Fun in Beijing

So the last two days have been busy. However not busy with school work necessarily (the teachers have been nice thus far), this is why many students are taking this opportunity to check out the night life here in Beijing. Last night we went to a club called Propaganda, which charges students 50 yuan for all you can drink. No doubt this is friendly to the wallet, although not so friendly to your head when we have class the next day :P It was still fun though, because most people from the program did go out last night and so it was great to get to know a bunch of people.
On the way to the club we walked by the many vendors that you usually find on any road here. Selling things from jewelery, post cards, food (they are cooking it right there over a fire) and also animals it appears. This is the picture for today. That little dog was sooooo cute. I barely was able to walk away without buying both rabbits the cat and the dog. I just wasn't sure where I would put them on the way walking to the bar. So I had to leave them there.
Yesterday after classes were out we went to see a performance of Beijing Opera (Jingju 京剧).
The bus ride to the opera house took about 45minutes, this left plenty of time for us to start singing on the bus. I took a few videos of this. It was surprising to see how many songs we could sing. Amongst other we also sang Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and Madonna *lol*
The Beijing Opera itself was an interesting experience. The style was definately of the Chinese kind, but it must have been this particular piece that had an annoying instrument as part of the accompanying music. It litterally sounded like someone was taking two metal bowls and hitting them together. This instrument played generally the same role as a drum might have in, let's say traditional North American Native music, aka it was loud and at times painful to listen too. Nonetheless, the opera was a worthwhile experience. The make-up, the stage and the costumes were really well done.
As we all got in quite late last night, I think today will be a quiet evening. I will do some homework and go to bed at a reasonable time. Hope everyone is well!

Contrary to my intentions I have not been appending my blog with a Chinese word/expression. So today's Chinese word is:

生日快乐 = happy birthday
shengri kuaile