Over the past week or more, I’ve had a lot of time on my hands. There was the usual surfing the internet, watching a movie or catching up on my favorite TV shows, running and reading the news. I’ve also been shopping around for a nice sized internal-frame backpack for my travels. I came here with a large suitcase, but that’s pretty inconvenient when traveling on trains and buses and staying in hostels. You just can’t roll around that big box everywhere you go.

Earlier this week I went out for a few drinks with the British friends I met a few months ago. We started off at the Park Qin, a popular expat bar in Xi’an where I was introduced to a friend of theirs, Jackie. I think I complimented Jackie pretty well actually, she’s Chinese, looks Chinese, but speaks English like she was born in the U.S. I actually asked her “are you actually Chinese or are you an ABC?” She was surprised to say the least, but her English speaking is just so polished that it sounds very natural. We hung out at the Park Qin and put back a few while a few more friends joined in, bringing the crew to an even six, three guys, three girls. One of the girls, another Brit, suggested we check out another bar down the street. I’d never been there and this was a night to have a good time so why the heck not.

I don’t know if this bar has a name, and if it does I certainly don’t know it. But I do know where it is, and that’s all that matters. When I first walked in I didn’t know what to think. There was a room, not much larger than my living room with a long coffee-table type thing in the middle of the room. At each end of this table was a small fire pit made of bricks where small pieces of anthracite burned to keep the place warm. Around this table was two concentric rectangles of benches and lastly furthest from the door was a stage just large enough for 2 guys with guitars. The dark and smoky feel to the place just reminded me of a sweat lodge.

There was probably a dozen people in the place when the 6 of us (4 whities, and 2 Chinese). Everyone was so friendly, I sat at the end, next to a Chinese man who must have been in his late 20’s to early 30’s. He started trying to chat me up right away, offered me a few shots of baijiu and the night really got goin’. With the guys up on stage singing some acoustic songs, someone pounding on the hand drum, and booze flowing, this place was literally a community bong short of a hippie drum circle. Everyone was having such a good time there, drinking and singing and talking that we didn’t leave there until 3:45 AM. That place is definitely, my new favorite bar.

I crashed that night at my British friend’s apartment since he actually lives in the city as opposed to an hour drive north of the city like me. The next morning I woke up feeling alright, which was a good thing because I had made plans to meet a student of mine for lunch. I met up with Sara at about 1:15 PM and she took me to a really great German restaurant. She really surprised me because we had talked about this place before, but I had forgotten about it. Sara and I had kinda made a connection because I used to study German and she has a crush on a friend of hers who is from Germany.  Either way, the German restaurant was great, not too expensive, and all kinds of German sausages, breads, and really delicious craft-brew beer. I think I’d like to just go there an get drunk on their amazing beer one day.

After lunch I hung out with Sara for awhile and she suggested we go to a movie. So we decided on seeing “孔子” (aka: Confucius). The movie was an overview of the life of Confucius, it was an interesting story but not a great story. Perhaps if I knew a little more about Confucius it might have been better, perhaps not. The movie was all in Chinese, but fortunately there were English subtitles. I could understand a little of the Chinese being spoken but would have, overall, been very confused without the English subtitles. After the movie I finally went back home, having been out and about for the past 24 hours, I was rather tired. But the whole excursion was totally worth it.

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