Beijing welcomes Therese

So there you have it. The countdown is over, Therese has arrived. It was kinda surreal for the first evening. We got home, unpacked, ate dinner, and got drunk. We both just couldn't wrap our heads around the fact the waiting was over. I distinctly remember about 4 weeks ago saying to myself, "Self, that day seems so close, yet almost unimaginably far away." And i was right; when you think about something everyday, time drags on. A watched date never comes. Eventually, you learn to welcome the distractions and then BAM! Therese arrives! And all is right in the world.

Saturday we woke up lazily and attended to grocery needs. This resulted in a breakfast of strawberry, banana, pineapple, mango, kiwi, yogurt, and assorted juices (can rum be a juice?) smoothies.

Later we met Tao for lunch at a fantastic small restaurant near his apartment. We took the long way and explored some beautiful hutongs near the forbidden city. Lunch was relaxed and delicious, a good introduction to real Chinese food.


That night i had called for a welcome BCD (remember: this is expat-ese for Boozy Chinese Dinner). Twelve strong showed up for dinner and a handful of stranglers for more drinking.


The night was a rousing success with about 45 tall Yanjings polished off by the 10 of us that were drinking. This was no doubt helped by the invention of a fantastic new drinking game... Battle Caps (tm).

Rules:
Teams are divided by sides of table. Each player has glass of beer in front of them. The object is to throw a beer cap into your enemies glasses. They must then drink it. If you get two caps in one glass before they finish the glass (yes, you can attempt to bounce it off their face while drinking!), they have to finish a whole bottle! One interesting thing about the game: as you drink more beers, the ammunition increases!

Team Them (courtesy of T's camera)


Team Us (courtesy of T's camera)

It got pretty intense. Joe broke some bottles. Here's Joe being scolded by Jeff after the first (!!!) broken bottle.

Here's Joe preparing to break the second one, willfully, against the radiator. Joe has no recollection of this. We love him.

I ended up coming home with a boxed set of Californication and 8 more movies. It's always interesting when you go DVD shopping while drunk. I've started bringing a list. It's a good way to ensure you don't accidentally end up with Adam's Family Values or the complete series of Full House.

Although, if you ever catch me attempting to buy Danger Mouse or Fraggle Rock, please stand back. I know what i'm doing.

~Kev

Postscript: More on this evening plus some VIDEOS! here from Tao on the always insightful Beijing Ultimate blog.