Birthdays with few friends about can be a sad, gimcrack affair. But this year I'm living and Beijing and our two social friends are out of town, so even the artifice of a party is denied me. I have the advantage, however, of having things to be quite pleased about today that have little connection to the calendar.
1) we just got back from an amazing trip to the Chinese holy site/Buddhist disneyland, Putoushan island.
2) on said trip, I saw five sea turtles at the shanghai zoo. Seeing a see turtle swimming six inches away on the other side of a pane of glass is one of those experiences that doesn't disappoint.
3) tomorrow I go to sign up for 2-4 hour Mandarin classes every day for the next four weeks. I realized on my trip that I had all the Chinese a rude foreigner needs, and if I was going to progress beyond "una cerveza mas, por favor," I needed to get me in some school.
4) this school costs 12 yuan (2 dollars) an hour to attend in a class of 10-20
5) I'm going to spend this afternoon going through a list of friends I have made no effort to contact since I got here. Sara actually talks to her friends on the phone while I've done nothing so extravagant in the last 5 months. So that's gotta change.
So look, don't worry if you didn't get me a present.
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1 comment:
Happy birthday my dear friend. I haven't kept up on your travels as closely as I should, and here I am remembering your birthday almost by chance here on a remarkably still cloudy day in San Francisco. Recently I've been thinking about visiting you. I want to see what you can do to a friend's life with your new titanium jaws. I also want to eat mysterious dumplings. So, many happy returns and let's be in touch.
Love,
Devin
PS: I met someone from work who knows Tucker and apparantly you also at a party last night. From our brief conversation it was clear that she didn't really know you.
PPS: Send me book and music requests and maybe there's an efficient way to transmit media overseas.
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