Saturday, October 27, 2012

Oh yeah, I have a blog.

I'm sorry that this has gone so long without an update. It's been a pretty tumultuous couple of weeks but things are finally getting settled and figured out. I moved apartments last week and am much happier here. It's bigger, brighter, and more comfortable. Also, not everything is broken. I've been cooking again, making more friends, and have a roommate who exists.

I'm going to try and stick to writing at least one post a week as well as for any particularly big or interesting things that happen. We'll see how that goes but there have been a lot of stories untold these past few weeks but I'm going to start with something recent: this weekend. This weekend fucking ruled.

I got an early start to my weekend. On Thursday I went out with my new friend Alena, a foreign teacher from Russia and our coworker Natasha (guess which country she's from). We went out for Turkish food after work and then Alena and I went to an indie rock concert at a little bar hidden down this hutong. The band was called "Bu Yao" which means "Don't want" in Mandarin. The lead singer/ rhythm guitarist and bassist were German, the lead guitarist was from the UK, the drummer was from America, and they had a Chinese girl playing a traditional Chinese instrument that I heard the name of like, seven times and still don't remember. Then I remembered internet and it's called an erhu. The music was okay but the band was super nice. We got to talk to most of them and the drummer said studio time is really cheap if I ever wanted to meet up with him to jam. After the concert Alena and I went walking around Lake Houhai (a cool lake with lots of tourist bars but kind of pretty after dark).

Friday I had a lucky day off because my school went on a field trip so I had plenty of time to recuperate. Then, in the evening, we had a dinner party. My friend Nikki and Andrew brought some of their Chinese friends. The Chinese girls made hot pot and soup and Andrew, being from Louisiana, made jambalaya. The food was all phenomenal and there was plenty of booze and good music. I even got to swing dance a little. It was a lot of fun and I can't wait for the next one.

Saturdays I work most of the day but after work I went to an English language improv comedy show. The venue was packed but the troupe was amazing. They started with a long form improv murder mystery and then did some short form games. I even got to go onstage for a game called "helping hands." I got to be Freddy Kruger's hands. The troupe has free workshops every week so I'm definitely going to start going to those. Huzzah for improv.

So, if my time in Beijing continues like this weekend has gone I think I'll be very happy, very tired, and have plenty of great stories to tell. One can hope.

No comments:

Post a Comment