Today I went to a park to do some sketching before all the pretty autumn leaves fall.
But, well, it was too cold for me to sit outside and sketch, so I gave up in a minute and fled to a cafe :P
Oh ok, the leaves in the street look pretty from here! So I could do a quick sketch.

I see these two men on the right every time I come to this cafe.
They always keep chatting forever with low voice.
They are maybe retired already and have a lot of free time. It’s good for you guys that you are energetic enough to go out and keep chatting all day :)

Fall is very short in Beijing. Before it get clod, I’ve been trying going out to enjoy this nice weather.

When I went to Ritan park in weekend, I saw a group with all foreigners, including the teacher. They were practicing Taichi. People stop walking and watch them for a while because it’s a kind of interesting. But Taich movement is very slow, so you may get bored when you keep watching the practice… Anyway, people are enjoying short fall here.

My neighbor, a nice older woman, gave us a lot of home made steamed sticky rice with date plums inside and wrapped with bamboo leaves. It is called 粽子(zong zi).
In the northern area of China, they cook it with sweet taste. In the Southern area, it’s salty tasting. The one I got was not too sweet and yummy! I love this steamed sticky rice! Thanks ayi~. (Ayi: older woman)
Because my husband and I like talking to local people in our apartment area, we make friends and sometimes we can enjoy good stuff like this…

We invited our friends to our apartment for a Thanksgiving dinner last week.

Ok, in China, they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving, but we did.

The attendees were half Chinese people, half (Taiwanese/Chinese) American people, roughly.

Most of people knew each other, so it was a cozy party.

The mixture of traditional American food and Chinese home cooking was enjoyable and kinda healthy.

My fiance worked hard to prepare/roast a big turkey. It was successful, yay!

On the other hand, I struggled with pumpkin pie.

The pie crust was killing me. When they saw my failed pie crust, one said

‘Oh, is it nan?’

Other said

‘Oh, is it bead?’

(-_-)

But finally I made it on the third try!

 

Actually, we joined to a second party hosted by my fiance’s friends next day. It was more like ‘social’ party.

Japanese don’t have the custom of going to a party to socialize with people they don’t know.

But I usually enjoy meeting new people, so it was fun. In the end of the party, I was actually sleepy though.

 

Through these two parties, I especially was amazed by some Chinese people, becaurse they speak English sooo fluently!

And most of them has never been in abroad, or lived only one and half years abroad.

Wow.

One said he learned English with watching a lot of American drama dvds.

Other woman said she learned it from her ex-boyfriend (American).

Ok…

So I started watching ‘Glee’. But actually my fiance has gotten into it a lot more than I have, haha.