Late Nights and Small Victories

This morning, Jessica and I went out into gray, rainy day to take care of some things, like getting PIN numbers for our Chinese bank accounts and exchanging money. We then headed over to register for Chinese classes in a building near West Gate, which is behind a campus square featuring a large and impressive statue of Mao Ze Dong. I especially like his coat blowing in the breeze.

After taking care of business, we bought some more baozi (steamed dumplings) and headed home. Besides the fact that it was a gloomy day, we just wanted to stay in and semi-recover from the night before. Chris (2nd year PiA-er) took us out on a grand tour of bars and clubs, which was a lot of fun and terrible for our livers. After dinner - where I successfully opened a bottle of beer with chopsticks after many failed attempts - we went to Hopscotch, a bar with an awesome red interior and crazy weird lights and posters and comfy couches and knick-nacks. It really appealed to me. We did some shots there, and then went to Dave's, another bar. Dave's was pretty quiet, and so after a drink there (with some complimentary watermelon), we went to a club called 2046. The name reminded me of the Wong Kar Wai movie, so maybe it's a sign that I'll meet a young version of Tony Leung, one of my many Celebrity Crushes (p.s. Jordan, I'm sorry I dropped the ball on guest-blogging for you, but I am going to hop back on that wagon soon!) It was kind of a ridiculous place, but we danced a lot and that's always a good time. Plus they played Sean Kingston's "Fire Burning," a personal favorite hot summer jam.

Despite it being a fancy-seeming club with fancy lights and fancy stools and fancy cocktails, the toilets are still just holes in the floor. I have yet to come across a public restroom that has a Western-style toilet, but I have to say that I'm getting better at using them. It's kind of like camping, except that instead of being in the pristine wilderness, you're in a filthy, graffiti-covered bathroom littered with cigarette butts. So I consider not peeing all over myself or the floor one of my many Small Victories here in China.