I can’t really bring myself to write one of my typically long, exhaustive essays about Josh’s visit last weekend. Just listing the stuff that we did will take long enough and I don’t want to spend two friggin’ nights trying to analyze on paper what happened. Maybe I’ll get to it some day, but not now.
Suffice to say, 99% of the time that Josh was in town was awesome. (Hey, nobody’s perfect.)
- On Thursday night we went to the kick-ass Girls Are Waiting to Meet You CD release party & concert at Yugong Yishan with my Couchsurfer Kathlyn, another and a couple of other CSers, Santiago & Mario. This Beijing rock band is made up of boys & girls, Chinese & laowais. They’ve got 2 violinists, a wind guy (sax, clarinet & flute), a sexy-as-hell chick drummer (I always go for the drummers), a guy on keyboard, a bass guitar player and a Chris Martin-looking brit lead singer who occasionally plucked a lead acoustic guitar. Mixing cultures, musical styles and innovative arrangements, this kind of band is right in my wheelhouse. I had actually seen their 2nd-ever show at D-22 back in November so I was psyched to hear them after all this time. The music did NOT disappoint and the crowd was rocking.
- Friday we played Frisbee in Chaoyang Park, then had dinner at Hotel G before I made my reappearance as a DJ at Club Alfa, with a large crowd on hand. I went on early (8pm) to warm up. I actually like playing to an empty club to start. I can lay down the songs that I want and get into a rhythm. By 9:30-10 the place was jumping. I wrapped up just before 11pm and we ended up staying and dancing our asses off until about 3.
- Saturday was my friend Joa’s birthday. After meeting up in Sanlitun with a group of French, Chinese and a Ukrainian (on their scooters & 3-seaters, even!) we went over to the new French restraint there, Juliette, and proceeded to serenade her in front of everybody. Then we were off to Hohai, where we rented a couple of small 7-10 person boats and put-putted around the lake drinking wine, eating lamb and beef skewers & cake while listening to some of the French folks play music & sing.
(An aside: Honestly, I don’t know how these amazing, incredible nights keep happening to me. It was like we were in a strange post-modern Fellini film. International crowd. Great food. Laughs. Music. One of the most relaxing, wonderful nights spent in Beijing yet.)
- Sunday started with a round of golf at the Beijing Tianzhu Golf Club. Tee time was 10:45am so we were not able to stay out too late with the revelers the night before. Our very good friend Alex arranged for us to play with a cool guy who is an agent for lots of movie star types in Beijing. I brought along my good friend Ye. It was sweltering on the incredibly gorgeous course, but we had a blast and didn’t leave the club until 6:00pm… That night, after a quick stop at home to clean up we met with Josh’s friend Danding and my friends Adele & Ye for dinner at the wicked awesome Wish out in Lido. Holy crap was the food and wine good!
- Josh had to leave on Monday, but I dragged myself out of bed early to meet him for lunch at my favorite neighborhood spot, Club Sandwich, and to give him a quick tour of my apartment complex.
All in all, except for one SNAFU, it was a freaking awesome weekend with my best friend. Not only did we have tons of fun, but he opened my eyes to some things that I wasn’t seeing clearly and he kicked my ass a little bit in a way that I hadn’t really been aware that I had needed.
I’m looking forward to when Joe swings by. It definitely might happen soon.
