a wedding

I woke up real early this morning. I don’t know why, but at 6:30, I was up, turning the computer on and jumping in the shower (uh, leaving the computer on the desk to warm up, no taking it into the shower).

Then some time between 9 and 9:30 we wandered over the road to catch the bus. We were taking the 852 up to somewhere in the Jiuxianqiao/Wangjing sort of area- more Wangjing than Jiuxianqiao, but neither of us really knew, and we only had the vaguest instructions and the worst map in the entire history of maps, so that’s what we were working with and heading for…

And eventually, with the help of Beijing’s best and most classic lao Beijing-ist taxi drive, we got there.

And were, unfortunately, disappointed.

Look, if you’re going to get married in China, make sure the PA system works. Honestly. I couldn’t figure out whether the MC was calling the groom 新郎 or 色狼- and that, my friends, can make a hell of a difference.

Actually, the wedding was alright, or would’ve been, had we been able to hear anything that was said. The banquet was adequate, but only adequate, and nothing more. But it was a good time.

And I’m just a little intrigued by one thing: There was a bottle of “Feel Wine” on the table, but I couldn’t figure out what corner of China it had come from. Googling suggests the wine was produced somewhere in Hebei, perhaps a county of Qinhuangdao. Well, anyway, it was far from the world’s best wine, but it was, at least, drinkable. It was a bit lacking in flavour, as if it were Australian in origin, but it did not have the skankiness one would normally associate with regular Great Wall or Dynasty brews. It was alright, in other words.

Well, then we walked in some directions randomly towards what we (I, having taken over navigation-duty) thought should be the way to find a bus home… Only to find our friends had found our bus’ terminal well before we had found a bus stop. But we found a bus stop, and a bus arrived soon enough, and before we had time to complain, we were on our way back to civilisation.

Doesn’t matter what may be good about that Jiuxianqiao/Dashanzi/Wangjing area, it still looks and feels like it’s the edge of nowhere.

So we’re back in civilisation again.