Friday, January 23, 2009

A good day.

Tuesday was a delightful and noteworthy day.

I was sick all weekend, possibly something i ate or a quick flu bug. Meals for the weekend consisted of breakfast on saturday, dinner on sunday, and dinner on monday. That was pretty much all i had appetite for. So when my appetite returned on tuesday, i made straight for Kro's for the best pizza in Beijing, pizza that rivals many of my favorites back home. Pia came for a beer and said goodbye as she is returning to the Philippines shortly. But that's ok, how am i going to visit her there if she stays in Beijing?

Fat and happy, we went to Tun Bar. My band, formerly known as Smarmageddon, almost known as The Hobbit and the Whale and Dan, and currently known as simply Illinois, was waiting for me. We rocked another great set at the open mic night and listened to some good live music. Live music is generally pretty sparse in Beijing, and sometimes you just have to make your own.

The last event for the evening was obvious. At midnight, we changed venues to Rickshaw for to watch Obama's inauguration. The place was packed and my newly returned friend Tao and I shuffled our way through the crowd. We created space and found ourselves surrounded by LCD TVs on all sides. The chatter around us wasn't all Americans, but it was overwhelmingly so. We also had some Europeans and Chinese in attendance. It was drunken and jovial and decidedly positive. Of course, there was booing of Bush and crying babies whenever Cheney was on the screen, but there were also tears of joy, beaming smiles, rounds of applause, and excellent vibes. Truly a historic moment.

I was very proud to be American.

~Kev

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good to have you back, Tao
'rents

Kevin Reitz said...

Belated credit, also, to Tao for that photo.