Goodbye!

Thanks to Jim's wonderful generosity, my dad and I got to stay in a room at the Brickyard last night. It was so wonderful to see everyone again but impossibly sad to say goodbye!

 

We headed out to the Brickyard in my usual manner early yesterday morning. We left most of our luggage at the hostel and taking only a daypack with us, took the subway to Dongzhimen bus station (stopping for a quick lunch) and then the hour long bus to Huairou. When we got there, we dropped by the grocery store to pick up and apple and many packs of m&m's (more on this later) and then went to find one of the mini-buses that would take us to the roundabout near the Brickyard. Although this is normally how I get there from Beijing, I should mention that living in China has perhaps distorted my impression of what a mini-bus should be like. It is basically a van with two normal rows of seats plus a little stool and added bench -- thus you can fit about 10 cramped people. I take it because it costs 1/10 of what a taxi would and it usually isn't so squished but we somehow ended up with 10 people + 2 babies + 1 toddler = insanity!

 

Anyways, we made it eventually and walked the 15 minutes or so to the Brickyard. It was very exciting to see everyone was there and lots of hugs were exchanged. We checked in and then decided that since the weather was so nice we should quickly head up to the wall just in case it wasn't today. So, we grabbed a couple apples and hiked over to the Schoolhouse to say hi to everyone else (loads more hugs) and then on to the wall. We took one of the only paths I had yet to try and made it up in about half an hour. We were a bit worried about getting caught up there or walking back after dark so after taking a few pictures we headed back to the Brickyard.

 

 

We were all supposed to go out for dinner at Begalar but it closed at 4pm (what normal restaurant closes at 4pm on a Saturday night?????) so we went to a different local restaurant instead. I had never tried it before, but the food was very good and Gina, Tessa, Mona, Zhan Li Jie, Zuo Yong Jie, my dad and I exchanged stories over a lovely meal!

 

We brought some food back for Thomas and Tana who were on night duty and I hung out with them in the lodge. Eventually Thomas went back to the residence, but Tana and Gina (who joined us at 11:30 and promptly fell asleep in an armchair) stayed and chatted with me until 2 am!

 

Silly me forgot it was Sunday today (which means breakfast ends at 11 am instead of 9 am) got up around 8 so as not to miss breakfast. We lingered around he Brickyard for a few hours and then went out hiking again -- to the Wild Wall this time. The sky wasn't quite as clear but Ter enjoyed seeing a different, unrestored and overgrown, part of the wall. I even convinced him to take a jumping picture!

 

We walked back down to the Schoolhouse for a late lunch (a burger and club sandwich), spent a while looking in the glass shop and watching Jian Jian Mei making small pieces, and spending my last short time with all my friends.

At 6 o'clock it came time to say goodbye as we boarded the Schoolbus which (much more conventiently I must say) took us back to Beijing. We navigated the subway with my heavy suitcase filled with six month's worth of posessions -- with Zuo Yong Jie's help -- and made it back to the hostel. I'm not sure it had clicked yet that I will most probably never see most of the Schoolhouse people again, but Tana is already planning a trip to Canada so I guess I will have to hold on to that!

If any of you are reading this, you are awesome and I miss you like crazy!