Evan's Reeducation -- Good times in Kunming

Once again I say ahoy to all and one from the great city of Kunming. It is Monday morning here in the east, and I have a plethora of stories from the past 4 days, some that can be told in this space, others that you will have to hear from me directly at a later date.

Quick hits from the past 96 hours:
On Thursday, Lexi rented me a bike and we rode about 8 kilometers to the Golden Temple. It was a cool place to explore, and at one point the following exchange occurred.
Lexi: "Do you want to sit on a camel?"
Evan (speaking approximately 0.000012 seconds later): "YES"
For 5 yuan (about 70 cents), I sat on a camel roughly the size of Rhode Island. The monstrous animal smelled horrible, but hopefully the stenge won't carry through into the pictures that Lexi took. I'm sure she will post them with embarrassing captions at some later date.

On Friday, Lexi actually had some work to do (trying to convince me that she's here for an internship rather than simply playing ultimate and creating memories). She met a few people for an informal interview at a cafe nearby her apartment. I tagged along with my computer and followed as much basketball as I could. (At this point, the unfortunate shellacking of 84-69 had not occurred yet and I was somewhat excited for the NCAA Tournament... Red was right, hope can drive a man insane.) On Friday night, Lexi and her roomate Jess hosted a dinner party, which was a lot of fun. My friend Todd, who graduated from Wake in 2005 and now lives in Shanghai, came to Kunming for the weekend. It was completely absurd seeing him for the first time in a year and a half in this small city in southwest China. It was also completely awesome. Along with some of Lexi's friends we went out to see some live music after dinner. Tribal Moon was the moniker of the rock quartet that blared their sounds into the streets. They actually weren't terrible. I think jetlag finally caught up with me a little bit, as by around 11:30 or 12 I was totally and completely exhausted. Good times, though.

On Saturday, it was Lexi's 21st birthday, and as a present to her, I let her continue paying for everything. I'm quite the giver. As you might expect, she wanted to do what anyone else would want to do on their birthday: go to the zoo. And as luck had it, there was a zoo basically across the street from where she lived. Todd joined us for a stroll through some pretty interesting habitats. We saw giraffes, zebras, lions, tigers, bears, stegosaurasas, and peacocks. Lots of peacocks. It was a dandy time that was cut short when Lexi received a call asking if we all would be interested in free massages at this new massage place that is opening in Kunming at the end of the month. Basically, they needed live bodies to practice with. And after the experience, I was phenomenally grateful that I was a chosen live body. The three of us all received sensational massages, and afterwards were thanked repeatedly for letting them massage us. It was totally and utterly ridiculous. As someone who had never had a professional massage before, I am officially a huge fan.
Lexi's birthday dinner (Others payed for her, she payed for me of course) featured a diverse hodgepodge of her American and Chinese friends here in Kunming. The solid meal paved the way for other shennanigans amidst an array of card games at another venue nearby. I think she had fun. I know I did.

On Sunday, we slept in, and Lexi basically woke me up with the following words: "Do you want another free massage?" Like Shoeless Joe Jackson in Field of Dreams, I was confused whether I was in heaven, Iowa, or Kunming. Around 1PM, we walked back to the magical massage place for our aromatherapy oil massage, in which we were forced to remove most of our clothing and be slathered with hot sweet almond oil. It was a completely different experience than the day before (twice as long -- two hours versus one) and it was much more intense. I'm now conditioned to expect a free professional massage every day. One of my best friends from high school is now dating a masseuse back in the states, and he's told me that it is not terrible. No kidding. Any single female professional massage therapists in Salem, Virginia reading this blog right now, give me a call. I'll be joining you in the Roanoke Valley in early April.
After having our muscles worked for two hours, we quickly sped home, collected our frisbee attire, and jolted over to the game of pickup ultimate. It wasn't exactly the thrill of Atlantic Coast regionals, but ultimate is ultimate, and I met a lot of other good people. The few hours of disc were followed by another large dinner, and then a gathering at the nearby apartment inhabitated by the aforementioned duo of frisbee playing twins from Atlanta (Padeia HS). It was an evening filled with plunks. That's right, plunks. Once again, very good times.

I think Lexi and I are off to another city to traverse and explore for the next few days. We miss everyone back in the states and hope that things are well.

One final thought: I watched pretty much the entire Wake-Cleveland State game on streaming video here in China on Saturday morning. It was an abysmal, pathetic, and disgraceful effort, that, after the fact, was not that suprising. For the past few weeks I'd been saying that Wake would either lose to a double-digit seed in the first round or advance to the final four. I had thought the odds were around 50-50. Either was possible. Crash. Burn. Destruction. Finality. Hopefully the trio of immature future millionaires stay in school for another year with a certain fire in the belly that'll transform Wake into a top 5 team in 2010. Wake fans who are calling for Dino's job are embarrassing. They sound like NC State fans who hated Herb Sendek or Kentucky fans who drove away Tubby Smith. I hope that there are better days ahead. I take back me previous statement; Red was wrong. Hope is a good things, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.

Thank you, Andy Dufresne.