April Fools Day in Beijing

Okay, well, we didn't do anything for April Fools... I actually kind of forgot until now...

This morning we made our way to meet one of my old co-workers from Lincoln who moved back to China shortly after I myself left Lincoln. We met a major challenge enroute as my phone ran out of minutes, making it quite difficult to figure out how to get to her place. Thankfully the taxidriver was kind enough to lend us her phone. We had a great time catching up, and was happy to meet her little 8 month old boy – uber cute!, and then we headed out to have authentic, traditional style Peking duck. Oh YUMMY! It was so good… with each slice of duck carefully sliced to include a layer of crispy skin, a layer of fat, and some meat, then wrapped in a tortilla with cucumber and scallion, then stuffed into my drooling mouth. Oh man it was so delicious!

We then headed to XiuShui Jie where we haggled and were haggled by others to buy their goods..lots and lots of stuff…. fake stuff. Then off to dinner at a Persian resturant with Lisa and couple of her good friends and their adorable four year old who looks mixed because she is, but speaks perfect Chinese.

It's Jenny's last night in China so Lisa pretty easily convinced us to come by and have a drink at her hotel lounge.  Honestly I was a bit tired and didn't feel like cabbing it back to our place after hanging out because we are staying somewhat in the boonies so it would not be a cheap ride, but nonetheless, without much convincing, for whatever reason, we said yes... and I'm so thankful we did!

One, because it was just a nice, relaxing, and enjoyable time to enjoy ourselves and talk girl talk.  And secondly, there's someone who I've been trying to meet with (from a business standpoint).  He is actually based in Japan but comes to China pretty frequently for work.  Even with the devastation, I was considering going to Japan to meet him if we weren't going to be able to meet in China.  But, in the lounge I jumped onto email real quick and saw a note from him, sent in the morning saying that he was in Beijing for the day, and asked if I had time to meet.  Mind you I get this email after 10pm, shot him a quick reply, and get a phone call shortly afterwards.  He swung over to the hotel shortly before midnight to meet and chat!  Thankful we happened to still be downtown with Lisa...  Good conversation. Then we had a girls night slumber party at Lisa's... although it was not much of a party since we basically just fell asleep.

Food… bargaining… food… wandering… drinks… meeting… sleepover.