Beijing: Another Surreal Night....
Last night was my "classmate" Aaron's birthday, so he invited basically the whole school out for drinks and dinner + karaoke. Sounded fun. Here are the reasons it was totally wack:
1) Drinks + Dinner was at this tiny bar that I like, but Aaron had basically rented it out and prepaid for a ton of stuff, so we didn't have to pay. This was fine, but I was a little weirded out by it
2) Karaoke Place was MASSIVE. When I say massive, I mean like it was a towering structure designed specifically for Karaoke. Picture an office building. Each floor had giant karaoke lounges and a buffet! It was ridiculous, but also kinda makes you think….a culture that places so much importance on karaoke…..
3) We were having a conversation mocking the man purses that Beijing men are always carrying (they love them) and I mentioned that I have seen so many Prada man-bags. Anyway, this swiss dude that we all agree is a bit shady said something like "the only guys in Zurich who wear prada are the brazilian money boys" (ie. Hookers). So of course I had to joke that he was probably a "money boy" himself, so which he replied something like "well, I only tried it for two months, and I didn't like it so much". Anyway, it turns out he WASN'T KIDDING! So it was a fun evening asking him about his escapades as a male gigolo. Good times, but strange when ya think about it!!
4) I was hungover without even being drunk!!!! I think because I drank whiskey, beer, and taro milk tea all in the same night. Bad move on my part!
5) Herd of chinese language students (like 50) wandering the streets of beijing as a mob is never a good thing!
Anyway, tomorrow I hit the great wall, or "Chang Cheng", which should be interesting. I had a crazy 20 minute conversation with my host family in which I inadvertantly said "Chang Cheng" (Great Wall) instead of "Chang Chang" (usually/frequently). Hilarity ensued, but I won't bore you with the details.
Also I have decided to ditch my overachiever gene and switch back to the "regular" writing class instead of the "accelerated" writing class, mostly because I'm lazy. I'll take my own sweet time to learn the characters, thank you very much!
Food update: People here have realized that I talk about food too much, including the teachers!! Also my host mother made 100 DUMPLINGS! She boiled 50 of them, which the three of us ate. I also broke down and joined the super expensive gym here…I figure if I can burn 500 extra calories per day I may be able to escape total obesity…its gonna be all cardio baby!!!
