Bonding Time

Tonight I went out with my classmates. Doing this kind of thing struck me as really different than anything else I've been used to before the first we all went out together, but I've come to find that it's important to grow close to your classroom unit. The plans for tonight had been in the works throughout the whole school week, so I was looking forward to it.

We started with dinner at a place near campus. It was a feast. Not everyone from the class could come, but it will still alot of fun. It's funny to hold conversations when the language everyone's learning is the only common language amongst a group. Most people could speak some English, but speaking solely English definitely couldn't have flown. There was a mix of Chinese, Korean, English, and Indonesian going around, and I think it ended up working pretty well.



We kept toasting and alcohol to a minimum, but we did have one "ganbei" (dry cup) to make it a real dinner. Yanjing beer is made in Beijing, so it's readily available at most restaurants. I like Qingdao better, but Yanjing is still good. China is the only place I ever drink beer. Normally I'm disgusted by the thought of it, but it's not bad here. It's not very strong, either. Plus, not many things around here are cold and bubbly, so the beer is nice sometimes.



Instead of giving you Chinese names from left to right, I'm just going to give you the countries people came from.



Back row: Thailand, Indonesia, Britain, France, Philippines, USA.
Front row: South Korea, South Korea, Canada, Indonesia, Indonesia, Holland.
Not pictured: Japan (3), Thailand (2), South Africa, Italy, Israel, Greece, Mexico, and I think that's it. I'm not entirely sure.

Look at that feast! There were two meat dishes, one seafood dish, four vegetables dishes, and two buckets of rice. I love big dinners in China. I get to try so many things, and I never leave hungry.

Karaoke was really fun. We got one of the rooms reserved for our group, and we sang for a good two hours. I knew people were nervous about singing in front of the group, so I went first and danced around like a moron while I sang "Lovefool" by the Cardigans to try and put people at ease a little. We sang songs in English, Korean, and Chinese. I was excited to be able to follow along with the characters on the Chinese songs. I, of course, had no chance on the Korean songs. About halfway through karaoke, people were dancing around even when they weren't singing. That made me happy to see.

So I've decided that I really like going out with my class.