Another Saturday Night in Beijing…

We’re old. Not chronologically per se, but simply in our habits.  Nevertheless, we decided to fight the gravitational pull of our couch and go out for the evening on the town with our friends B. & V.

Dinner was at El Fogoncito over by Wanda Plaza.  I grew up in New Hampshire, so I can hardly claim to be an expert on authentic Mexican food, but I do go to graduate school in the Central Valley of California and have probably had more dinners at the local taquerias than is healthy for my cholestorol level.  I have to say the food at Fogoncitos is pretty good. The taco shells and chips tasted a bit stale, but overall the rest of the dishes were decent and the relative authenticity was a nice shift from the Tex-Mex focus of the other Mexican offerings in town.  The service on the other hand was…hysterical.  Not funny–though there were moments–but bordering on actual hysteria.  The waitress took a few tries getting the order right, she was sweet and polite, but became progressively flustered as she forgot to serve certain dishes while doubling up on others.  The much-discussed mariachi musicians (who, to debunk a rumor, are

From the Archives: Pulp Fiction and Apartment Hunting in Beijing

Our lease is not up until after the Olympics, but we’re taking some time this month to look around and see what’s out there.  Even though I first thought it insane to even be looking at places right now, given the general avarice of the Landlord class with the big games around the corner, circumstances are working a bit in the renter’s favor.

First, the hordes of foreigners who were expected to crest like a wave of human ATMs through the city next month filling man purses from Haidian to Hebei with rental fees (some ambitiously priced at 100,000 RMB for the two-week period) seem to be staying home.  Perhaps they couldn’t get visas.  Who knows?

But like the Beijing municipal official who wanders bleary-eyed out of a 24-hour KTV parlor into the dusky light of a Beijing Sunday morning, and realizes that the slim young thing he has been alternately serenading and lewdly groping all evening was really a dude, it is dawning on the landlord class in Beijing that the “lao wai as cash piñata” strategy of real estate success might not pan out as well as expected.

Additionally, there are rumors of apartments left behind in the

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