KOREAN SPRING

My fourth day in Beijing was another jampacked one. We started off rather late, actually, and headed over to a restaurant across the street for brunch at around noon. Again, Fangyin ordered more than necessary to make me try a bunch of things, the most exciting of which was zhajiangmian, which is supposed to be the origin of Korean jjajangmyeon. :D Restaurant name: 北平楼 Beipinglou

  Day 3 was one of my most anticipated days since I would finally be able to meet in person a friend I had met online for language exchange.  James lives in Beijing and we started talking last summer, when I had just started to learn Chinese. Obviously, back then I wasn't good enough to make conversation so we mostly spoke in English, thanks to which he says his speaking has noticeably improved! These days I can converse in Chinese a bit better, so he's reciprocating the favor superbly and I think my spoken Mandarin is slowly improving as well. Anyway, after nearly a year of texting and video chat, it seemed surreal that it would be the first time I met someone I already considered to be a rather close friend.

My second day in Beijing was on May 1st, Labor Day. It was a Sunday, so a day off for everyone nevertheless, but all the more reason for people to go out. Fangyin and I woke fairly early, and after a lazy morning left the apartment a little before ten. The subway station was quite clean, contrary to stories I'd heard about Beijing (later on I'd used several subway lines and not just Line 8, all of which were pretty similar to Seoul subway stations). We took the train to Shichahai station and walked down some old preserved street to visit a lake called Houhai (后海), which turned out to be a longer walk than I had expected.

Four agonizingly long months after I purchased my plane ticket, I finally landed at Beijing Capital Airport on the evening of April 30th. There was a two-hour delay to my flight and super long lines even after landing, so by the time I arrived at my friend Fangyin's apartment it was already dinnertime, a small disappointment as I had expected to have a whole afternoon free to explore. I was happy just to be with my friend, whom I hadn't seen since December when she moved back to Beijing after working with me in Seoul; so I didn't really mind that we weren't able to do much that day. First selfie in China! Fangyin prepared bottled drinks and a mask when she picked me up from the airport. So sweet of her! :D