Last night in the Jing

This is about two weeks belated since I haven't found good enough internet to upload pictures.

we went to Tairyo for tepanyaki as my last supper before heading off to the SE Asia. Then continued on to NanJie and eventually down the Rabbit hole.

Tairyo was awesome as usual, (its all you can eat all you can drink 170 kuai). Steffen walked straight into the mirror on his way back to the table, then apologized to his reflection for running into it thinking it was a real person....he almost got away with it since I was the only person who saw it happen...but I told everyone.

Fire at Tairyo
Steffen becomes a Panda Bear

After that we moved on to NanJie.. where for some reason people thought it was a good idea to wear their motorcycle helmets inside, and we found a huge pumpkin to play with.

After white rabbit I came home and found that my key was too messed up to open the front door. Not wanting to wake up Nancy, and having no other place to go, I laid down on the welcome mat to sleep there until Gardiner got home..I'm so glad no one got a picture of that. After a little bit I woke up and was cold and panicked thinking that she might not come home till 8am like the day before, and I REALLY wanted to eat the avocado that I knew was lying in the kitchen bread bowl. (This is the avocado that I bought for Nancy and Nick to replace the one I had eaten the week before when I was drunk... so its ridiculous I managed to eat it again, while drunk, before they could get to it... now I need to get them ANOTHER one). I started ringing the doorbell until Nancy came and opened it... poor girl but apparently she was still awake. I then proceeded to make seven layer dip....it was deRicious.

I want to give a shout out to all of the people that made Beijing AWESOME...I could list everyone but it would just take way to long. However I am going to miss some of the highlights:

"When I blow my horn you all take a shot"

Gardiner's "drinking horn"

Che's laugh

Sexy Parties

Ordering in Bitapita

All nighters

Beijing/Qingdao Huangning ni
Beijing Beijing, wo ai Beijing

Random ridiculousnes

Joweling demonstrations

Will not miss:

NanJie hangovers

Anyway, I'm going to miss all of you guys and hopefully I'll see most of you soon...esp you Gardiner and Steffen in Incredible Indiaaaaaa. Everyone else, come to SEATTLE!!!

Liz II

Rahul's Sexy Party 1.5!!

Rahul threw his SEXY PARTY 1.5!!! last night. The highlights:

First: here is a really awesome article my sister linked

We went for drypot beforehand, which is like hotpot in that you get to choose what goes into your meal. Then it is dry fried and seasoned with some of the sichuan peppers that make your mouth go numb. Ours had chicken, eggplant, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, tofu, and some green things.

Then we went to Angel to see DJ Shadow after a long debate over if it was indeed necessary to spend 200 kuai each to see this dude, which we decided in the end it was, me with some reluctance since I'm unemployed.

Once we got to the club billy immediately gamboled off in the opposite direction supposedly to use the ATM, promising to be back soon. 10 minutes...20 minutes....30 minutes.. he finally showed up 40 minutes later with a NEW HAIRCUT... the idiot had fancied a haircut at midnight! WHILE we were waiting for him!!! I also got some chinese guy who lived in Vancouver to give me his two tickets which he hadn't used.... thats 200 kuai a pop or over 40 US for the two!! Go me.

After Angel we carried the party over to Jamies apartment where Billy thought it would be a good idea to put one, but only one, of Gardiner's shoes in the freezer and then try and light her feet on fire with a lighter while she was "sleeping" on the couch. Luckily I saved her.

At 7 we finally called it a night once the sun came up and rolled our sorry company off for dim sum, only getting back to the apt at 8 am.

Kanye Kanye, wo ai Kanye, Kanye Kanye, wo ai Kanye

It was a huge struggle to get excited for Kanye bc we felt like such shit after Halloween, I don't think we left spooked till at least 6 or 7. I did fancy dress again, going as a bumblebee. Our seats were over on the side and the sound quality SUCKED you couldn’t even really tell what song he was singing. It was so bad we were all actually thinking about walking out. Plus, they didn’t have any alcohol there so we were all grumpy about that. About three or four songs in we discovered that the sound quality in the middle of the stadium was infinitely better and we took the party over there. After that the concert was sweet.. especially when they randomly started playing journey in the middle.

We headed over to Nanjie after and spent a few hours being ridiculous there, eventually going to Vicks and having another epic night. Gardiner somehow managed to chip Che's tooth on her ring while "sculpting" his face. 

