after a month and a half of being cooped up in macau, i finally got my chinese travel visa and headed to shenzhen for a long weekend to visit my buddy, woody, from home. he's over there teaching as part of a program of some sort. it was probably the best weekend i've had since i've been over here. while i've been having a good time in macau, it's not until you head out to the mainland to really find out what you're missing. macau, despite the giant gambling ring, isn't that hopping outside of the casinos. there's a bar strip near the coast and some bars inside the casinos, but there were way cooler places to go in shenzhen, which maked the streets of macau look like a ghost town. it was also thoroughly enjoyable to chill with people my own age who loved to have a prolonged night of fun. when i go out in macau, i always wind up hanging out with some randoms between the age of 28 and 50. anyway, i took a ferry into the shekou ferry station, which is the closest one to woody's house, but still an hour and a half bus ride away, which sucked a tad. anyway, the first night we actually crashed at one of his friend's houses who lived close to the beer garden that we began our night at. after a club and getting my long island game on, we headed back to call it a night.
digression...i don't remember if i've mentioned this here, but i made a discovery over the summer by complete accident, and i hope that you readers take my advice on this one. if you are ever ordering a long island, instead of a lemon, ask the bartender to throw in an orange wedge. over the summer i was at a bar in chicago and got a L.I., but they were out of lemons. i asked what they had and they said an orange and i told them to toss it in. it was delicious. way better than the lemon version. if you thought a regular L.I. went down smooth, try it with an orange slice. it's not even fair.
and we're back. anyway, woody's house is pretty close to the beach, so we spent a couple hours in the afternoon at the beach and then went back to his place to shower and clean up and start our night in earnest. the whole teaching crew showed up from all around china, because there was a beach party going on. by beach party i mean, there's a gated section of the beach near the beginning and you would buy a ticket to get in that included 5 drink vouchers. there were a few DJs, which we made friends with. overall, just a super swell night and a kickass weekend. i had been needing a trip like that ever since i arrived here. unfortunately since i have english club every saturday morning, i'm not going to be able to make mainland trips nearly as often as i'd like. woody and some of his compadres are going to head over here sometime in the next couple weeks, for what should be comparably fun. i also have a feeling i'm gonna try to miss a couple english club saturdays here, since i really just show up, sit there and drink water for 3 hours doing the occasional activity when i'm asked.
anyway, yeah, 2 thumbs up for red china! (except for the ideals, pollution, and using the street as a personal toilet)
lastly, this upcoming week should be pretty fun too though. downtown macau has a grand prix formula 1 race every year, the winner of which gets to join the formula 1 circuit, so i'm gonna try to check that out. also, the mgm grand is celebrating oktoberfest all week. maybe now i'll find some hearty beer from the motherland.
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