the cheese stands alone

The foreigners are dropping like flies here. Out of my posse from this spring, I'm quickly going to be the only one left. Last night we held another goodbye celebration by going out to my favorite restaurant in town, a Buddhist vegetarian place. Mostly Europeans and a couple Americans. We played a rousing game of zhege. Americans picked from page 1 of the menu, French got page 2, Spaniards page 3, and so on. The goal of the game (besides, you know, to order dinner) is to look as clueless as possible while pointing at the menu and looking up at the waitress. It's the little things that entertain us over here.

Afterwards we wanted to find somewhere outside to sit around and have a beer, so on a rarely beautiful night, this little pack of westerners wandered aimlessly through the streets in search of a café or biergarten. Tragically, besides the little grill places on each corner that shut down around 11 (chuanr), there's no such thing as outdoor seating in Jinan, so we decided to make do. Finding ourselves at a deserted shopping square, 1 person ran to a convenience store, another to a newsstand, and the rest of us headed to a set of cement stairs (the convenience store for beer, and the newspaper, of course, was layed across the steps so we could actually sit down). You know, I love a posh bar and trendy -tini, but nothing beats a stoop and good conversation on a summer night. It was fun. It felt really normal.