The Dinner Party

I had a small dinner party on this week. It was a combination house-warming for me and going away party for some friends. Such is the nature of the Beijing community. People come here for a few months to study or for an internship and then leave. It's kinda sad, actually. You meet all these cool people, hang out with them for a few months, play frisbee, party, etc, and then they leave. I just got here myself, but since i'm staying for a long time, i'm going to survive this phenomenon many times over.

The house-warming aspect consisted of finally learning how to entertain people in my house. There were nine of us. I learned i have five glasses and exactly nine plates and nine rice bowls. Very convenient. I also learned i do not have a wine opener and the liquor store downstairs doesn't sell them. Tao and Aaron were the heroes that came through. I learned how to use the left burner on the stove, which was not an easy task. I learned that if you take every chair in the house, including the office chair, the recliner, and the recliner's ottoman, i have seating for exactly nine. I learned that i have plenty of chopsticks. I learned that there's a wok under the sink and i learned how to use my rice cooker. I learned how to cook a few dishes as well.

Here are our cooks, Wang Bin and Kelly. Together, they cooked 8 dishes in about 80 minutes. You may remember Kelly, she's my chinese tutor.


Here are the party people. Starting with Tao on the right, counter clock-wise we have Aaron, Val, Eric, Lincoln, Kev, Kelly, Chirona, and Wang Bin. Everybody is leaving within a week accept the cooks, Tao (another month or two), and me.


The food was incredible. I really need to learn chinese cooking. Fortunately, it's really easy.


Watching Olympic badminton.



Tao being picked on. Poor Tao (slowly shake head).



Here's one of the wines i bought downstairs. It was not great, it was greet. Which, it turns out, is not great. It was actually really bad. Like, aweful. But Chirona downed it like a trooper.

~Kev