TGIF Sendoff

Yan Yan left to go back to Hunan today. While I know I will get to see her again next month when I go to visit her, this could be her last time for her to see Jin Yi. Because Jin Yi will soon leave to begin graduate school in Australia, we decided to have a goodbye party for Yanzi. (In addition, we also like Yan Yan!) So Jin Yi came back from Tanggu after a hard day at work just to see Yan Yan, even though she would have to turn around and take the 6 AM bus back to work this morning. Unfortunately, we got a late start on things. We went to Kisseling but it was just about to close. Then we went to a Thai restaurant nearby but it was too smoky. Then we went to a Mexican restaurant but they had just stopped serving food. Finally, we decided on TGI Friday's:



There aren't many non-fast food American restaurants in Tianjin. This is one of the few. We all had a good time, and they got to try lots of new foods: calamari, fajitas, steak, etc. Fun to introduce them to new food, but hard on the wallet. Many Chinese restaurants are cheap -- you can eat a good meal for less than $2 per person. Foreign restaurants, like TGIF, charge American prices, so it cost more like $10 a head. Not too bad in the US, but expensive for China! That's why the restaurant has few Chinese customers. Most of the people eating there are laowai (foreigners). I joked with them that soon they would be laowai, as all of them are going abroad to graduate school.

Here, Yan Yan leaves my apartment for the last time. She actually lived here with a roommate and took care of it for me while I was gone to Tibet and India in January and February so perhaps this was a sentimental parting for her.



After moving out of the girl's dorm...



...we raced to the train station. I helped her get one of her large bags on the train. It was a good thing too because the train was very crowded and she had many bags. I would have had trouble, by myself, getting all of those bags onto a train this crowded:



Here she is looking at me after I got off the train...



Goodbye Yan Yan! You have a wonderful personality and you will be missed (until I come visit you in Hunan!)