adios beijing

j-term is over. and so is my time in beijing. it was a fast, challenging and ridiculous month, and i am now ready to move on. before we start the spring semester in hangzhou, we have two and a half weeks off...chika chika yeah. initially, a few friends and i had a crazy plan to slowly make our way down to hong kong to celebrate the chinese new years (feb. 7-9). sooooo naive. turns out, and not surprisingly, buying a train ticket is incredibly hard to do this time of year as everybody and their fucking mother is trying to get home..hellllo population problem. it took me back to the days when my family would gather at my dads office, all on different phones with the chicago bulls box office number on speed dial trying to score a few standing room only tickets to watch that glorious dynasty. except this time it involved waiting in line for three hours, scrambling among fifty aggressive chinese people. so yeah, we had to ditch the lavish plan of spending 30+ hours on hard-sleeper trains and three days on a chinese passenger boat along the yangzte river, and will now be roughing it up on a three hour plane ride to explore the south--hong kong, macau, guangzhou, etc--at my friend's supposedly extravagant house in zhuhai. but no worries, there is plenty of time for me to fulfill my darjeeling limited fantasy, jason schwartzman included.

so yeah, i had some pretty nutso experiences in this place, but i would have to say that the most terrifying, most absurdly awkward moment occurred trying to take a shower at the twelve star fitness center. you will never know real fear and confusion until you are forced to share eight curtain-less showers with thirty naked chinese women. nobody is your friend here. nobody. there is no good way to explain the intricate process, but trust me, my awkwardness reached new heights.

ok. its been fun beijing, don't forget me? xoxo