Che post-chipped tooth...its one of the two front ones on the top

Gangsta

Got home from Vick's at 630 and had no money to pay for the cab so I just ran....I feel really bad about it, at least the cab ride was only 10 Kuai.  Then of course I set my alarm for 830 since I had a train to catch and the ticket was 400 kuai and I really didn’t want to miss it, buuuuut.......

Woke up at noon. Ooooops. So that is why I am still in Beijing. I’m just going to be uber lazy and skip Shangai and fly straight to Burma from here, since I can just do Shangai in the spring when I come back for HONG KONG SEVENS.. which I’m already pretty excited about. Mostly is awesome since I said goodbye to everyone last night..and yet.. I am still here, and showed up at Rickshaw for quiz night.. and then we destroyed the boys at skill darts. HAH

Two cool pics I took at Nanjie when I got really into the manual shutter speed on my camera:

Che looks fuuucking creepy in this pic

Pretttty

Spooked!!

I'm going to go out on a slight limb here and say Halloween MAY have been even more fun than in the US. 

I was a “baseball player” again / really not a costume at all especially since I lost my bat within three seconds of walking in the door.    Everyone’s costumes were ridiculous, but I think Che took the prize by buying a giant teddy bear at the market and pulling out the stuffing and wearing it as a costume – he looked AMAZING.

Che and Billy the never nude

Sarah Palin, Baseball player, There's something about Mary, and Amy Winehouse

We got a really late start to the night so we made MASTER DANCER buy us beers for the cab ride to wodaukou, only problem, he got in the car and none of us had a lighter or anything else to open them with.   Not to be daunted, Che rolled down the window and started asking the cars around us for a lighter.   The Chinese guy in the next car took pity on us and tossed us his - what an awesome moment of kindness not often found in China. 

Awesome bottle opening skills... although thinking about I have no idea why we were opening bottles this way when we had a lighter, since this is after the lighter exchange. 

Before we even got to the party things were getting out of hand – I was already covered in alcohol since Che had slipped at Billy’s apt and had used me to try and stay upright resulting in him tackling me and both of us crashing to the ground and sending flying a few drinks that were on the coffee table, Billy was completely blacked out, we were playing Chinese fire drill between our two cabs on the way to the party, etc.

MD already having way too much fun at Billy's before even going to the party...

I'm sure we scared the crap out of the guy who owned this convenience store.

We went to Spooked, which was a rave party in an old deserted warehouse in the 798 (art district) and it was completely packed to overflowing.  We only managed to get out cab all the way to the front door because Che told the driver I was a cripple. We are all going to hell. 

Woke up at 1PM on Margo’s couch..who knows why I was there and not at Gardiner’s, covered in fake blood, and some real blood on my knee which was twice the size it is usually and really gross looking – I think it may have been a casualty of the time I fell down onstage in front of the entire party… go me.

More pics from the night: 

Theres something about Mary..

This must be after Gardiner found the tube of fake blood...

 there was SO much fake blood everywhere...

No words..MD and the never nude getting down

Party Party Party

Best picture of the night

Freeeeeedom

I have no job anymore

First unemployed beer... they are trying to look sad

Now I am going to tell you why this is a good thing and why I'm not have a complete mental breakdown from joining the ranks of the unemployed.

1) We kind of knew it was coming: I didn't know it was quite this imminent, but with the market as it is we knew no one could possible be starting new projects or investing VC funding.   Also the falling value of the dollar and rising RMB is undermining the reason for outsourcing.. so bye bye ACG. (I can say the name now since I don't work there anymore)

2) The job sucked:  Our job position was kind of unnecessary, apart from telling the engineers what hard words in english meant in emails from clients,  so most of the time I vaguely felt like I should be doing something but there was nothing for me to do.  It was valuable because I learned that I do not want to work in IT and that I am still too restless to take a job and sit down at it for five years.   I think once I get home at xmas I might try and take a completely different direction that business for a while.  Like becoming a monkey trainer, or a free diver. 

3) I got an awesome deal: I got to keep my signing bonus, got a good amount of severance, got health insurance coverage for a year, free flights to and from China, and our apartment paid through Nov, so for the three months I worked I managed to get like half my yearly salary in perks. 

