I just finished the fifth major exam, and I have to say that they’re getting progressively harder as the weeks go by. But that’s enough about academics.

So there are a lot of things that I have left out in the past few posts, and I feel like a terrible person for denying all of you the pleasure of hearing about some of the absolutely insane things that I have done. I’ll start with what I think is by far the most crazy. Three weeks ago, I was talking with a Chinese friend of mine (on Skype) and she let me know about a party that was going to go down right by the end of the Great Wall of China (basically, the area where the Great Wall meets the sea). I was doubtful beyond belief that a thing like this was actually lawful, but feeling peer pressure and an intense overwhelming sense of adventure, I decided to go for it and buy tickets. I told a few other people here at PiB about the party, and contrary to what I expected, there wasn’t too much interest. This might have been because the very day of the Great Wall (learn chinese! 长城 - chang2 cheng2) party PiB was also arranging a trip to another tourist site. All in all, that day (and night? I guess) I ended up sitting in buses for a total of about 11 hours. In any case, three other people in PiB stated that they wanted to come, so I went ahead and bought them tickets. The ticket place was at this really random cafe at this international university–in the U.S. I’m definitely not used to buying party tickets at random Chinese restaurants. When I warily stepped into the cafe, like a lost child, they immediately made it clear to me that this was the place to buy tickets. I don’t know why that was the first thing they said to me, but I’m guessing that it’s because I’m white.

The tickets were 200 kuai each, which comes around to about $26.44, which appeared as a steal in my eyes for a night full of partying right next to 长城. So, when that fateful Saturday came around, we all frantically congregated in the lobby of 新松公路 (our dorm) because we all thought that we would be late for the bus pickup (the ticket said that the pickup stopped at 6 o’clock, and by the time Princeton-in-Beijing brought us back from our little trip, it was already about 5:30. We were dying because of the thought that we would miss this awesome opportunity. We flew into a taxi cab and yelled out (probably totally meaningless) instructions to take us to our destination. After about 20 minutes of driving, we arrived at a location. Problem: no buses.

We thought that we had messed up. By the time that we got to the place, it was already 6:07, and besides the public buses, there was nothing that appeared to have anything to do with a 长城 party. We walked around aimlessly for about 20 minutes–in the end, I called my Chinese friend to see what the deal was. Luckily, we screwed up, and went to the wrong place. After 5 minutes of searching, we found the right area, of course covered with hordes of foreign people. 除了 me and my Chinese friend, I don’t think anyone was speaking Chinese.

The best part of this trip was the fact that the bus driver didn’t know where we were going.

Let that soak in for a bit.

…

We had to stop over 3 times because the driver had to ask for directions. It was pretty pitiful. We also got lost once, but that problem was swiftly corrected. You have no idea how awesome it is to be trapped in a bus for over four hours when you have no idea where you are or where you’re going, all the while listening to drunk Americans singing classic rock ballads. It was an experience I’ll never forget.