Xiamen (1/18 - 1/19): Pat’s Birthday

I had planned to go straight to Shanghai to take care of some loose ends and preparations for a friend’s visit, then return to Hong Kong on Sunday evening. But it turned out that Pat was having a birthday dinner in Xiamen on the night of the 18th so I thought I would take a day and go spend some time celebrating his eventual decline into senility before heading up north.

On Thursday (the 18th) I spent the morning working from home and in the afternoon I left Pat and Stephen’s around 1:00 p.m. to catch the Star Ferry to Kowloon. I had decided to take the 2:30 Turbo Jet from Kowloon to Shenzhen. From there I grabbed the free shuttle to the airport (just 10 minutes from the dock) and bought a ticket to Xiamen.

I opted to do the ticket purchase at the airport instead of pre-buying because (1) the price difference is not all that much and (2) I like experimenting with different travel methods to find the best one. I ended up paying 900 RMB for a ticket to Xiamen which left at 6:40 (but was an hour late in it’s departure). I arrived in Xiamen at around 8:30 and then took a taxi to the hotel where Pat’s birthday dinner was in full effect.

I would love to be able to show you lots of pictures from the weekend in Xiamen, but unfortunately my new camera’s memory card had some sort of flash memory error and when I got to Shanghai all my pictures went POOF and that was that. (However, if you are registered for Raffi’s blog, you can probably see some photos there when his blog goes up.)

The dinner was pretty packed. I came at around the 16th course. Lots of familiar faces, but also even more faces of people I didn’t know at all. The funny thing is, I think that people assume that I know these strangers so I’m usually not introduced to anyone unless I specifically say “who is that person?” (which I end up saying a lot). A lot of time I will get the response “You don’t know so-and-so? But didn’t you go with us to the such-and-such that one time?”. I suppose it’s flattering that it’s assumed that I’m so well connected, but it would be nice for people to actually remember when I was and wasn’t around.

Beaver was there too, which was nice, as well as his friend (Nathan, I think?) who came over to my old apartment in Shanghai last year for a night of Axis & Alies. I found out that he’s actually a venture capitalist with about a 20 million net worth. Whoda thunk it?

After the dinner Pat and I got a ride back to his place so I could drop off my luggage, afterwhich we headed over to New La Bomba. It was their “grand opening” (which honestly felt like pretty much any other crazy night there) and Jimmy, Pat, et al. had reserved a private room upstairs. There were actually other birthday celebrants at both the dinner and La Bomba so I shouldn’t say it was all just for Pat. But I didn’t actually know the other people so, meh …

Anyway, things went on until fairly late. I won’t get into details and since I don’t have any pictures you’ll have to survive the anguish of not knowing what happened (unless you were there), but a few memories that stand out were Pat’s out-of-it-ness and beating the socks off Amy at dice games.

After La Bomba it was back to Pat’s place where we dropped off Pat and Raffi and Stephen, Bo Bo (I think that’s her name) and I went to Lao Fanzi to get massages. I actually was going there to sleep but the massage is part of the deal so I got that as well. Stephen and Bo Bo fell asleep there too, but woke up sometime during the morning and left.

I ended up waking up around 10:30 or so. I had arranged with Raffi to get hairwashes later but first I wanted to wash up. So I went to the massage place near Pat’s and used their washing facilities. Then I met Raffi and we got some hairwashes and haircuts. Afterwards it was off to meet up with Pat (who was AWOL for a bit) and then we all went to the nearby mall to get some italian food (in very small portions). We also dropped by Grace’s place to get some drinks and snacks.

I had wanted to take off for the airport to catch a flight to Shanghai in the afternoon, but postponed it to the evening because I thought that I was going to check out the movie set with Beaver around 1:00. But that didn’t happen and got postponed until later in the day. I kept postponing my plans too until eventually it was just getting too late. Pat kept trying to convince me to stay the night, go with them to New Generations and leave in the morning.

But I’m no fool. I knew that there was no way a night at New Generations would allow me to wake up at any time of day before noon the following day. And that means I wouldn’t make it back to Shanghai until Saturday evening. And I was supposed to fly back to Hong Kong on Sunday night? I don’t think so.

By the time I finally managed to get myself out of Pat’s social vice-grip, we had gone and had another massage. I grabbed their keys, went to get my stuff at Pat’s, but when I got there I was greeted by quite a surprise. Downstairs when I walked up to the elevator I recognized one of the girls who was also waiting forthe elevator. It turns out she was someone I hung out with during my very first trip to Xiamen back in 2005. Back then she lived down the street a bit, but since my Sidekick 2 cellphone kept losing data, I ended up losing her number and not being able to keep in touch with her. (I’m sure she probably thought I just decided to stop calling her, but really … it was the phone!)

She was as surprised as me. It turns out she lives 2 floors below Pat. We exchanged numbers, but I got the impression that she might not have really wanted to keep in touch with me at all. Well, it has been almost 2 years. I can understand that, I suppose. But it was still need to see a familiar face from back then. Now, if I can just find Fu Jing’s contact information — she was really cool and by now I bet she has her own hair salon… Can you say “free hairwashes”?

So, I then made my way to the airport. I ended up catching the last flight. Actually, I almost didn’t make it. Most of the ticket counters had closd already and the airport was pretty much winding down for the night. Fortunately I managed to get a ticket, catch the plane and got back to Shanghai Hongqiao airport around 11 p.m. or so. After a quick bite at KFC and a 20 minute taxi ride, I was back home, greeted by Zhu Wen Jun, who had been watching over my place while I was gone.

I spent the rest of the evening taking care of some stuff on my computer and organizing some things, but for the most part I was tired so I made my way to bed.

Thus ends my trip to Xiamen for Pat’s birthday. The tally? One club, one hairwash, 4 massages and 3 meals. Not too bad overall. But I don’t think going to Xiamen for just one or two days is the best idea. Next time I go I’ll make a longer trip out of it like I did with Peter. I prefer to spread my fun out over a longer period of time.