June 26th: final tent night in Haimen

Day 283

Had bakery stuffs, completed the photo uploads, finished my teaching logs, report and forwarded my address to Rose. Went on some errands to exchange money, but were told they couldn't do it on Sunday, and we'd have to try again at 8am tomorrow, leaving a two hour window between waking and leaving for Shanghai.

Heather and I walked around town taking photos and such, shopped for last minute Chinglish shirts, dropped in on Mr.Yeah at the market, where he is an ice seller.The market was huge and some guy appeared out of nowhere to direct us to him. He was all grins and offered us cigarettes, bade us sit, gave us green tea. The man is an absolute legend.

We invited him to the tents at 9pm and then he walked us out of the market, hailed a cab for us. The ride was air conditioned, which was welcome, given the cleggy humid air we had subjected ourselves to walking.

Next we went back to my place and I packed everything up, squeezing in everything almost to bursting. it's going to be an insane next few weeks. We wentover to the arts building to try and pack in one last practice, but the volume of mosquitos was staggering and nauseating. So, we took a cab up to Times, bought some orange juice to chill for laterand went to the music shop to have a brief session in the crazy-hot upstairs practice room. I explained to them we were leaving tomorrow and they wished us safe travel euphemisms. (Earlier I had bought a tiny keyboard with-air hose instrument from them, so it was kind of a double goodbye.)

The night had descended, but the temperature not so much. A breeze would have aided things a bit, but the air was still. Mr. Yeah showed up at 20 'til 9, bearing drinks and dressed in T-shirt, jeans and shiny pointy shoes. We went up to Rhys and Jeni's room (although the gate guy had to be convinced it was no problem for Mr. Yeah to come in) and they smoked a cigarette, then we went and took our place at the "tents" (although it was total outdoor dining and no tent for walls nor roof).

Heather's dizi teacher showed, as well as Mickey';s boyfriend, and eventually Mickey. We poured gin and juice, and then moved on to beer once that was used up. Mickey's fella initiated ganbei wars with a little too much zeal, and I having been a little gunshy about keg beer since the memory gap night, took my time.

I had a minor bout of "Gethsemane blues," where I was essentially at my last supper in Haimen, and I just wanted to talk about some important stuff, but everyone was too drunk and tired to stay awake with me before the Romans came. Not that I had anything particularly amazing to say, I just felt alienated by the goings-on a bit. The beer tasted awful and I didn't want to risk the last night to possible memory wipe.

The night went on, Heather and Mickey got emotional, which had the rest of us on the verge of tears as well. Mr. Yeah had bouts of narcolepsy where he would be ganbei'ing one moment, snoring the next. Mickey's fella harangued him mercilessly, throwing chopsticks and cigarettes at him, shouting that he must wake up. We took pictures with the tent staff who wished us well, had shirts-off club, managed to eat some dishes among all the madness.

Heather, Mickey and I went back to Heather's room to get some stuff for Mickey, mainly the big stuffed dog, which Mickey named "Mr.Willis." We carried it over the gate and back to the table where Mickey's boy wasn't doing too well. He was spitting and had his head down, victim of his own ganbei woes. She gave him Mr. Willis to hold and at one point he was vomiting in the median, holding Mr. Willis just out of spew range. Rhys got some choice pictures of it.

We said our goodbyes and I pedaled Heather off on the back of my bike, tucked ourselves into a brief slumber before the Shanghai shuttle took us out of Haimen, and one step closer to home.