Adventures in Guangzhou!

Luckily with a group of smart, funny, talented kids like that, fun was never far away. Some minor highlights of the weekend include playing the "Share the most mundane moment of your day" game (much funnier than you'd think) and one of the most competitive games of Trivial Pursuit I've played in a while. The Elis all enjoy competition and I can't say I've ever been one to shy away from it so it worked out quite well.

Though the various card games and board games were enjoyable, they were only a bonus to the best parts of the weekend. I mentioned last week that I brought out the frisbee for the first time and was inspired. Well, the Yalies were of the same mind so we set out to throw the disc for a while out on one of the fields of Sun Yat Sen University. We found a nice open field with a bunch of students lounging around playing cards and chatting. It felt so normal to be throwing the frisbee around with a big group out on a college campus... until campus po-po shut us down. That's right--somebody must have called 911 to report the danger because a university police officer rushed over after we had been playing for a half hour. He proceeded to inform Kelly and Diana that while the field was there for the students and faculty to enjoy, it was not to be stood on. We looked around and saw various people walking across the field, laying on the field, and sitting on the field, but apparently the light jogging required to catch an off-the-mark toss was unacceptable. My favorite part is that he did say it was okay to sit down and play frisbee. Just picturing that was worth a laugh. I wondered if I could organize a whole game of ultimate that required all participants to sit down.

After our frisbee was cut short, we headed back to relax at Kelly and Diana's apartment. There I saw an unbelievable documentary which I highly recommend to all of you. Dan, one of the Changsha fellows, brought a copy of his brother's movie that was premiering this weekend on HBO called "Baghdad ER." It is a film that follows one of the medical units in Iraq caring for (mostly) U.S. and coalition forces. It was not done with any string political slant, but rather to show the horrors of a war that (I believe) we should never have started in the first place. It's extremely well done and when it ended, my first thought was that I wished it had been longer. For those of you with HBO, check it out as soon as possible. For those of you without it, track down somebody with HBO and make friends.

After the movie we mobilized for dinner to the Irish pub "Paddyfields." The Changsha contingent rarely gets any form of western food so it was a treat for them to have our meager offerings here in GZ. I myself had not been there since Halloween so I was looking forward to some western cuisine. After looking at the menu I felt I owed it to myself to have a big burger and a Guinness. I was not disappointed. My first restaurant hamburger in China was incredibly tasty and well worth the hefty price tag. The french fries also hit the spot, right along with the onion rings we shared for an appetizer. Mmmmmm. Fried food.

While this was a momentous occasion, it paled in comparison to our post-dinner plans. Andrew led us over to an honest-to-god western-style bowling alley! I can't say that I'm an avid bowler or a bowling enthusiast by any stretch of the imagination, but who doesn't like to bowl every once in a while? The whole experience was very funny though and very indicative of a western activity done in China. First off, they gave us shoes and did not require our shoes (or anything else for collateral). In the states, that alley would have lost all of their bowling shoes in about two days. Second, we got to our group of lanes and had a bit of trouble entering names into the system (though I was eventually amused by "Arster," and "Dianimal"). Next we went in search of balls. While U.S. bowling alleys rarely have top of the line offerings for the casual bowler, we had some slim pickins. There were a bunch of balls around but all of them either had bizarre finger configurations, were too heavy, had huge chunks missing from them, or were just super super dirty. We picked a few though and got under way. Unfortunately, our particular lane was a bit finnicky. After two frames it stopped lowering new pins. We called over the attendants and they seemed to fix it but then after the next toss we were back to square one. This went on and on for a little while until they called over one of the technicians.

Now in the states if your lane is not working correctly, they probably just shut it down and move you. But here in China, they sent a guy right down into the pin-moving mechanism and he manually pushed the thing down. Nobody told us to stop throwing balls or told us when it was okay to keep going. Eventually we decided it was safe to roll again but the problem kept occurring. Though the man was helping the pins down, sometimes the machine would release too early (i.e. from too high up) and you started the frame with only 7 pins on the ground. Hmmm. Eventually they did wise up and move us to a new lane, but it was pretty entertaining all around. I wish I could say that I channeled the spirit of "The Dude" and was in top form but in reality I only broke 100 once... and that was because I got a strike on the final frame.

I didn't think it could get much better than bowling but I was wrong. We finished up at about 11:30pm and I figured we would make our way home but Andrew had a grand plan. We walked over to Elephant & Castle, the local western sports bar and waited to the side while Andrew made some inquiries. E & C is known much more for it's football and rugby offerings than anything else, but we reasoned that if they had a satellite, they might just be able to pick up some U.S. sports. Specifically, we were hoping for Saturday afternoon's matinee at Shea Stadium featuring Pedro Martinez against Mike Mussina--the 2nd game of the Yankees v. Mets series. I didn't think there was a chance but Andrew worked his magic and I actually got to watch a live Yankees game!

And thus we entered a surreal world of beer, baseball, darts, and a projection screen TV. Sure, if you looked out the window there were neon signs in Chinese characters. However, with a menu offering fries, wings, and pizza to keep you company along with the sparklingly annoying commentary of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, it sure felt like home. It also worked out nicely that there were two bigtime Mets fans and two diehard Yankees fans to trade barbs throughout the game. I almost forgot how to trash-talk but rest assured, it all came back to me in a tidal wave of slang.

The first pitch was thrown at a little over 1:30am for us and we all got comfortable in our seats (assuming it was not our turn to throw darts in the ginormous 4-way team game of cricket). The game moved along a bit slowly but I was loving every second of it. Sure, they were in Queens and not the Bronx. Sure, Pedro was shutting down Yankees hitters like it was nobody's business. Sure, it quickly became reeeeeeally late at night. But this was Mets v. Yankees, live in China! I lost a bit of inspiration when the Yankees went down by 4 runs approaching the top of the 9th. Somebody must have known I was watching though because the Yankees staged an improbable comeback against an All-Star closer and ended up winning in 11 innings. We were probably some of the only people still awake in Guangzhou by that point, a little after 5am, but it was well worth it.

I woke up the next morning and honestly wondered if it had all really happened. Did I really drink Guinness last night? Did I really use a hot green bowling ball with a golf-ball sized chunk missing? Did the Mets really bring in Wagner in a non-save situation, only to have him blow the game? I'm pleased to say the answer was yes, all around.