Ich Bin Ein Beijinger

The past few days have been spent holed up in Beijing cafes and exploring the city’s hutongs, small alleyways flanked by grey stone traditional style housing. I found one particularly long street stuffed full of cute wi-fi enabled cafes and lounge bars, home to Beijing’s yuppie population and some younger ex-pats, and the perfect place to hide from the cold January air (which got colder the second I put my mom in a cab to the airport carrying my giant winter hat that I haven’t worn once).

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes: I didn’t have a particularly raucous 21st, because all of my friends are in class and had tests this morning, but I had a nice time going out to dinner with about 10 Beijing classmates and 田老师, one of our first and second-year teachers who left Middlebury and moved here at the end of last year, and later hanging out in the dorms catching up with some of my friends whom I haven’t seen in four months and probably won’t see for another eight. Never fear, I have been promised a second celebration tomorrow night with some friends in Shanghai, and will probably have a third when I get back to the land of the free and the home of the 21 year drinking age and buy my first legal drink (Someone has suggested that I take advantage of my four hour layover in Chicago O’Hare).

This morning I went shopping to the silk market with Lisha, making a couple of last minute purchases and having an odd sense of Déjà vu, pointing out the same messenger bag I bought there two and a half years ago, and the area where I bought the coat I was wearing. Tonight at 8:00 I will get on the night train to Shanghai (I treated myself to a soft sleeper bunk), and tomorrow I will meet up with Lifang who is working in Shanghai and Xueqin who is coming in from Hangzhou. Originally I planned to go to Qingdao and Xi’an before returning to Shanghai, but I’m tired and I’ve seen quite a lot of China, and the appeal just isn’t as great when I’d really like to go home. So on Sunday evening I will fly back to the states. My last 50 or so hours in China start now.