Always Classy in Beijing

Wow, what a week it’s been. They really laid on the midterms heavy before our weeklong trip. We even had a midnight deadline the night before we left on a 2 midterms that we got that same day. It was ridiculous, and we all ended up going all the way up to the deadline (and he didn’t even grade it hard, my piece of crap essays both got As). We ended up blowing off a whole bunch of steam that night and the ensuing week. Showing up at the airport at 8am drunk and with everyone having pulled an all-nighter was comical, especially with two clowns Morgan and Rob being almost/ if not blackout.

We spent the next two days in the crappy city of Anyang, which has a population of 5.5 million, but Montclair even has a better nightlife than it. We went to a high school to play a basketball game that I heard was tight, but Elliott and I slept threw it. I blame the all-nighter. The other two days were spent looking at oracle bones, where the original Chinese language was written on, and it was a real snoozer (hate to say it but its true).

Beijing was really cool though. They told us it would be unbelievably cold (I think it snowed like 4 inches when they went last year), but it was sunny and beautiful the whole trip, with few smog too. We did some super touristy stuff: rode rickshaws through the and old school Beijing Hutong, took a boat ride to the Summer Palace, and went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. These were all really cool spots and we had free bombass lunches and dinners as a group too, so I can’t really complain . The real highlights were the Peking duck dinner, the Donghuamen Night Market, Olympic park and the Great Wall.

The night market was unreal. It was a snack market that sells various edible and exotic snack foods throughout its many hawker stalls. It sold everything from scorpions, millipedes, grasshoppers and beetles, to little squids, little sparrows and starfish. I ended up just getting the scorpions (which actually tasted great), a tarantula spider and other less exotic stuff.

Olympic park wasn’t even scheduled, but after a pri-fix meal at one of Beijing’s best restaurants four of us took a train out to the center to see the engineering feats that were the Birdsnest and the Water Cube. It was really worth the trip. They really gave us a lot of free time to tour the city on the trip, so we made detours like this and a really interesting Frank Gehry architecture exhibit.

The Great Wall was EASILY the best part of the 10 day trip. Going into it I really had expected something totally different. When my pops went there for work he said that it was super touristy, include them having a zoo-like place with bears and a carnival. We got something totally different. It was almost empty throughout and was a truly amazing sight. The hike up it was way more intense than they told us, thank God I didn’t wear my pea-coat that I left on the bus. When we all got to the top, glazed in sweat, there was a local there to meet us selling ice cold beers. BEERS ON THE GREAT WALL?? Of course we indulged. Shotguns on arrival. What a way to do China.

The next few hours were spent on possibly the first (someone may have to record this for historical purposes) Great Wall Crawl. Beers were there for us at almost every tower for only 10 kuai (about $1.50), and we had one at almost every stop. It was an absolutely ridiculous time under the Chinese blue sky.

The nightlife in Beijing was real dope too. Not on Shanghais level of variety, or even proximity, and I’m really glad I go abroad where I do, but really fun nonetheless. We went out every night in one way or another. We went to multiple dance clubs, bars, and even “Strip Clubs”. The apparently don’t have strip clubs here, just go-go like bars where creepy old men watch and drink beer in the dark. The real find was Sanlitun's (pronounced Sanlitour) north bar street, which was tucked away in a dark ally. The street was absolutely bumping at night, just alive with people of all ages (we partied with two mid aged white businessmen in suits the first night. I kinda want to have my Dad be those guys when he’s in Beijing, but just way less creepy to 20 something girls) And with shots for only 10 kuai at every place, it warranted visits on back to back nights to close out the trip.

The last night was our baby faced friend Rob’s 20^th birthday and was just straight-up out of control. Feeling a little pekish from the night before, it took us a while to get going and but after a little bit of hotel pre-gaming we were all more than ready for Sanlitun. We really took advantage of the 10 kuai shots and bar hopped the ally bars until we met up with a group of friends at Shooters . More shots and beer flowed and as the top 40 hip hop played, the night turned into a fantastic haze of Cocaine shots (half Jaeger half Bacardi 151... yeesh). This one French dude who was posted up at the bar next to us started nauseatingly bad mouthing America, not Americans (that wouldn’t have gotten to me, we do suck in a lot of ways), just the country itself. I didn’t say anything and just put it away in the memory bank, sipping on my Tiger beer as Bob was making a hilarious fool of himself on his b-day.

As we walked out the bar I walked up to the badmouthing Frenchy, put my arm around his shoulder and said in my best attempt at a southern accent (PG version) “Listen buddy. America is freaking awesome. You can go put with your French body part up your froggy other body part” (told you I’d keep it clean mom). Then walked away backwards slowly with two middle fingers in the air. Making it well known to him, DON’T MESS WITH AMERICA. Of course, typical for a Frenchman, he had no response at all and hence conceded victory to me. U.S.A. U.S.A.

We got into a cab on the bar street and Bobbo proceeded to puke all over the outside of the cab, with a smile on his face the entire time. Happy 20^th buddy.

The next day was absolutely ridiculous. We had to check out the hotel at 1030am, and went to a lunch spot with our group. Henrik sprinted off the bus as we got there and yaked his brains out, with our teacher John Tai right next to him (all the teachers on our trip were freaking awesome, thank you gifts are surely in order).

When we boarded our sweet plane back to Shanghai, after a few games of Gin Rummy (which im getting mad good at), Lucy, who was still drunk at like 3pm, ended up spewing a few times. Even as we landed in Shanghai Elliott went on and blew chunks into a bag, which of course had a hole in it, emitting his lunch all over himself; and who was sitting next to him? Our teacher John Tai. We really are the classiest bunch of Americans in China.

Also, can I get a an award for having a blog post with the most synonyms for throwing up used in 3 paragraphs?? I’ll look into that…..upchuck. There’s the cherry on top.

What a last few days, What a trip, What a beard I have grown in the meantime.