Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Feels (and Tastes) Like Home

This week, work has been very, very busy (tai mang.) Our supervisors have been really pushing for this section of the project to be finished so that a sub-contractor can come in and start doing their thing. Three work days out of five have been fourteen hours, I don't want to, and I don't think that there will be a justifiable reason to work over that late again for the remainder of my seven months here.

My fifth month in Beijing started on Friday; it feels like a long time, but at the same time not so long. I have almost spent a half year here, but that seems hard to believe – feels more like I just arrived here a month ago.

Just so you know, Tim Hilbert is God's culinary gift to Beijing and all of the Texans living here. He has brought the finest of fine Texas cuisine to the Far East. One of my friends who has been here for 324 days put it best when he said, "This' the first place tha's made me feels' if I's at home." Tim's Bar-B-Q is as authentic as it gets, with wood floors and paneling, a stuffed armadillo, Budweiser beer, good BBQ sauce, and even the plastic red-checkered table spreads. This place's atmosphere and its food would rank it among the great BBQ restaurants back home in College Station. I have been twice now, yesterday evening and Friday. On a side note, Tim said that if his restaurant is successful, the next step is to open up a Texas bar and dance establishment. It won't be a reality by the end of my contract, but maybe by the time I come back to Beijing... Whoop!

Yesterday was Tim's "Grand Opening" even though he has been serving food for two weeks and some of our guys have eaten there six times already. The place was packed with westerners because all of the food and beer was free. We left very full and happy, and some of us had more trouble with the stairs than others.

Change of gears now: An Aggie who graduated last Spring, stumbled upon a girlfriend here. Now lots of guys pick up girlfriends here, but this one is different. Sara is American, not of the Mongolian hooker variety, who has lived in China for a very long time. She has a very different, but good perspective on life – and I think he is head over heels crazy about her. They have been hanging out a lot for the past month, but only "officially" started dating yesterday, her birthday. Being a witness to this one "good" dating relationship is a refreshing contrast with the scores of one-night-stands that I see and hear of every week. Anything is possible with God, even in Beijing. : )

That intro segways into my last story about last night. After Tim's, I went back to the hotel and walked to "Club Nu" which I have never been to but is right around the corner from our hotel. Sara's dad organized a charity benefit for his orphanage there and invited two local artists to perform: Beijing's most renowned mandarin hip-hop artist and DJ. It was quite a party, the pictures will speak for themselves, but you can take whatever preconceptions you may have about charity events back home, and toss those out the window. This was quite a party.

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