Eric's Beijing Diary

Took the Line 4 subway down to Pinganli this evening to have dinner with Bulu. Today is Bulu's birthday, and today is the 9th anniversary of my arrival in Beijing. Nothing magic about the number 9, I guess, but it has significance in my case, because I have now lived in China for as long as I lived in Japan. Seems hard to believe.

The restaurant where we met is a little Japanese restaurant. Very small place--no chairs and tables, just a horseshoe bar with stools. Ramen and sushi. But it was really good. It's a long way from Fragrant Hills, but actually quite convenient, because the restaurant is right next to the Line 4 subway stop. Because of this, it didn't take me any longer to get home than if I had taken the bus home from Wudaokou. The Line 5 subway runs all the way north to Beigongmen. From there, it is just a 20 minute bus ride to the mountain.

It's really hard to imagine what my life would have been like if I had stayed in America the past nine years instead of coming to China. Software was really beginning to be outsourced quite a bit at that time, and it turned out to be a good move. But that's not really why I came to China. In fact, when I was being interviewed by the university where I taught for four years before I came to China, the interviewer asked me, "Where will you be five years from now?" I said, "Probably somewhere in Asia." I kept my word.