Beat China

Hey,
we just got back from canoeing and kayaking slalom racing. The US didn't do very well, but a few teams beat China so that's nice. It's like being a Sox fan, I cheer for two teams; the USA and whoever beats China. The other day we went to indoor volleyball and saw China play Poland. We cheered for Poland since China has a severe advantage, and to play the devil's advocate. In case you missed the match, China won. Almost every event I've seen on TV China has done extremely well, thus we cheer against them.
Strangely the stadiums have not been full, about 4/5 full. We're seeing women's beach volleyball tomorrow morning, the US team is playing, we're excited to see Misty May! I've never seen canoeing/kayaking slalom before, but it was really amazing.
I was saying in my earlier release that the air pollution was not noticeable. Well. Now that it hasn't rained in a two days the air pollution is very easily noticed. The haze has settled in very thickly now, you can see about a kilometer max. After walking around all day my lungs are hurting. Hopefully it will rain tonight or tomorrow, it always looks like it is going to but that's just the haze.
Ok, so for food. There is a fun strip down the road from the hostel that has about 30 or so vendors with all kinds of food. The food is extremely cheap, never more than 10 rmb, but you'd be a fool to buy anything at the price that's set. On average you can get the price down 50%. Last night Jen and I went there with three British guys we met when we went to the Great Wall. We had a few different foods. Father Schnobrich will be happy to know I ate dog. I also had silk worm, star fish, and sea horse! I might have been on the "Today Show" for eating the star fish. A woman from New York was asking if anyone would eat star fish so she could film it on camera, I figured why not since she was paying. It was gross. Dog was good, a bit greasy though. Silk worm was like cream cheese with a gross shell. Sea horse was very salty and hard.
The great wall was amazing. The memories of my 3rd grade project with Stephen on the great wall came flooding back. I went on a less touristy visit of the great wall, there were only about 30 people there while I was there, apparently most touristy places on the great wall are packed. The three Brits with us were very fun. Two of them left today and the third, Simon, is here for one more day. The other two arrived via Mongolia and are now taking a three day boat trip to the three gorges dam. Simon has been traveling South East Asia with his girlfriend for the past few months and is going to Thailand tomorrow to meet up with her again. As you can imagine these three blokes have been extremely helpful in giving me tips for the trip, along with entertainment.
Today at the slalom racing I sat behind a woman from Brooklyn MA now living in China working as a Principal at a Beijing High School, Western Academy of Beijing. Her name is Rena Mirkin in case anyone knows her. She said she would look into getting me a job for the semester/year and she gave me her card. The cool thing was she asked me if I wanted a job, not the other way around.
I've got to go, I'll upload pictures next time.
Take care everyone!