Mistaken Identity

Today was a blast. One of my college friends has come to visit me in Beijing for a few days. We went to Wangfujing and explored a ginormous shopping center, bought some things from the fancy grocery store to make mixed drinks, and snacks for the room.

We decided to go to Alameda, an upscale Brazilian eatery and ranked as the “crème de la crème” in Beijing. We shared two prix fixe meals, sampling cous cous, scallops, filet mignon, and sharing a bottle of Malbec wine. The meal was delicious and quite reasonably priced once you do the conversion to dollars. Actually, this aspect of Beijing, the ability to afford fine dining, swanky bars, and enjoy art, music, and culture at a fraction of the price in the U.S., which makes it so appealing to so many expats.

After dinner, my friend and I met up with three other people from the program at Latinos, a salsa club. The band was great and we danced to the wee hours. We took separate cabs back to our hotel since all cab drivers refuse to seat more than four at night rather than risk being fined by the police. Once back at the hotel, I get a call from one of the guys in our group, he had something of my friends and wanted to give it back before he went to sleep. So I asked him to come down and open the door (there’s a curfew at the hotel and doors are locked after midnight). Unfortunately, he couldn’t open it himself and so the doorman had to be woken up to open the door. The doorman unlocked the door, took in our club outfits and make up, then asked my (guy) friend if he had “called us”. [Translation: Were we prostitutes?!]

Well, although that’s not what one would like to hear, at least it’s a funny ending for the night!