Step on a Crack, Break Your Mother's Back

Well, the past few days haven't been too exciting. Wednesday this week was wonderful weather so Sean, Jim, Ryan, Jeff, and John and I decided to take a bike ride around the city. We rode through some hutongs, passed by the Llama Temple and made our way down to Tian--men Square. It was good to get off campus for once. We all feel like we haven't explored Beijing enough. I'm one of the lucky students to have seen a lot of tourist attractions already. Most students don't have time between classes and socializing to wander around Beijing. While at Tian--men Square, Sean was trying to get into the bike lane after accidentally biking on the pedestrian walkway. I don't know the full story because I didn't see it, but one small fall turned into a pretty bad situation. He fell trying to jump the fence between the lanes and somehow landed wrong on the ground. He was in a lot of pain and he knew immediately that he had broken his arm. Well, being at Tian--men, on bikes, not at school, with no idea what to do, we spent the next 20 minutes contacting our friends at school to try and get the numbers of administrators who could then direct us what to do. After getting in touch with the right people, we spent a lot of phone tag trying to get the cab driver to know where to go. Sean was pretty much out of it and as you can imagine, waiting another 20 minutes to translate to the driver where to go wasn't the most comfortable of times. When we finally found out where to go and how to get Sean there, we also had to brainstorm what to do with two extra bikes. Jim decided to go with Sean to the hospital, Jim's phone had no minutes, my phone had no minutes, Sean's phone ended up with us after the cab left to the hospital because we were calling people still, and basically all was in chaos. The good thing is, we're all quick-minded individuals and we decided to just leave the bikes on a bike rack instead of trying to wheel them home somehow. But of course, Tian--men district is all government buildings and high profile living areas. Finding a bike rack here is like trying to find a place to sit on that overcrowded night train to Qingdao.

When we found a bike rack we dropped the bikes off and made for home. John and I had class at 7:30 so we definitely needed to get back soon. And of course the map was with Jimmy and Sean on the way to the hospital. We eventually mazed our way back to school and I made it to class on time. Sean on the other hand, made it to the hospital to find out he fractured his forearm. He's in a cast indefinitely but he's doing all right. No worries. Speaking of bad circumstances, my roommate Jimmy had a rough night the other evening. After watching a movie, we all went to bed. Jimmy had to make a quick call to his sister, so I had fallen asleep by the time things got interesting. Apparently, Jim got a serious case of the 24 hour bug, it wasn't shigella (haha)but it was enough to keep him up vomiting and sick all night long. If anyone knows me and my phobia, I'm really glad I was asleep. I do vaguely remember waking up in the middle of the night and mumbling, "What's going on over there?" before falling back to sleep after realizing what was going on. He's doing a lot better now, just taking it easy and not eating anything adventurous. I'm sad to say however, the cause of this sudden illness was some Mexican food. (Although, in defense of the Mexican food, one of our amigos ate the same thing and he somehow ended up OK.) I think the true lesson to learn is you'll never know when Montezuma will take his revenge, even as far east as China.

Today, I went to check out my coat that I was getting made. It was a little big (the same with Devon's) but it's really nice. Warmer than I expected and softer too, this coat is well worth the kuai. Other than that, I've spent my day trying to find outside sources for my art history research paper. It's about the development of ancient Chinese city walls. Fascinating stuff, really... Enjoy your weekend everyone. Oh, and if you didn't infer, I bought a bike for Y180.