Bye for now, Beijing!

Wednesday, August 11th, 2010 in: News, Travel

Throughout my time at the language school, I’d seen many people come and go; for a while, it seemed that almost every weekend was another going-away party for someone or another. I’m not big on fanfare, so we decided to have our last night Beijing style. Near the school is a restaurant with tables spilling into the street, always filled with topless Chinese guys eating roasted lamb on a spit. It’s like Chuar on steroids! We couldn’t think of a more appropriate way to conclude our time in China’s capitol.

I’d decided to check out from the dorm on Friday, when Dan would be arriving back to Beijing. With my scant use of electricity, I’d managed to stretch 50 kilowatt hours out over the course of 3 months. The last week my low-power light was blinking menacingly, but I made it all the way to my final night without the lights turning off. I treated myself by leaving the AC on, and by morning, I had completely used up my 50KW/hr.  I counted this a huge win, not just for me, but for the planet. Dan arrived and we got in touch with Bill and arranged our dinner. Anders, one of the other students from Norway was also leaving soon, so we had quite a crowd lined up.

It was a sweaty night, which made it easy to convince everyone to go without a shirt, and we kept cold beers nearby to compensate for the intense heat coming from our table’s coal pits. The dining experience was primal: everyone had a knife with a long handle and a skewer, and it was a free-for-all with blades flying everywhere, trying to gouge out a bites of meat. We were hunters fighting for a fresh kill. After gorging on lamb, we went to Helen’s, a new bar down the street from Wudaokou offering free beer to lure in new clientele. The walls were covered in permanent marker graffiti, which I contributed to with a large rendition of Paul the World Cup predicting octopus, which was then promptly vandalized by my friends. We finished the night at propaganda and danced the night away, an appropriate setting to bring closure to my tenure in Beijing. Dan and I came back to crash in the student lounge; a whole new adventure lay before us.

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