bruce comes to beijing!

in a happily strange turn of events, just over two weeks after seeing him ireland, my brother-in-law, bruce, came to visit us in beijing. well, he was actually here for work, but we took full advantage of microsoft's business agenda to spend some time with him and his colleague, tim.

our first evening, after their business dinner - complete with the tradition of the lazy susan style way of chinese meals and everyone's chopsticks in the same food (this is when you're slightly grateful for the

government's almost hysterical vigilance against H1N1) - we took them to our favorite neighborhood bar, mao mao chang, for a few brews and some good catch up time. on our second night, after sean, bruce and tim took in the experience of a beijing foot massage (while I waited at the bar...can we say role reversal?) we hit up gui jie (ghost street) for dinner at a restaurant we discovered early on in our residence here - hua jia yi yuan - and dined on a mix of sichuan and beijing dishes, including - of course - kao ya (peking duck).

with time to spare on thursday morning before they headed south to guangdong province and over to hong kong, sean accompanied them to gu gong (forbidden city) for a sprint through the site, a visit which included the obligatory picture with chinese strangers who want their photo taken with the laowai.

by the time next spring arrives, while we will have seen him twice in the year since our departure, neither time will have been in the states...life's funny that way these days.