Saturday, February 14th in Beijing

So I thought I could hide from Valentine’s Day in China, but starting towards the middle of last week I knew that was going to be an “epic fail.” As I noted earlier, where there used to be fireworks stands on Chung Fu Lu on the way to Wudaokou, there were now flowers. Although my guy friends here have nicknamed me “the Valentine’s Day Grinch,” all of us girls planned for an exciting Girls’ Night Out.

When we got back from the 798 Art Village, we watched the Sex and the City movie and ate chocolate. We then grabbed a quick dinner on campus and then all got ready to go out, which was a lot of fun because all the girls on our floor in Shaoyuan got ready together. It’s nice to have a really fun and easygoing group of girlfriends here.

After forcing the boys (who stayed home to Skype on Valentine’s Day) to comply with our all girls photo shoot, we left via the Beijing subway for Salitun, the Beijing bar district and pretty much the equivalent of Adams Morgan in Washington, DC.

When we arrived in Sanlitun, it was Valentine’s Day central. The streets were lined in arches of pink balloons. We walked a few blocks to a bar called Bar Blu. The music was a lot of fun and there were about 15 of us dancing all together. It was kind of funny because they played songs that you usually only get to hear at weddings such as the Spice Girls, Mambo No. 5, the Jitterbug, and Billie Jean.

When we got home from Sanlitun we were surprised to find roses on our pillows in all of our rooms. Right after we left, our guy friends went to Wadaokou, bought us flowers, and snuck them into our rooms for Valentine’s Day. We all joked around that “my heart grew three sizes on Valentine’s Day.”

This was probably one of the best Valentine’s Days yet. It was definitely surrounded by friends and fun!