Visitors and Poker

Thursday August 21, 2008

Monday I went to lunch with Rick and Sam, then got a coffee and went to the university to finish my registration. I paid and then grabbed a cab home with the proper paperwork and let the sweat cool in the nice air conditioning. Then I went over to Andy and Dwayne's apartment, which is about 10 minutes walk down the street. We played some Winning Eleven and watched soccer highlights. Then I went to Sweetlicks' to meet up with Rick and Alex and Sam for dinner. Alex's two friends, Spencer and Rebecca were here so after we ate, we took cabs downtown to walk among the lights and in Tianfu Square. Then we went to Jah Bar for a beer, Alex and his jet-lagged friends left early, then we played some do di ju and came home and watched Hancock, which was moderately funny.

Tuesday Sam and I got up and went to the PSB (Public Security Bureau) so I could apply for my student visa. There was no real complication and they accepted my passport for processing and I'll go back on the 25th to pay the fee and finalize everything. After that, we went to McDonald's and then came home, watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica and got changed for soccer.

Rick and I took a cab to the university and met Nate as he was coming through the gate. We walked to the field and had a good turnout but we kept getting beaten by one Chinese team, which played in an un-Chinese manner: they won headers, they were tall (almost all above 5'10”), they attacked well and as a team. We got pretty discouraged but I was able to make a great slide tackle on their best player, getting all ball, and have a nice tender spot on my leg to show for it. Slide tackling on turf sucks.

After the soccer, Rick and I grabbed a cab back to Yulin and we met Maggie Connolly (Grinnell, '07) and Felix Zhu (Grinnell, '05) for hot pot. We went to a nice place, it was really good. Hot pot is essentially a giant bowl of oil and spices that is heated from below. It is very spicy, not quite as spicy as I imagined, but the spice didn't overthrow the other flavors. We were a table of ten, with Maggie, Felix, Sam, Rick, Alex, Spencer, Rebecca, me and two Chinese friends of Alex. It was a great meal and afterward we walked back to my apartment, I took a shower and then we went out to Hemp House, seeing a giant spider in the stairwell en route.

We hung out at Hemp House for a while, played some pool and foosball, then they decided to close so we came back to Yulin and went to Middle Bar for a while. The party broke apart piece by piece and Sam, Rick and I ended up playing do di ju, then went home.

Wednesday I slept late and watched some Battlestar Galactica with Sam, then took a nap. I left the house for dinner, when we ate in the neighborhood, some okay Sichuan food. Then we came home and watched the USA basketball game. After that, we went to Oz's to play poker and Maggie and Felix met us. We had 8 players and I won a few early hands and was the big stack for most of the game. I put Felix all in and knocked him out and wound up winning 535RMB from my original buy-in of 30RMB. So it was a damn good night for poker and I paid for the cab home.