Graduation & Birthday Celebrations!

我二十一岁了！！！我跟朋友过得很愉快！但是我感觉相以前依样。。。

Yippee!!! I managed to pass me final exam here at BLCU. It was tough studying all those characters and the method to writing all this time. Then they go and give us Pinyin on the exam! I couldn’t believe it. I was happy because that made it soo much easier, but was also unhappy because I (as well as everyone else) had busted to learn the characters. In the end, I am just happy I am at least familiar with characters now and how I have performed. At the graduation dinner, one of my classmates (stand up guy, like the father of the class) brought in an 8 year-old aged bottle of scotch. That stuff was STRONG! He said it was a good way for me to transition into m 21st year of life. After dinner, we all went out and celebrated our last night together. We ended up going to our favorite bar (because the owner was AWESOME) nearby. After a relaxing night together, we all had an emotional goodbye with the owner (a young, cool Chinese guy). As he hugged every one of us, he broke down and started crying (as well as some of us). His final words to us were, “I don’t care if you remember PBD, I don’t care if you remember me. I just care that wherever you are, you just be happy.” Like I said, stand-up guy. I then had to say goodbye to all my friends and classmates. I hate saying goodbye…

But such is life, and what was to come in the next few days was just more goodbyes; the worst being DengXu and HeLi (the two AMAZING students that had been taking care of me my entire stay in China). They took me out for a birthday dinner Friday night. We went to a cool vegetarian restaurant (which happened to be the first place they said “I love you”). Now you may be wondering how vegetarian and cool can be used in sequence. The explanation is that nearly half their dishes contain fake meat made from bean protein. The coolest part is that it tastes, looks, and feels like real meat…CRAZY! After that delicious meal, they whipped out a Chinese cake for me, and we all sang “Happy Birthday” in Chinese and English. It was tough saying good=bye to those two. They are probably two of the nicest, most caring, smartest people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. What’s more, is that they make the PERFECT couple (and agreed to invite me to their wedding – yippee! Another excuse to come back to China)!



The next day (my actual birthday) the real festivities began. After vchats with Jenn and the parents I went out to dinner with a bunch of friends to our favorite sushi restaurant. We started out the night with some Sake! They ended up paying for me as a birthday gift (thanks guys!!!). Also, my friend Z (from back in Michigan, but lives in Beijing) gave me a 2005 bottle of Zinfandel!!! (Auntie Dawn and Auntie Susan..ahhhhhh). The night proceeded to Bla Bla Bar where dice and foosball was played. Then Mango Club (not as cool as we hoped, but still a fun scene). Then Lush Bar (very chill). Then the dreaded Propaganda and Solutions Clubs (where they had 5RMB shots of Tequila)…finishing up at 5:30AM. All in all a very productive 21st birthday. I awoke at 2:30PM to go eat ‘breakfast’ with my friends at a local café. I ended up getting an English breakfast (toast, eggs, sausage, hash brown, tomato, eggs). Still hungry I ordered a cheeseburger with fries, too. It all tasted quite nice. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and watching some of my newly purchased Chinese movies.

Now this week I will be traveling around and hitting a bunch of sites before the parents arrive on Friday!!! Should be fun. Oh and extending my Visa for one lousy day (silly, but kind of important…).

Now legal,

- Kevin

P.S. Just read the posts from Josh and Yost's neck of the woods...COOL BEANS!!!