last night was willie's farewell. he should be at the airport by now. hopefully.
our farewell celebration started last night at a xinjiang restaurant. the xinjiang people are (this is all folklore because i have done zero research of my own) the only chinese muslims that exist, and most of them look mixed in terms of genes. in other words, they don't look chinese, they wear these crazy pillbox hats, they apparently smoke bomb, and they make some fuggin delicious food. i couldn't tell you the name of the place - all in chinese - but it's on fumin lu at julu lu.
a lot of what we ordered involved lamb in various forms - spicy skewers, stir-fried with flatbread that we all thought was potato, minced with carrot and stuffed into a crepe reminiscent of mushu pork (what IS that anyway? have you ever had it in a real chinese restaurant?), you get the idea. we also got fried eggplant and a cucumber salad. i wasn't sure what to expect, but it was damn good. and one of our servers was this guy that i swear was in a different dimension. he moved slowly, kept his head in a perpetual and severe chin thrust, and had this very blissful half-smile on his face the whole time, especially when completely ignoring us every time we asked him for something. adele and i watched him closely, fascinated. i couldn't tell if he over-indulged at 4:20 that afternoon or if he was just naturally a complete space case.
the first thing i learned about the xinjiang people when i arrived is that non-xinjiang people hate them and are super mean to them and spread lots of rumors. true to fact, when i told linda where we were going to dinner, she said, 'you mean the people that try to steal all the time?'
the curious thing is that these people are 'chinese' but the ones i met don't speak mandarin. one wonders about the prejudice surrounding them, whether it's because they are visually so different in appearance and therefore the masses do what masses do best and alienate the outsider, or if there is a long lineage of xinjiang pickpockets, i don't know (tangent - if your culture has a reputation for pickpocketing, doesn't that mean you're all bad pickpockets? if people can actually recall who stole their shit?) the only thing i know about then for a fact is that most of them rock the white or black-and-white hat, and i see them selling dried fruit off of carts in certain areas. and sometimes i see them on the metro and there are xinjiang individuals who look asian but have light eyes and hair, and there are others who just don't look asian, and therefore i just stare at them a lot.
so anyway, i digress. we had dinner with dan and his roommate adele, and dan's spazzy friend adam swung through and treated us to a brief and dizzying monologue. alvin had booked a table at attica, but we decided to swing by de la coast first and have a drink with sherry. good thing, because de la coast was nice 'n crowded (and apparently attica just had crickets sounding in the background). our group of 4 turned into a group of 20 as the indos rolled through, steph showed up with bf 'chef,' albert, and scott. rollickin' good times.
and don't ask me how the fuck this happened, but 2 am found us piling out of cabs and into babyface to join alvin. i only break my vows if entertaining willie or said important visiting person is in town, but it was nearly as worth it to see alvin's face when he saw my ass in a babyface establishment (haerbin doesn't count). 3 martell and green teas plus one 3-second martell shot later and i can't say i was having a stellar time (the laser light show and absurd music selection determined that), but it was cool. it was ok. it was worth it just so i can now say that i've been to babyface before i start talking mad shit about it.
i slept from 4-ish to 9 when a cheerful sms buzzed on my desk and i once again asked myself why i don't turn my phone off on the nights when a lot of drinking went down.
tonight is sherry's full moon party and the dress code is 'thailand.' cryptic. what the fuck does that mean? thai hooker? shorts and flip flops? my diving gear? a bikini? nothing but moon boots?
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