We had quite the day today! We started off with breakfast per usual, but unlike every other morning this week so far wherein we had a lesson in Mandarin until thirty before noon, we had our final test in the language we have been learning for the past several days. When our professor had us randomly pick from a selection of pieces of paper crumpled into little balls, I chose, from all of the numbers that I could have possibly chosen, the number 4! In that very moment, I remembered what our professor had told us during one of our classes: the number 4 is considered an unlucky number in China because its pronunciation is very close to that of the Chinese word for “death.” My stomach dropped and I grew even more nervous than I already had been, and I couldn’t quell the butterflies in my stomach no matter how hard I tried to as the minutes on the clock ticked by and I felt like I hadn’t studied enough no matter how many times I reviewed the material we had learned.
After the test, Chloe and I got ourselves ice cream bars from a nearby store in order to soothe frayed nerves, and the rest of the day was spent in lots of sunshine. We visited the Temple of Heaven, which was breathtaking. I absolutely loved the Circular Mound Altar; the juxtaposition of its all-white frame to the colorful design of the temples in the rest of Tiantan Park really appealed to me.
After our visit to the Temple of Heaven, we returned to the Pearl Market, where we got to do some shopping again! I got a stuffed communist bunny doll holding a little red book and everything! I’ve already named him Mao Bunny in Mandarin. I knew I had to get the doll as soon as I saw it, because only in China can you get Mao Zedong incarnated into an animated little plush bunny! I also got a bunch of super nice pens, and a new case for my contact lenses, which I was really happy about, because I had been wanting to get this case since the last time I spotted it at Pearl Market.
Finally, to top off our day, we had Peking duck for dinner. Tonight’s meal was genuinely one of the best meals I’ve ever had in my life, and I am so glad I had this opportunity to come to Beijing, even if just for the food!
