Beijing's population has recently topped the 22 million mark. I'm pretty sure that half of the city's population joined me on the subway on Friday. At rush hour. On a Friday.
After arriving at Sean's home (he lives and works at the Westin), we composed ourselves and headed off to the infamous "bar street".
My previous experience at bar street was after over 20 hours of travel and very very little sleep last October. I felt more able to enjoy the area and the sites. It was bitter cold, so we took refuge inside an italian restaurant. We ordered a meter of pizza. From a French waitress. In the capital of China.
I felt so cultured.
While walking around the Dongcheng District on Saturday, I saw a familiar sight. I forget what the building is called, but I recognized it from photographs that I had taken last October during my tour of the hutongs.
I've become quite accustomed to the constant barrage of new sights, sounds, and smells, so this feeling of recognition was remarkable and quite literally stopped me in my tracks. As soon as I identified the building, I was able to point in the direction of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. I felt an odd sense of comfort in seeing something familiar.
My only experiences with anything foreign has been from the domestic point of view. I have been on the inside of normalcy and have easily identified anything or anyone foreign.
I've been completely fascinated with feeling what it means to be foreign. I'm really intrigued by seeing everything for the first time. I love waking up without knowing what will happen. I find myself thinking "Well, what's the worst that could happen?" on a daily basis. You can't get stressed out about the unknown here. Everything is unknown. The future is unwritten.
Tomorrow will be my first day teaching at TUFE. I am very, very excited.
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