4) This is the most important reason:  NOW I GET TO TRAVEL 

I have to be in the Jing until Nov. 2 for the Kanye concert, and because I don't want to leave everything here too abruptly, so until then I am staying inside China.  The one place in China that I moved here determined to see was Tibet, so hopefully this time next week I will either be there or be on a train there.  Yes, I am indeed going to take the train from Beijing to Tibet (look at a map), it is very far, but looks like it makes up for that with the scenery. 

After the 1st of Nov i'm planning on getting on a train from Beijing to Hanoi, another monster ride, and then using that as my starting point for my SE Asia adventure.  Right now plan is: 

Hanoi -> Sapa (Viet) -> Luang Prabang (Laos) -> Vienite (Laos) -> raft down the Meekong river -> Siem Rep (Cambodia) -> Phom Phen (Cambodia) -> Qu Phoc Island (Viet) -> Saigon -> Jungle Beach (Viet) -> Saigon fly to Bangkok -> Islands in Thailand for two - three weeks. 

So far this is my tentative itinerary, which I am sure will change completely.. but just to give you an idea. 

I'm also going to try and keep up with my blog posts, but they will obviously much more infrequent since I am not planning on taking my computer with me.

So in recap, this was something I couln't control at all so I am not going to beat myself up about it, and I think it was for the best; now when I go home I can focus on finding a job that I actually have a higher chance to enjoy, not that just makes me money and satisfies the requirement of having a job.  With all of the pressure at CMC to get jobs I ignored the fact that this job was not in the direction I wanted to go with my life (other than going to China) and took it because it was the best thing I found and I was sick of everyone talking about their offers at parties.  Childish I know, but aren't we all to some extent. 

reason 481 that I simultaneously love and hate China:

Today I bought a DVD of Wanted (possibly one of the greatest movies ever), and a pomegranate, for five kuai each, ( .75 cents), only to arrive home and find that a) the pomegranate was far from ripe, and b) the movie was entirely in russian.

Moral: You can get anything for dirt cheap in China, but nine times out of ten it takes at least a few purchases before you get the right thing.

Funny thing about jing weather that I have learned in the last week is that Asia does not believe in Fall. last week it was 85, this week it is 4o. Yesterday it actually felt like Seattle: drizzling rain, freezing cold. It was a rude awakening to what is in store for me in the next 6 months. I have absolutely no concept of how cold it is going to get - 20 below means nothing to me since I have never lived anywhere really cold (yes it gets that cold in Jing). Farther north its even worse -- The festival that I really want to go to in January - the Harbin Ice Festival (google it), can get to 40 below because it is right on the border with Russia... probably pretty near Vladivostok dad, I don't know if you ever had to go there in the winter or anything.

Was supposed to meet up with Emma last night but she went MIA while I was I luckily had other friends from Qingdao who were at Kokomo so I just went over there to chill with them. There was a good latin band playing a mix of Buena Vista Social Club and then really loud other spanish songs so it was a weird mix. We rambled around from there to the opening of a new club at which we stayed approximately three minutes until we saw the menu and realized that a shot was 180 Kuai. ($25). Then we went to Bellagio, a dessert place, and I got a fantabulous passion fruit ice cream creation which reminded me of when we used to make passion fruit sauce at the Hodges in NZ. Steffan got a towering monstrosity of shaved ice and pean paste / other strange asian things, and proceeded to eat almost the whole thing. Impressive.

I also had some inexplicable problem with getting things from the plate to my mouth even though I had only had two drinks, and they had been early in the night. First I blamed it on the chopsticks and rice, buuuut then I did the same thing with my ice cream so I guess I'm just a klutz, luckily the three others were much farther along the drinking line than me so they really didn't seem to mind I was using my shirt as a tablecloth.

Friday:

I am leaving for Vietnam in 3 hours!! I also just learned that tropical storm something-un-pronounceable may make my life a rainy hell while I am there. I am hoping this is not the case but the weather on my dashboard shows ominous thunder and lighting clouds every day for the next week in both Hanoi and HCMC.

The actual schedule of my trip is kinda up in the air now because I am planning on riding the train from Hanoi to HCMC (40 hours) because I was too cheap to pay for a flight, and I will probably choose a few places to stop and get off along the way - Hue sounds cool and so does Hoi Anh.

