感冒了，食堂

Unfortunately, colds of varying degrees are rampantly spreading
through PiB right now and I've contracted one. This is my excuse for
not writing a lot tonight, but I will post some pictures and write a
little even though I really just want to sleep for a year or two.

First picture: 日常生活 - 学生食堂 (Daily life, the student cafeteria)
Although eating at restaurants is generally very cheap after the
conversion to American dollars (primarily because there are no such
things as restaurant taxes, service is cheap and there's no need to
tip) the campus cafeterias are even cheaper. They've got plenty of
downsides as well - primarily that if you don't show up within an hour
of when they open for that particular meal, your options of remaining
food are severely limited. Also, I'm not sure how I managed to take a
picture of a dining hall with so few people in it; often going to the
shitang is a good way to remind oneself that yes, there are a lot of
people in China. It's often pretty difficult to find a seat.

At first the system was slightly daunting, because it doesn't seem
like it's limited to students. I it is more of a college community
dining hall - anyone who has a campus card can put money on it and eat
at the cafeteria. I often see little kids - I'm assuming that they
must be professors' or grad students'. There are also a lot of elderly
people of ambiguous association. I have the same confusion towards a
large portion of the campus apartment-type housing. There are many
buildings that clearly aren't student dorms, but it seems like there
are too many to be limited to professors and faculty only.

Anyway, most importantly: how is the dining hall food? A teacher was
asking me, "Now what does American versions of Chinese food actually
taste like?" It tastes kind of like the worst tasting Chinese food of
China - which is to say student cafeteria food. So, from my viewpoint,
受得了 - or I can bear it. It's really not bad.

Second picture: 故宫 The Forbidden City
I'm not going to write a lot. I just think this is kind of a pretty
picture that I took at the back of the Forbidden City. It's good
fengshui to have a large rock behind you, apparently. So this picture
includes part of the emperors' large rock.

Alright, I'm off to study and then to bed.