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Published: January 4th 2007
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Tianjin Clock
Clock right outside Tianjin train station I woke up at 7am for some stupid reason. Annie was getting ready for work and I waited to unload my liquidized stomach till she exited the bathroom. I asked Sarah if she felt like joining me for a trip when she woke up and when she said she didn’t, I told her I was going alone and took off. On the way back to my place I once again stopped by the café near her house for my now ritual “baozu” and some tofu. By the time I made it back to my hostel I was literally running as not to have an accident on the way.
I showered and organized my things for a planned overnight trip to tianjin, a city known as the international entry port into China many years ago. Feeling fresh again I headed out the door and made my way to the bus stop by the Worker’s Stadium. After much searching I found the one that I was looking for and jumped on. After 40 minutes or so I realized north was the wrong way and I hopped off in a quiet, shitty little area. English was non-existent there so I pointed randomly to
a menu and ate rice and peanuts before jumping in another bus heading south. After an hour or so I switched to a cab and finally made my way to Beijing Rail Station. A short friendly guy helped me buy a ticket and guided me right to the platform. I was so surprised that he asked absolutely nothing from me. From there on I found my seat and tucked my head for a nap.
Shortly after I woke up we arrived and I was out of the station walking towards what I thought was the city center. My first impression was that there were much fewer foreigners because everyone seemed to be staring at me like a Martian. I walked my way thru a random park to an area with some malls. I stopped for a Taiwan Milk Tea at a really trendy looking café called “Cite” and attempted to talk with the friendly waiter who was extremely nice. I asked him for some toilet paper and unloaded my liquid stomach before leaving. The doorman at the Renaissance Hotel led me to the bar street of the city but it was immediately obvious that 5pm was too early. But I managed to find one lady who had worked for Booz Allen and was now recruiting programmers for an international firm that had acquired a small local one. We chatted and had a drink. Then I took off for a walk and we agreed to meet later on at the Cozy Café where I was constantly greeted with stares. Finally I cabbed my way to the famous Cozy’s but it was basically empty. So I decided to have a coffee and then headed to the station. My taxi driver was friendly but my 10 words of Chinese definitely were not cutting it and so we sat in silence after the first 5 minutes.When I arrived at the station I was dismayed by the fact that all the rail tickets had been sold out for the evening. But some man offered to drive me to Beijing for 50 Yuan and so I followed him to a car, which was already packed with 3 girls heading the same way. I hopped in the back and put on some Sarah McLachlan on the CD player that Sarah had lent to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about her and I couldn’t understand why. She reminded me a lot of Heather from Boston with her liberal mysterious ways. Somehow I couldn’t get inside her heart and it was like a role reversal of the way I must have seemed to Mimi and numerous other girls in my life. In some ways it did inspire me though. Because it showed me that I still had the capacity to feel strongly and perhaps “love” someone one day.After about 2 hours of weaving a foggy highway we came up on the outer ring roads of Beijing. I was blasting away Eminem’s Encore Albums with my window half down staring at the empty blackness around me. There was something beautifully peaceful about it. But soon we were at the 3rd ring road and the driver pulled to the side of the road near the taxi station. We had an argument that they hadn’t returned me to San li Tun as I had requested, and so I made them return 10 Yuan of my money. Boy can I be a cheap ass sometimes! But it’s the principle..
I cabbed back to the hostel and began chatting with my new French roommate, who had just returned from Mongolia and was staying in for the evening. When I was ready I began downing a homemade LI Iced Tea and chatted with some English girls who organized parties in Tianjin. I followed them to Kai Bar but quickly moved on to Bar Blu where I danced for a short while with an American and Aussie girl. They seemed to like me and perhaps I should have stuck around, but instead I met Sarah at 12am. I had called her with the intention of seeing her the following day but she asked me to meet her for a drink, so I did. We went to the Kai Bar and she ran into some Germans she knew. Together we went to the terrace of Bar Blu and began chatting. But my voice was completely gone and the effect of downing about 5 shots of vodka so quickly really began to take its toll on me. So I said I was tired and wanted to leave. To my surprise the bitch said she was going to stay with the German guy for a few more drinks. This strengthened my resolve to continue going out and I cabbed to the hip hop club “Pula Pula” which was empty and not playing hip hop as I had hoped. So I returned to Bar Blu with the intention of seeing Sarah again and telling her I couldn’t sleep. But Sarah and her German friend were gone, so instead I met up with the blond, cute chic from Harvard that I’d met at Zack’s band performance. She was also named Sarah and we seemed to get along really well, discussing topics ranging from sex to jobs to politics. Her German and Scottish friends gave us plenty of space till the bar closed at 5am. I should have asked for a number but felt guilty and decided to play it mysterious. So I gave them all a Spanish double cheek kiss and headed to bed
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