This day has been so much better than the day before. Without further ado…
Got up with the intentions of having some spare time to go eat at the No 5 Café before going to class. I was going to eat some fried eggs,bao zi, and maybe some hot soybean drank. I was going to enjoy this meal. However, I suspect my roommate, Grand Harbinger of the Alarm Clock, of meddling with the alarm so that I cannot wake up as early as I plan. He says that the alarm went off at 7:10 this morning, but I got straight up, took a shower, and walked out the door only to find that it was already 7:45. Foiled again! I had to walk straight to class, and then do poorly on the daily little writing quiz. I do believe that they are pulling the words for this quiz from somewhere other than our textbook.
I went to class, learned some, got corrected a lot, and spent some time talking with my classmate from the land of Yale. I did so well in class that day I treated myself to a lunch at KFC. For approximately $3.25, I ate my own weight in delicious chicken sandwiches, French fries, and lemon juice. Then, I swung back to the room, put on my workout shoes, and booked it over to Bally Fitness, the best fitness center this side of the Yellow River. I had to run around like a moron trying to find the place, after receiving bad directions from the guard outside the building. This is what happened:
“Excuse me, could you tell me where to find the Bally Fitness Center?”
“Fitness Center? Oh yeah, down the street, on the other side.”
“…Okay, thanks.”
The building that said Bally Fitness was behind the guard, and I went to ask someone else.
“I’m looking for Bally Fitness.”
“Yeah… Go to that door at the end of the building, with the red banner above it.”
Done. I walk into the building, into what looks like a 5-star hotel.
“I’m looking for Bally Fitness.” Where can I find it?”
“Go walk down to the door with the yellow banner above it, find the elevator, and take it to the third floor.”
Done. I walk into this section of the building, only to realize that I’m in the hotel restaurant and if I look to my left, I can see the people at the front desk that just gave me crappy directions. I walk through the restaurant and find a waitress walking around aimlessly. She finally gave me the right directions, and walked into another section of the building, found the secret elevator, scanned my thumb, and ascended.
When I got to the front desk, I gave them my information and proceeded to pay for my membership. My card won’t work there. Imagine that. So, I truck it back downstairs, find a bank of China, and finally manage to take a run on a treadmill there.
The fitness center is very nice. They have showers, a sauna, squat toilets, free sandals that you can wear to shower in, hair dryer, and 24-hour hot water (wow…). The exercise equipment is also very nice. All of the machines are in English, which is great for me. Sadly, the treadmills calculate distance in kilometers, and I can’t make the conversions too fast. Also, all of the weight equipment is funny because it’s designed with the little Chinese guy in mind. I topped out the back extension machine, which is a feat that I could never accomplish back in the States.
Then, I headed back to the room for an extremely cold shower. I got ready to head out for the evening. I had finally talked to Jesse, and I was going to meet her at 5 at her school! I took what looked like the most logical course to her school, which was about a 25-minute walk from my dorm. I found Jesse and her boyfriend Levi in the gymnasium, after getting some help from a pair of students there.
Jesse is a bundle of energy. She is so funny to talk to, and she is excited about everything. I really like her. Her boyfriend Levi is a lot more reserved, and they are both extremely smart. They thought that I was around 25 years old when we met due to the beard, and I would have sworn that they couldn’t have been more than freshmen. We were both surprised to learn that Jesse and Levi are a year older than I. Jesse is a senior and Levi a junior. There was confusion as to the nature of my name, and they were quite thrown off by my teacher’s choice for my name (it sounds like a girl’s).
Our plan for the evening was to meet some of their friends in a restaurant on the 5th floor of the shopping mall of doom – it was enormous – and there we would all eat supper. I met BingBing, JiaoJiao, WeiDa, and David. They are all Christians and attend the same church service in the neighborhood. It was very encouraging to be in the room with these people. They give me great hope for this country.
Dinner was great. They insisted that I be their guest, and I reluctantly accepted. We consumed Beijing duck, niblet corn fried in egg batter, more fried bread, beef and peppers, eggplant (yahoo!), and cold beef things, all with voracity. And for the record, last night was a very humbling meal for me: I couldn’t understand half of what the dinner conversation was, with all of the hip new jive those kids are using.
After the meal, we took the elevator down to the basement of the monolith, where I learned we would not, in fact, be skiing, as my email from Jesse said, but rather ice-skating. I walked to the counter, said “give me your biggest size,” and hoped for the best. In a strange turn of events, this rink actually had skates that fit me! Once again, I think I was the only mildly competent ice skater in the group, which is very sad. I skated around and tried to help them learn the art of ice-skating, but there was not much I could do. David fell no less than 20 times over the course of the hour and a half skating party.
After skating, we parted ways and took a cab back to Jesse’s school. They showed me the secret East Gate of the university, and I finally realized where we were. We were in the shadow of Jesse’s dorm, which was literally not thirty yards from the congee restaurant. Allow me to elaborate: Beijing has a population of no less than 17 million people. Around 500,000 (if not more) of these people are college students. Haidian, my district, houses the majority of these schools, but the district is huge, enclosing approximately 30 square miles. Jesse, the girl who came to Passion Atlanta and spoke, who ran into Morgan and Caroline on the last day of Passion, lives in a dorm that is a 5 minute walk from my own. This is more than coincidence.
They walked me back to my dorm, and we played a few songs on the guitar before they left. Right before they left, Levi said, “Do you mind if I pray for us.” Not at all, not at all. So we prayed in my room, and I escorted them out of the building. It has been an amazing afternoon with the two of them.
Then, I proceeded to study the wrong text for class tomorrow, which I would only find out much later on into the night. I’m sitting in my room, studying away, blissfully, when I hear a knock on the door. It’s Joy. She says: I’ve just finished having this really long discussion about Christianity with my friend, do you mind if I ask you some questions? Of course, I say, and then I tell her that I’m going to break the language pledge for the remainder of the conversation (I’m not even about to try to begin to explain the Gospel in Chinese right now). We stay up until about 2 in the morning, talking about salvation. This too is more than coincidence.
I finally finish my homework around 2:30 in the morning, and I die on my pillow.
I’ll write soon!
Love,
Jamey
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