Weekend Fun, Monday Not-So-Fun Police Raid

This past weekend was a riot. On Saturday night I went out for dinner with Bob, a Canadian transferred here twelve years ago to open an law office location for my mother's law firm. She and my stepfather connected us together through email, where I had expected to receive a nice email letting me know I had someone around if I needed help, not a dinner invitation. I was picked up by Bob, his Chinese wife Tiffany, and their two children, Leah(9) and Markus(8). They were an absolute joy to be around. First we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant in a very trendy part of town, and had a million different dishes. We were all coughing at a few overly-spicy dishes. They then took me out to Coldstone Creamery for the best ice cream. EVER. They mix in whatever you want in it to make your own flavors. I finished the night going shoe shopping with Tiffany and Leah and then met up with Bob and Markus afterwards. They even drove me all the way home! I would love to see them again. They have invited me to their horseback riding club so I am excited to experience this part of upper Beijing society!

After they dropped me off, I changed very quickly, grabbed my vodka and headed over to Emilie's apartment, which is less than ten minutes walk from mine. By this time it was about 11pm, and Tom, Emilie and I drank as much as we could before rushing out the door at 12:30am. Beijing has an amazing nightlife scene that is really well advertised with the expat community so it is very easy to find somewhere to go. We began the night at a club called G7, which wasn't that interesting and we ended up leaving rather quickly. By 1:30am we were at Club Suzie Wong, which was absolutely fantastic. They played some great music, the drinks were flowing, and it was full of English speakers!! I was thrilled. I ended up meeting this Canadian guy there simply because we walked up to each other and said, "Okay, I can TELL you're Canadian." He introduced us to his friend group, an eccletic mix of Chinese dancers and a flamboyantly gay couple. It was so much fun just all of us dancing and talking together. We ended up exchanging numbers with all of them and heading home for 5am. The next day I was supposed to meet up with a group called the Hash (I refuse to tell you about them until I actually meet them!) but Emilie and I were so hungover that we didn't end up getting even CLOSE to moving out of bed. Good night!

Emilie and I signed up for a gym on Saturday morning, and have decided to motivate each other to get our butt's there as often as possible. I've been incredibly good since I arrived: no gluten, minimal rice, eating less, running outside every day in the mornings. As some of you know, I have Celiac disease (allergy to wheat, barley and a few other things) and I feel FANTASTIC having finally cut out the gluten from my diet. I'm much less lethargic, have way more energy after eating, and never feel like I'm carrying around 10 pounds of water on my stomach anymore. Eating gluten-free has been much easier than I expected it to be here: bread is available but the food is just so good that I never want to eat it. The school provides breakfast and lunch for me in the cafeteria, so by dinner I'm barely eating as I'm still full from these meals. Anyways, so I joined a gym haha. It's not the most exciting gym (used to be a Goodlife, then Extreme fitness in Toronto, and this barely compares to it) but it's got a great set of treadmills facing huge windows and a decent range of equipment. The only problem is it is on the top floor of a mall, meaning I can't find the back entrance to get into it when the mall is closed and I have no idea where to even start asking for that in Chinese! We'll see how that pans out over time.

Monday night I got absolutely sloshed at Emilie's house with all of the new teachers over dinner: Emilie, me, Shannon, Damon, Tom and Yvonne. Tom cooked. It was a really great time but I'm exhausted today. ESPECIALLY after my emotional rollercoaster that was this morning! I was blowdrying my hair in my kimono after my nice freezing cold shower (always the best after a run) when I received a continuous stream of loud poundings on the door. I rushed to open it, and it was the POLICE, who barged into my apartment and immediately spread out to inspect my dishes, clothes, closets, everything without saying a word. Behind the three uniformed officers were two women, not in uniform, who told me in choppy English that they were the police and needed to see my passport. I rushed over, grabbed it, and basically threw it at them I was so scared. They inspected my picture and my chinese visa against a list that they had, and kept asking me if anyone else lived in the apartment with me. When I said no, they pointed to a name, asking if this guy lived with me. I couldn't even read the stupid Chinese name, but of course I said no. After they said okay, the uniformed officers stopped examining my things, and everyone just walked out, shutting the door behind them. I had NO IDEA what had just happened, so I called Shannon (she had been in China for three years). Apparently, once you enter China on a class Z business visa and register your living quarters with the police, they come by and make sure that you are the only one living there and that you haven't lied to them. NOBODY TOLD ME THAT. I was literally shaking thinking that they had come to get me because of my VPN that allows me to go on blocked websites by the Chinese government. I was talking to Marc at the time on Skype messenger with my facebook open! I seriously thought I was screwed but they didn't really care about that I guess!