Getting My Greet On

(Once again, I can't move the pics, but at least they're in order.) Literally an hour and a half before my train left for Beijing, I finished up having drinks with a Chinese friend I met through recruiting for the Mile summer camp. She wasn't able to come to the camp, but she still wanted to meet up with me since I was in Shanghai anyway. After that short rendezvous, I started to make the cross-town journey to my (Thomas's) place, where my bags were—not a quick transit if you're on the other side of the HuangPu River like I was. The HuangPu River divides the city into PuDong (which means east of the HuangPu) and PuXi (I'll spare you the explanation and instead fill it with these words that actually take up more space anyway). With the help of some Chinese guys at the airport I made it onto the train with 15 minutes to spare, although pouring sweat.

Of course I hadn't eaten, so the first thing I did was hit up the dining car. Oh crap, I realized I just had 30 kuai left. The cheapest thing available thing that would fill me up was 23 kuai...that wouldn't leave enough money to get to Helen's house once in Beijing...oh well, I decided I'd figure that out when the time came, I was freakin' hungry. A couple was seated across from me (the car was packed) and turns out they were Russians from St. Petersburg in China doing business. They spoke no Chinese and only the women spoke English. I learned all about them and helped them order their food. They were only spending a day in Beijing, so they wanted to get in the most sights possible. Since I'd seen pretty much all of them I, along with some random Chinese guy that had lived in California for a while (his English was really good), helped them plan out their day, along with Chinese characters to show the taxi drivers. (See pic, the Russian guy left after getting tired of having everything translated). Three people from completely different places all over the world on the same train car. Pretty nuts. I know I sat there over 2 hours just talking about different stuff. Interesting perspectives.

Once I arrived in Beijing I was broke and hungry. I had to trek close to a mile with suitcases so big it looked like I was ready to change addresses, and then wait outside the Bank of China for over an hour for it to open up so I could exchange travelers checks...definitely not willing to pay the stupid ATM fees. Anyway, I'm still alive to tell the story, and once settled down at Helen's house (I finally tallied up the size of the house: 9 bedrooms, 6 baths, 2 living rooms, and of course a kitchen and dining room...found a room yesterday I'd never seen) I had the weekend to explore Beijing before starting my volunteer work at McD on Monday. I found this really cool hutong (means "alleyway") that was right near where I lived two years ago...I just never found it before. It had some of the coolest shops and was a foreigner magnet. I could tell why—they had some pretty sweet bars, which I definitely intend on hitting up once the Games begin. Anyway, got a full body massage, heavy on the legs, for one hour—only $10. Nice. At the parlor I met an American named Andy from New Jersey. He was here only for a couple months to serve as a body guard for celebrities—he told me some pretty nuts stories, like the time he served as the body guard for Chinese track great (gold in Athens' 04) Liu Xiang without even realizing it. He said he'd call me to get a beer...we'll see if that happens or not.

Then almost as soon as I jumped out of there and into another shop, me and this lady named Revital started talking. She's Islamic and now lives in NYC, but from the sounds of it has lived pretty much everywhere on the globe. We talked a lot (this was her first time in China) and then invited me out for drinks, which eventually turned into dinner (American fare, thankfully...need a break every now and then). She's lived a pretty interesting life, which I won't try to regurgitate here. Anyway, that dinner/conversation went 2+ hours, and then really pushed hard for me to join her division at her company (Ericsson, the parent of Sony Ericsson), explaining that they had opportunities in China. We'll keep in contact and I'll probably shoot her my email. This was all just in a two day span and just a small sample of all the people I've met—meeting new people has become a favorite pastime of mine—I guess some say it's the spice of life? Or is that trying new things? Whatever.