Oddly, He's Directed Us

Per yesterday’s entry my dearest chum and his gal are here in Beijing.  This is the first day of their year or more adventure here in the northern capital.  They are situated way across town in Haidian and I let them know that I can head over to see them whenever they like.  They are still figuring out internet.  I get a message.  Then I get one-hand-clapping.  “We were napping!”  Of course.  Before long though, we have a plan.  I will head out this afternoon to meet them.  If I leave here at 4:00PM I should see them by five. 

They have been put up at the “Jing Yi” hotel.  I am not familiar with the establishment, but soon I’m asking the smartly dressed young attendant if she can ring me up to room 436.  This after having hopped in an elevator, pressed “four” and gotten no reaction.  The security guard who gave me a faltering scan with his detection baton told me one needed a key to head up. Dialing the room;  “Hey, I’m here.”  “Great.  Come on up.”  “I just tried that, you see.  You’ll need to come down to let me up.”

We hug and laugh and talk for at least ninety minutes before we decide to head out for some sort of dinner.  Back down in the lobby I ask the guy behind the desk who would appear to be a bellman, where the nearest market of some size would be.  “Two hundred meters that way, Jack.”  Oddly, he’s directed us to a phenomenally large, Walmart. 

It’s massive and we walk for a while in the cavernous first floor until confirming with one another:  What is it then, precisely, that you want?  “Soymilk.”  “Soymilk?  Shall we find some soymilk then?”  I go first to one person and then another asking for “dou jiang.”  I’m directed on one or two pointless goose-chases.  “Here you are.”  “Sorry, no.  I want liquid soy milk.  Not powdered Soy milk.   

Once I find the soy milk, I confirm that it is exhaustive of what they’re searching for today.  It is likely, I remind them that this is open 24 hours a day.  Only 100 meters from your hotel you can get anything you want, for as long as your based there.  But as for right now, if there is nothing else pressing let’s get the heck out of Walmart where everything is huge and impersonal.

Saturday, 07/27/19