Night market, night out, night of a thousand drinks

Forgot to tell you folks that I went to the night market in the Wangfujing area of Beijing early Thursday night after out kungfu class fell through. Apparently the students are taking part in the opening ceremonies and the school is closed until after the olympics. It really sucked that we (me, Marcos and James) didn't get a chance to practice with the class we were really looking forward to it. Between the three of us we has considerable years of martial arts experience. Marcos has two year of (and I will get the spelling wrong here) Capoiera (Brazillian martial arts), me with five years of KungFu and James with nine years of Tai Kwon Do. Funny thing is that we all agreed that we were not going to tell the insructors of our prior experience when we took the class. We didn't want them kicking out butt too badly. We walked about around Wangfujing and came across the night market where you can get street food cooked in front of you. The choices of dishes range far and wide from the humble dumpling to cooked starfish and fried seahorses. What did we opt for you might ask? Wait for it....wait for it....the scorpions of course!!! Here's the proof.

As you can see we opted for the smaller of the two sizes. We'd heard that the smaller ones were tastier but we did go to another section of Wangfujing looking for the bigger scorpions that apparently someone saw on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show. Couldn't find it though so we didn't have the bigger scorpions that night. We'll make it back and try them though.

The last sentence that I would have ever thought someone would say to me was this: "Ah, Wil you have a little scorpion leg on your face." And what did I do, I searched for it with my tongue and ate it. In the words of my friend Candice Dorn who can never return a phone call or when she does it five months later, and no I'm not bitter, "Yummmaaaaay!"

Afterwards we had a meal from a Singapore restaurant. Food was really good and inexpensive. This is the night that Marcos introduced us to the Brazillian term Sidiera. Loosely translated it means something like one more drink for the road or like the last drink before you leave. Problem is is that there are many many shouts or Sidiera before you actually leave. We decided not to have a sidiera at the restaurant and went to Sanlitun to a bar called The Tree. Nice drinking establishment. Started out with beer in these huge mugs. I can only drink so much beer before I feel like I'm gonna bust my gut. I had two before I switched to Absolute and Orange. (I know my friends are saying "what about his devotion to "the Goose (Grey Goose)" I can't find it anywhere and quite frankly it's seems that they chinese know Absolute. When I say Grey Goose I get blank looks. I did find it once at Q Bar, but it was so expensive for a measure ounce that I said forget about it. Someone,okay me, had the bright idea to factor shot of tequilla, sadly not Patron, into the mix at random intervals. Hours later we left there clearly under the influence and went to another bar. It was only 1130pm afterall. More sidieras, more beer, more Absolute Orange, more shots and you get the picture.

There was music and dancing and girls celebrating birthdays and girls wanted to dance with the tall black guy (who can dance his ass off I might add) and more drinking and time just slipping away on this Thursday night now Friday morning. I think that James and Marcos have video, of what, I have no idea but I seem to remember cameras. (Nothing bad I might add, probably just us being drunk and dancing drunkenly with these girls on the dance floor.)

At one point I went to the restroom and came back and James was gone. Not really hard to miss him since he's taller than me but Marcos apparenlty had no idea where he went. Found out next day that he had simply gone home. When I asked him what happened he said "Sorry, did I not say a proper goodbye." Ah, the British. You gotta love them. Too funny.

Marcos and I left shortly after. I had to take him to his apartment, fortunately we live in the same building, because he was GONE.

I made it to class then next day at 10am. Marcos made it at 11am and James somewhere around 1110am. Needless to say we all were wearing out sunglasses in class. Thankfully mine and Marcos' instructor too pity on us and our class was not challenging this day.

And the moral of the story is this boys and girls: If a Brazillian says "Sidiera!" run because there will be no end to the drinking in sight! Now whether you run to or away from is totally up to you.

Me I'd run.......

Here's to getting in all the running you need. - Wil