Then I'm hopefully going to have at least two days in HCMC to explore at the end of the trip and maybe go on a tour of the mekong river delta which is supposed to be a world of floating markets and stilted houses and awesomely cool.

Ciao

New Day, New Cell Phone

Up until last night I could say that I had never lost a cell phone. Stolen yes, broken yes, but never lost, which is amazing with the amount of things I lose. At least it was only a 300 kuai cell phone.

Went to Viks last night, complete shit show.. My bright idea to spend less money on alcohol was to buy the fifth of vodka down in the apartment complex store and drink some of that and a few red bulls before going out... Great CMC style plan... but the result was that I still drank the same amount when I was out and ended up just way to drunk. In typical me fashion, I ended up making friends with a random group of guys with a table. They were all from different countries in africa and I kinda felt like I was in Lord of War or something (in a completely non-racist sort of way,I am well aware that all africans are not war lords). There were two girls at their table already who gave me evil stares the whole time I was there.. I bet they thought that I was trying to steal their men....not so, I just wanted their alcohol, my mind tends to one track there first before mistering around.

Then I lost my phone. I have no idea when. Ernest said that I fell on my bag and broke it or something.... so maybe I broke the phone then, its a bit hazy.

Woke up still completely shwasted at 11 and went to carrefour to buy a new phone. After a 45 minute attempted and failed conversation in chinese about how I wanted to keep my old phone number (because it is already on my business cards) I bought a sweet phone with a touch screen!! the first nice phone I have ever possessed. I had to change my number though which sucks cause now all my b cards have the wrong number. They are sweet though and say Module Lead... I'm uber excited for the first time I get to give them to someone!!!!

Philosophical Section:

I really like all of the people I have met over here but the more people I meet and the more time I spend with them I realize how amazing everyone I knew in the US was. I'm never going to meet someone like Jess, who lights her face on fire taking a shot, or someone like Gardiner whose wit sent people to counseling in middle school. Unfortunately this means I am still spending way too much time on Facebook and Skype living vicariously through everyone back home. I still would much rather talk to Jess on Skype for 10 minutes that hang out with my friends here for a whole night. That sounds bad.. they are all really cool, its just no one can replace the people back home. I guess its the: "make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other's gold" sort of thing. (yeah girl scout songs).

Peace

And so it goes..

Very boring week here, just working and sleeping. Up until yesterday I hadn't been paid yet over here (since pay comes every month), so I have been exceedingly broke and unable to do anything. Luckily I finally got paid and was able to pay adam back all the money I owed him, which was an epic sum. I also can't go anywhere on the subway because I have managed to lose my subway card (second time), but I can still ride the bus because they are always so crowded that no one notices if I don't beep in. If I get caught i'm sure the penalty is forced "re-education through labor" for the rest of my life, probably not the best gamble for the 2 kuai savings on bus fare.

I'm also slowly starving from lack of food since I am too lazy to go to the grocery store. I have now run out of every possible food source and for the past two days I have been living on eggs, which I can buy downstairs, and Tahini. Tomorrow I am going to force myself to do an entire day of cooking and shopping so I don't get scurvy from not eating enough green things.

This week is the mid-autumn festival (Moon Festival) and so everyone is giving moon cakes, the traditional present. These are little round cakes with some sort of paste inside, usually red bean paste or lotus root paste. One of my favorite books as a kid was about the moon festival, so I'm pretty psyched (the real reason might be that we have no work on monday!). I was planning on going to the beach or Shanghai since we have a three day, but I learned ten minutes after dropping my passport off at the Vietnam Embassy that you can't travel anywhere in China without your passport, and mine will be out of commission for the week. I would LOOOVEEE to get out of the city and breath clean air for a few days but I guess I'm stuck staying here instead; I think i'm going to become an artiste over the weekend. I drove by an art gallery yesterday that said: "Invisible Art Installation: You Come in and See Nothing" I don't know if it was just a bad translation or some new modern art ploy.

Anyway, thats about it - still going to the Qingdao Beer festival next weekend, although unfortunately emma dropped out and now its only jeff and I, which is going to be awkward because of previous bad decisions, hopefully it will still be fun, i'm excited to see the ocean and drink beer, I don't think anything could ruin that.

Ciao

Gossip Girl is Back!!

