February 19th: Erin and Matt return, search party called off

Day 156

Woke, blogged, got lunch at the dining hall. I walked over to the arts building and there were curious pieces of paper sealing the doors. I researched the characters and it read "February 19th 2005 year" and then one character I couldn't find. My usual room's seal was broken, but I was hesistant about going in, for fear that someone would blame me for breaking it.

I returned to my room. Despite the sun being out, if felt even colder outside. The lesson is you can get what you want and still not be happy. I spent most of the day online, then headed over to the dining hall for dinner. Erin and Matt appeared out of nowhere, casually in line with me, with a "Hey, what's up?" I embraced them both, relieved they weren't in some prison or outer Mongolian slave ring. They told me they had just gotten in an hour earlier from Nanjing, were stranded with no money for a few days (no ATM or credit card acceptance in some places) but had a great time.

I informed the crew of their return, and they arranged to meet at the hotel (since dinner was less than delicious) to welcome them. We swapped holiday stories, ate, planned for after. Matt and I picked up a crate of BBoss, dropped it off back at the room, I changed from unionsuit into thermals for going to the club. Erin met us with a taxi at the front gate and we rode to Dongzhou, went in search of massage, but it was closed.

We then went for a headwash/shampooey deal, then had a beer in Mike's room where he showed some footage of pipa playing that is making me seriously reconsider purchasing one. It may look like a mandolin, but it is played like a banjo, with a lot of trilly crescendo bits. So much for thinking it was easier than the erhu.

All but Mike and Heather went to the club, and once there, we were sat at a recently occupied table, the busboy clearing everything but a not-quite-finished pitcher that I joked about drinking. I'm not that ghetto. We got a few pitchers, some peanuts, and hardcore stares from the jacketed posse next to us.

The floor show was a beefy Danzig-like chap in a long Matrix coat, but he shed it and revealed a red tanktop before his set was up. His songs and singing were mediocre, he had more presence than actual talent, and between every song, someone wiseacre from the audience brought him a bottle of beer to ganbei, testing his masculine prowess. Matt even went up one time, took one for the may guo ren team.

After he was done I took Rhys backstage to get pictures of him. He asked questions that we answered with "English teacher" and "USA, England" no matter what he was actually inquiring. I took my place on the monitor and rocked the mic until close. Sisi appeared again, then disappeared again. She stopped by our table at the floor show, gan bei'd with us, asked if I had a girlfriend then said she wanted to "play at dancing soon." That consisted of her dancing below me and smiling while I spat syllables. When the house lights came up, it was like she was swept up with the dance floor debris. Funny girl.

We took a cab tom Dongzhou, had cabbie wait while Rhys retrieved my backpack, handed it over the gate, then we got dropped off right at our dorm (to the delight of the siempre frio Ms. Rock)

Fell asleep to "Blue Heelers," an Australian cop show.