Eric's Beijing Diary

Brian sent me an email and asked if he could go with me to the Christmas program. We met at the North Gate, at 5 and biked to the church. We were there by 5:30, and they were already putting people into the overflow for the 6pm service. They let me go up to the third floor, since the foreigners need to get audio equipment up there. The fact is that I have my own receiver now, but I did want to get a hymn book. So Brian and I were allowed up.

On the way, Brian had told me that he didn't have a very good singing voice. He told me that when he was in a Christmas program once, there was a dog sleeping nearby, and when he started singing, the dog got up and left. Somehow, with Christmas, it doesn't matter. The service we went to featured the children's choir in a special Christmas musical. It was really heartwarming.

Afterwards, Brian wanted me to go and get something to eat. His bicycle had been stolen while we were in church, so I rode my bike and he took a bus. Fortunately, I had chained my bike to a pole so it was harder to steal. We went to one of the many "all you can order" restaurants that are springing up around Beijing. They usually charge about 40RMB for a meal. That's about 5 dollars. They usually serve several kinds of pizza, spaghetti, tossed salad, chicken, and other assorted items. We had to wait in line for an hour, which is very unusual, but Christmas is Christmas.