10/29 Sunday

I slept in until 12:00.

At around 1:00 I went walking around Beijing with one of the Cummins interns, Terry. We tried to find Hou Hai Park to sit down and eat/talk, but ended up finding Bei Hai Park instead. At that point we had been looking, without a map, for around two hours, and were desperately hungry. So, we found a random restaurant and ordered some noodles. I got tomato and egg noodles, while she got beef noodles. We decided to head back home after that, as it became apparent that our search would be futile (we asked quite a few people on the street where Hou Hai was, and all pointed north and said it was far away).

After returning from our walk, we sat down in Wang Fu Jing to wait for the other intern, Caroline, and Lak. After around half an hour, they showed up. We all went shopping for candy to put on 200 peoples' desks in the Cummins office, as part of an effort to improve office relations and social life (it’s just a start).

After our shopping, we decided to go try a famous dumpling restaurant called Din Tai Fung. It was a long taxi ride, but well worth the wait. The service was excellent and the food delicious. The dumplings were a bit too rich for my liking, however. We ordered and ate every type of dumpling on the menu. Some of the dumplings (they demonstrate when they bring them out), are eaten in a special way. One, you put in soup and eat, while another you eat plain, and another you are supposed to use soy sauce and/or vinegar.

I had a quiet evening at home, reading, and watching some TV.