April 23; Family Reunion

One of my our favourite restaurants in Beijing is Falahfel, a middle Eastern Restaurant in Wudaokou.

Every time we go to that place, the Arabic manager guy advertised the buffet dinner for 60 RMB every Monday nights from 6-9. The girls wanted to go there tonight, so we invited some people and the "some people" ended up being a crazy number of people.  In the end, we had the whole family (minus a cousin) plus the distant relatives and Berney.

Look at all those foreigners.

Papa John, Aunty Tom, and Uncle Heys

Distant relatives Raf and Carrie

At Falahfel

Thanks to John’s (jesus) special power we got the special room where we could sit on the floor. We found out the buffet didn’t start until 7, so we chilled while the older dudes and Val shared a sheesha.

 The whole environment made me wish we had a living room in the residence so we could have more chill sessions like this…. Talking about democracy and listening to godfather Cam’s tangents about Japan and Korea, while uncle Tom and papa John would break into song. Good times.

The buffet started when I returned from fetching Berney from the station. The buffet was not comparable to any of Toronto’s but it was still decent. The “hommos” was lacking tahini, pita was too thin and un-pitaish, and falafel/shwarma service was pretty slow… The falafel that I did get to eat on the other hand…really nice.

but otherwise I enjoyed myself, mainly due to the good company. 

As it was still too early to call it a night, we headed off to La Bamba’s where Cam and Sigrid teamed up and played against Valentina and Tom for a game of pool.

One of the nicest things someone has said to me all week:

“ You should run for world leader. You’re so peaceful and nice.”

I’ve been told on numerous accounts that I’m always happy. To add on to being happy, I have a really high voice that I never knew I had until my stay here in BJ. Frankly, I admit I’ve said and done things that gives me a reputation of being a “peaceful, “jolly”, “always so happy" person. Although people rarely question why I am like this, I started to wonder why I’m so happy all the time. Aunty Tom gave a simple explanation: I’m a 20 year old girl. Simple, but true. As I ponder about my happiness and reach a definite answer of what makes me happy, that simple statement will hold the truth.