The best show on the planet is back and now I can download it because the chinese government has decided itunes is no longer subversive!!!! I'm trying to get Adam and Shobhit to watch it with me, but they are resisting my amazingly well crafted arguments. Shobhit says he will only watch it if the narrator, Kristen Bell, becomes a cast member that he can actually see, instead of just listening to her voice. I also just learned from his google search that she became a veggie at 11, how admirable of her.

The first episode was decent, the usual: adultery, sex, expensive clothes, and of course, Chuck Bass. I'm looking forward to episode 2 which I am currently downloading. It says it is going to take 4 more hours.... hopefully I will not be so excited that I stay up until it is done..... but that may happen, and I feel like being tired from watching gossip girl is an even worse excuse than being tired from being out too late drinking.

Now after disclosing that I watch one of the most worthless and indulgent shows on the planed I feel the need to immediate counteract this with a pretentious literary discussion.

List of the "Best Books in the World" ( *for my sister)

Cannery Row - Steinbeck
On the Road - Karouac
Endurance - Lansing
1984 - Orwell
Collected Short Stories of Pushkin - Pushkin
Freakenomics - Levit
War & Peace - Tolstoy
Madame Bovary - Flaubert
THe Count of Monte Cristo - Dumas
and of course... Head First Java

*I compiled a list of books for my sister to read since she and I have different taste and both want to branch out. I'll post her list below mine since I have the utmost confidence in her taste in books as she is a librarian and likes to read. I left some of my favorite books off of this since she had already read them, but to supplement the list, the "Best Books in the World" also include: Hamlet, The Drifters, The Far Pavilions, Anna K, Brothers K, and Animal Farm.

My sister's List (that you should also read:

1. Animal Dreams - Barbara Kingsolver
2. The House of the Spirits - Isabel Allende
3. Obasan - Joy Kogawa
4. Savage Inequalities - Jonathan Kozol
5. Desert Solitaire - Edward Abbey
6. The Edge of the Sea - Rachel Carson
7. Prisoners Without Trial - Roger Daniels
8. Wild Swans - Jung Chang (ok, this should wait till you're somewhere where it's not banned)
9. People's History of the United States - Howard Zinn
10. In the Time of the Butterflies - Julia Alvarez

Weekend is already over

I really don't like having to think of titles for each post. Each post is about lots of random shite so an "overarching" title is a little hard to come by unless you work making advertising slogans and are good at catchy taglines for useless crap.

Now reading: War and Peace, Larissa Volokhonsky & Richard Pevear translation. I should say continue reading since I read a few hundred pages in SF before I left for china but the book was too heavy and big to put in my checked luggage. This is supposed to be the best translation, and so far it is much better than the last copy I read which was a really old translation that probably missed the eloquence of Tolstoy's style. I also read Anna K by them, and it was fantabulous, so I'm very excited for this translation.

Last night I went to Kro's Nest with the Iveys and had real pizza for the first time in a month - it was amazing. I had pepperoni and then got to do my customary explanation of why I eat pepperoni and bacon. I need to coin a new phrase for my dietary habits because its really an annoying five minute explanation that I and kinda sick of repeating.

Afterwards I had a tug of war between going home and not spending money since I really don't have any until I get paid on the China side, or going to an ATM, running my US side dry and going out with Em, whose plan for the evening includes white rabbit, which only gets good after 4 in the morning. I decided that you only have saturday every six days so the right decision was to go. Most of the night was uneventful and even boring since I was sober and didn't like the music they were playing at White Rabbit later, but the Hip Hop concert we went to first at Star Live was AWESOMEEEEEE!!!

There were two acts and it was all in chinese so I understood nothing, but the crowd was really into it so we were too. The fist group was three guys who just rapped to beats by a DJ, a lot of which were pulled from US songs, and then the second group had a backup band and sang over that. T he frontman for that one puzzled me for a long time because I could tell he wasn't entirely chinese but couldn't figure out what he was, later we learned that he was half Chinese half Swedish. Strange combo. They also freestyled for a while and beatboxed... all in all it was wickedly tight / off the hook. I wonder what they are rapping about though since they can't criticize the government at all. A lot of Hip Hop comes out of criticism for the system and the man, so I feel like it must be tough to be so limited is your lyrics.

