Day 19 in Beijing

Thursday the 3rd of December 2009 = day 19 in Beijing!

Today is a special day, for me and for a friend of mine, name Money. Money and I were primary classmates from age of 6 to age of 9. Since I left China and migrated to New Zealand with my parents when I was 9 years old, I have been in mail contacts with some of my primary classmates. Money is one of these classmates, and is the only one that I still have contacts with. Of course, with the advance development of technology, we have changed our communication via mail to the use of emails and instant messaging softwares. Quicker and more prompt communication, but to be honest, I prefer the writting letters, more traditional and brings a unique memory. It's been 12 years since I left China and, therefore, it has been 12 years since we last met. After I told Money that I'll be back in China for 3.5 months to work, he immediately applied for annual leaves and arranged to fly to Beijing with his friend to visit me and tour around in Beijing. It's exciting for both of us!

Money will be in Beijing this afternoon until Monday afternoon. We've planned for few different tour routes and hopefully we'll make the most of it. He said that it should be his shout to take me around, because " I'm the visitor to China"; but I told him, since he's visiting Beijing for the first time, so I should be the host.

Time at work always goes by really slowly. After work, Jordan, Josi and I met up first before we all go and meet Money and his friend. It was an interesting night. Eventually we decided to meet at Wangfujin, just in front of Sasa, and hopefully we'll be able to recognise each other. It has been 12 years, and we should look a bit different, right?

As we walked towards our meeting place, I saw a kind of familiar figure and a girl eating a massive ice cream cone. LOL! I can't believe this. As soon as I see them, they started laughing and cracking up, and they threw the ice cream into the bin immediately. Yep, this is Money. He didn't change. He still look the same as I remembered him last (well, of course taller and bigger, and looks more like a 22 year old guy rather than a 9 year old boy). The girl next to him is Bibi, in short we call her Bi, she's his close friend since college and she's here to travel around Beijing. Apparently they made a deal with each other to see whoever will finish the ice cream cone first. But because it was so cold at the night (they're from Guangzhou, southern China, much much warmer than Beijing), and because they got embarrassed to be munching down the ice cream in front of me, they decided to give up on the deal. This 'ice cream' incident made all of us laugh, and it immdediately broke down the awkwardness and strangeness between us. It's nice to see him again.

After a quick introduction of each other, we decided to walk around Wangfujin for a while before Gerard gets here and we'll all go for dinner. This is the second time I'm at Wangfujin, it's still very crowded. After taking them around the shops etc, I decided to take Money and Bi to the snack street at Wangfujin. They said that in Guangzhou now there're no more street foods, only little shops (cheap!!) but no more street food. Bi got so excited about street foods and I recommended her a few things to eat. Bi is a very bubbly girl, she was constantly laughing and talking, it made the atmosphere between us lighter and easier. Poor Jordan though, because Money, Bi, Josi and I were speaking in Cantonese and Jordan just looked completely lost and became really quiet, lol, I think now he feels what Gerard is feeling when we spoke in Mandarin.

Gerard finally came and meet us at the food court in APN shopping centre (one of the buildings in the Wangfujin shopping town). Now I felt quite bad for Money and Bi, because the four of us just couldn't stop talking in English. Money and Bi can actually understand most of what we were saying, but just couldn't really respond (not fast enough). Soon we began finalising the travel plans for the next few days. Gerard has confirmed with the weekend off on the 12th and 13th December, and he prefers to go to Happy Valley theme park and the Beijing Zoo. Therefore Money, Bi, Jordan and I will go to the Great Walls on Saturday, and Money, Bi and I will be going to the forbidden palace on Sunday. I'm glad that the first night meeting Money and Bi were quite casual and light. We plan to go to Karaoke tomorrow night (Friday).