St. Patty's day lacked some green and friendly Irish spirit at work. It seeded a need for a pint of Guinness in my mind.

the pic to the left is what i walk through most mornings to get to work. These are all taxis sans hat, aka private cars that you negotiate the price to your location. They are all waiting for people to get off the train. One of the interesting things about them and regular taxis is that to move small distances they just leave the car off and push. Coming soon to an oil dependent America near you.

this is a pretty common site here as well. If it were me i would be screaming for the guy walking behind to be helping me with a fridge that i was carrying on my back.

after my pretty much normal day i decided to meet up with some people from Chinese school at an Irish bar later at night to have that Guinness and celebrate a little bit of St. patricks day.

after getting to the bar district in record time, i ended up walking up and done the streets looking for this Irish bar slowly picking up a larger and larger group of people who thought i knew where i was going. Surprise! i had no idea where the bar was either. Eventually my friends called and let me know they had moved on to a bar that i knew. i ditched the pied piperesque group and wandered over to bar blu.

it was more fun this time because it was a pretty large group of people. i might my friends Marjorie and Christine. Marjorie brought her boyfriend and five other Germans. One of the Germans was probably the most anti-American person i have ever met which was interesting. If you know me you know that i am not the biggest fan of current American foreign policy. His continuous attacks on me though led to me playing up the role of loud ignorant American which was a lot of fun. By the end of the night he at least would smile at my jokes.

Christine is a 19 year old who is taking a year between high school and college to travel and learn Chinese. She is living here by her lonesome which made me think an awful lot about my littlest sister and how she would do in Beijing by herself right now. It is funny how much i still think of her as a little girl even though she is about to head off to college (hopefully :). My little babys all grows up.

anyways it was a fun night even without finding a place that served Guinness in anything but a can. i got to play some pool and eat some late night dim sum.