A VERY fun weekend

Greetings from the motherland!

Last weekend was super fun. I planned a fun outing. Well, first I went to the Chinese hospital and my nice doctor gave me a free x-ray of my elbow. It's not fractured! Yipee! But I still have to wear the sling for awhile, and I can't straighten my arm. It feels better and I can move it more, but not totally.

Then, I went farrrrr away to the west side of town to try and find an animal market that I'd read about with birds, insects, reptiles, and other pets. Since my iphone got stolen, my ability to get around the city has relied more on asking people how to get places. So I got off at the subway station and after asking about 50 people, finally found my way to this market. I was so proud and felt very independent. The market wasn't super exciting, but I was glad to go because it had been something I wanted to do. There were the usual pets - birds, cats, dogs, guinea pigs, hamsters, iguanas, other lizards, snakes, turtles, rabbits, etc... and then there were the Chinese pets: crickets, pigs, some sort of squirrel, and other small animals that I don't know. One bird spoke Chinese to me so I talked to him for awhile.

Then I met up with friends at a park called Beihai Park, it's north of the Forbidden City. We found a spot on the grass in the shade and had wine, brie, grapes, strawberries, and bread. It was so nice and relaxing! It was very Chinese though - we didn't have a knife for the bread or cheese, and we used our water bottles for the wine. Some Chinese kids and their parents came to talk to us because we were a group of foreigners. Every so often an old man would start whipping the air violently loud. TIC: this is China.

Then we went to Wangfujing - a very touristy street. We ate at McDonald's and waited until it got dark. I tried to get everyone to play "would you rather," but when I asked them would you rather have no nose and slits in your face for nostrils, or legs that were one foot long, they didn't want to play. So once it was dark we started walking down this street. The street is full of souvenirs and food. The main reason people go here is for the crazy snacks of bugs and sea creatures. We ate the following: scorpions, grasshoppers, seahorses, and starfish. The scorpions were pretty tasty, but the rest I didn't care for so much. It was SO fun to walk around, eat weird things, and take silly pictures. Then we went to an arcade which was okay but by this time my feet were starting to hurt and my bag was getting super heavy.

THEN, - yes, this day was never-ending, we went to Nanluoguxiang. Nanluoguxiang is a really fun street in an hold hutong (alley) neighborhood that is now full of shops and bars. We sat outside at the Guitar Bar with music and hung out. I got home at 1:30 am. It was a very successful day.

On Sunday I went to a friend's apartment for dinner. There is a chef in Beijing named Chef Wang - he comes to people's apartments every night and cooks for them whatever they want and you pay him - but it's an extremely good price. He is booked a year in advance. It was my first experience with him and it was really fun!

A friend from home, two years younger, Tommy Obenchain, is arriving in Beijing tonight! I'm going to see him on Friday and Saturday and I'm really, really looking forward to seeing someone from home!

Peace out, homies.