Time of My Life

Today was easily one of the best days of my life...I can say that without much of a second thought.

It's hard to explain, I guess, but it was just one of those days. I woke up early, ate breakfast, and set out on an adventure to find a climbing wall as noted earlier.

Well, in order to get to the climbing wall that I was attempted to find, I had to take the subway to the Xizhimen stop, which happens to be about a ten minute walk from CET, which is the school that I was at last summer.

Upon arrival at Xizhimen I thought "Eh, what the heck. I'll go see what's happening at CET."

So I walked down the street a bit, noticing that things had already changed a good bit since last summer. New overpasses existed over the highway, and new shops seemed to have sprung up everywhere, replacing old ones. It's amazing how quickly Beijing changes.

The area seemed cleaner in general as well, though still not amazingly clean by any means.

Anyway, I ran into a laowai walking in the opposite direction and supposed that she was a student at CET.

Me: "Do you study at CET?"
Her: "No, just visiting a friend....but I can tell you how to get there if you want."
Me: "Oh, no worries, I know how to get there....I studied there last summer...."

We continued on for a minute before parting ways.

I reached the street that CET backs up to and was shocked to see that most of the tiny restaurants there have been replaced by clothing stores and other such shops. The little beverage store directly beside the main gate of the school has been replaced by a t-shirt shop or something, which was a little sad because there used to be a fun little child who played around with the old owners.

Anyway, I walked into CET and made my way up to the main office, assuming that most students and teachers were still in class (it was right around 12 noon). Zuocui, a funny girl who worked in the office last summer was still there, though it seems she has moved up from secretary to some other position higher on the totem pole.

She told me that most everyone was in class, but that I could wait for my old teachers in the other building across the tiny campus.

So I did. I waited, and I wrote a bit in my moleskine notebook while sitting on the steps of the facility.

Finally, after about half and hour, I ran into my old teacher, Lin Laoshi, as well as Zhang Laoshi, and had a good conversation with the two of them. Then, extremely randomly, I ran into a fellow student, Sonya, from last summer who was back at CET studying once again. We talked for a bit and promised to meet up at a later point, and then I took off for lunch at the Jiaozi Fanguanr (dumpling restaurant) right around the corner from the school.

Lunch was good: 12 big pork filled dumplings and a plate of spicy beans similar to Gan Bian Siji Dou (my favorite dish), but not quite the same (they were fried almost). I washed it all down with a big bottle of Tsingtao.

Anyway, after that I gave my friend Gilbert, who previously worked at the OMEGA residence, a call to see what he was up to since I had some time off.

As it turns out, he lives quite close to Xizhimen, so I hopped in a cab and made my way to the Beijing Waiguo Yu Daxue (Beijing Foreign Language University) where he has an apartment..............

Ok. Honestly I'm really tired from today, and think I may just pass out for now.... continue writing tomorrow. The story will go on I promise!