These first few days on the other side of the world are a little shocking. Julius and I spent approximately twenty-seven hours traveling from home to hostel. Our hostel in off of one of Beijing's "famous" hutongs, or alleyways. The hostel itself is cute and of the people we've met so far, we're the only Americans. Some of the Europeans act with unfounded prejudice towards us simply because we're American. The first person we talked to was German and was very quick to scoff at us and our ignorance for being American. Oh well. We met some Irish girls and a group of Portuguese too, all of whom were very nice.
After finally checking in, locking up our valuables, and calling home, I crawled into bed around two. I was lulled to sleep by the thunderous snores from across the room.
I woke up at 6:30 and stumbled out of bed. Julius and I wandered around looking for breakfast and found a place with noodles and 饱 (steamed buns). We both ordered 牛肉拉面 (hand pulled noodles in beef broth), a giant bowl of which cost about $1.40. After eating, we walked through a big park and emerged across the street from Tiananmen square. After many confusing conversations with store-clerks and bank-tellers, we finally figured out how to change money. I called Bow, my 歌友 (singing friend) from high school who lives in Beijing, and we got on the subway to meet him.
Bow lives in the middle of the city, towards the outer edge of the second ring. He dresses like a model and sings like Chinese pop star. He met us at the top of the Parkson mall, a mall full of exorbitantly expensive, genuine products of western brands, for lunch. We met him in the Sichuan restaurant and the waitress escorted us into a smaller, secluded room. He explained that he knows the staff because his mother often takes her clients to the restaurant, so we got fancy treatment. We had Cold Eggplant and Sichuan Chicken for lunch and then left the mall in the direction of his apartment. He showed us his high school, a red brick building off of 复兴门, and we stopped in a TGI Fridays.
I've never actually been to a TGIF in the States, but I figured I'd follow his lead. We watched soccer replays at the bar for about an hour. Somehow it came up that Julius likes playing pool and I swear I saw Bow's ears prick up. "Pool? You want to play pool? I love pool! But I'm not very good at it," he exclaimed. After much discussion, we all agreed that we were bad at pool but liked to play. Bow has a membership to a local pool hall where he plays "all the time" and agreed to take us.
We get to our table and he pulls out his own pool cue and glove. It was at that moment I realized he probably wasn't as bad at pool as he claimed. The ensuing two hours of losing proved that theory to be true.
We went back to his apartment and ate 荔枝(Lychee) and fell asleep.
We woke up and stumbled to his car and drove to Hou Hai, a lovely lake I remember as being quiet when I last visited in seventh grade, but which is now a hopping bar district. Bow had his friends come to meet and speak Chinese to us. We walked around the lake and stopped for Beijing BBQ. We had eggplant, barbecued lamb, chicken (complete with heads), and a vegetable dish consisting of mushrooms and watercress steeped in jelly. Bow made us introduce ourselves and talk about our lives in Chinese while they all joked and corrected us. After dinner, we continued walking to a live music bar where Bow's friend knows the owner. Along the way, we were offered beer, "girly bar," and green laser pointers. Everyone is shocked when they realize we speak Chinese and even after refusing to buy from them, they want to talk with us.
While walking, we heard a strong British accent shouting "Julius!" It was Kevin Wu, another Yale student. Bow and his friends were completely dumbfounded that we ran into someone who knew us (or rather, Julius). At the bar we watched soccer, listened to covers of Chinese pop and rap, and fell asleep. Before leaving, Bow tried to get me to sing with him for the bar, but I was half asleep and way too embarrassed.
Hopefully I actually sleep tonight so I can stay up past eleven.
