My friend Becky, whom I worked with at dear departed FizzyLab, is now working at MSRA (well, ATC at MSRA). She has a nice little place in the hutong near one of the back lakes (three small, man-made lakes behind the Forbidden City). We were planning on going to the Forbidden City (and perhaps getting some coffee at the Starbucks there… now there was a well-placed bribe!), but went to get some hot-pot for lunch instead. We ate quite a bit, went back to her place to digest, and started drinking some find Yanjing beer. Or Tsingtao. One of ‘em. Anyway, turns out they’re a whopping 3 quai (that’s 3 RMB) for 2 if you return 2 empties… that’s like $0.18 a bottle! for 750ml of beer! So we drank and chatted the night away. Another one of her friends, Jaime, from Mexico City, arrived in the evening, which was the time I needed to get going — had to catch a 9 AM flight the next morning, which means airport by 7 AM, which means taxi at 6 AM, and getting up at 5 AM…. ewwww…..
