9/15

9/15 7:40am CST

http://picasaweb.google.com/105909573807230408134/9_15?authkey=Gv1sRgCMuir-qmpLWuHg

Today I was awakened and told to hurry and shower. When I got done with showering and headed up to the 6th floor, plans had pretty much changed. Someone who wanted to have a business lunch with Lin Jin offered to invite us to dinner.

So instead of getting picked up by my dad's friend to hang out until we head to the airport, we are going out to have breakfast, sit around, and then have another lunch. It's a non-stop eating affair out here.

So we walk around looking for a breakfast spot, and we find a pretty forgettable noodle place. After dinner, we come back to Lin Jin's apartment and hang out. My dad's friend has to do some coordination to get his people to the lunch, but it happens. I think I have to learn some tolerance and patience when it comes to changing plans.

Lunch is quite a blast. It's not the best food, but there's 16 people and something like 20 dishes. I am pretty picky of Guangxi food by now, and snipe some of the better stuff. I also get to chat with one of my dad's friend's kids. He's applying to emigrate to Montreal. Apparently he has to demonstrate conversant level speech in both English and French. So he's cramming in French. He also played a lot of Angry Birds on his jailbroken iPhone. My dad got to hang out with his friends for a change. These weren't college classmates, but close friends nonetheless. Whatever business aspect to the lunch dried up once Lin Jin had to bail. We said our goodbyes and went back to eating. We managed to stay from 11:30 to about 3:45, most of it spent talking.

The flight to Beijing featured Date Night, but the subtitles were in Traditional script, which is extra hard for me to read, and the speakers were playing the English audio too softly. I think I'd like to watch it again for what could have been some good jokes. Tomorrow we'll hang out and walk around Beijing. For dinner, I'm gonna meet up with an old roommate of mine who works for the Chinese branch of his company, and ask what it's like to be working back in China.

We got the one of the same rooms in the same hotel. The mosquito repellant machine is in the same spot. A good sign for a hotel, even if the rest of it is falling apart.