Rest of the night was blah, the only highlights were onion rings at Nashville and watching Gossip Girl at 6AM when I got home.

This morning I woke up and met the Iveys again at PangJiaYuan market where we shopped for a few hours. I got an awesome ring.

trapeezing tortugas take flight

This was a subject line I got on an email yesterday. 

I saw white people in my apt complex yesterday!! I did a huge double take, a very noticeable one.. it was a group of five really good looking guys so I'm sure they thought I was blatantly checking them out or something - great - maybe this complex isn't so bad after all, I need to start reading outside more so I can meet some of these elusive attractive white men without chinese girlfriends. 

link for the day : Cool Beans

ok.. damage to the phone from last night, which was epic: someone named Yalf, who thinks I am going to an open bar BBQ with him tonight, and Mari, which is my drunk shorthand for Mariel.  

I experienced one of the most morally questionable points in my life though last night.  I realized I was pre-gaming, by myself, while watching Schindler's List. 

Went to Saddle in SanLiTuar again, drinks were half off. woot. On the way there the cabbie in the car next to me stated singing my darling Clementine at the top of his lungs, probably for my benefit, and was really excited when I rolled down my window and joined in.  After Saddle there is a long progression of bars, and an attempt to go to Vicks, only to get there and then be too cheap to pay the 50 Kuai ($6) cover.  Instead we headed across the street to Alpha for 80s night.. and the night gets a bit blurry....Kebab Stand...my only jean skirt rips all the way to the top while climbing onto a stage w Mari....get convinced to stay despite said ripped skirt because luckily the rip is right over the pocket so I was still somewhat clothed....all decide to wake up early in the morning and go to a pool party... somehow get home. 

Really though, so far Beijing is like college, just with way more traffic and pollution (I know, I know, LA is pretty bad in these two categories too)

Woke up, have done nothing all day except for discover that adding bacon grease to eggs makes them 10 times better.  I bet bacon grease makes everything better, I should make a book: Cooking With Bacon Grease - Gourmet Adventures of a Vegetarian

Toodles

I want to live in a Hutong

Although my apartment complex is supposedly one of the nicest in the city, and has a patch of greenery, and there are ferraris in the parking garage I still fucking hate the place. It is a soulless russian compound and I am planning on escaping as soon as I possibly can.

I realized just how much I hate it last night when I went to an apartment warming party at this awesome Hutong up in the north section of the city. This place was SO cool. It was a traditional Hutong, so one story, with a central courtyard surrounded by rooms (I will post pics shortly). The central courtyard had a little table to sit at and a BBQ for grilling and the whole thing was very cozy and authentic chinese, unlike my apartment complex. It was in a traditional Hutong area; a labrynth of narrow alleys connecting the different houses, usually crisscrossed with laundry and overgrown with vines. It is also a better area of people my age because you can bike to all of the major bar streets. They had decorated the place really well and had hung up prayer flags, which their neighbors were angry about because it could be a sign of them supporting Tibet, heaven forbid.

They have an extra room that I could move into right now, but I paid my rent through october and It would be an extremely low move to ditch out on Adam and Shobhit without warning.

Back to the night:
Veronica met up with me at Dongjiamen station and then we went together to try and find his apt.
I think we must have gone through at least 50 large beers, which are each only two kuai, so it didn't set them back too much I think. We played some classy card games, also known as Kings Cup and Indian Poker.. the later was an awesome game requiring even less mental capacity than Kings Cup if that is possible. All you do is draw a card, stick it to your forehead while making indian war sounds, and then bet sips of beer on whether you think your card is the highest or not.

We also played Wii for Baijio (I spelled that wrong) shots for a while... but that was nasty. I won a free breakfast at Rickshaw off of Jeff so I need to claim that pronto... since I have a love affair with rickshaw food.

At 2 in the morning we went for Tuar (things on sticks) (I was supposed to be asleep at this point), eggplant on a stick, bread on a stick, chicken feet on a stick - you can really get anything on a stick in china. I left in the middle of the meal since I was so exhausted and had quite the interesting cab ride home. Kind of on the scary side in a funny way actually, but not as bad as when we hit that pedestrian in SF. My cab driver kept saying I was Hen Piaoliang (means pretty) the whole way home ... all thirty minutes of it, and then when I went to get out of the car in my parking garage at Pinguo, he grabbed my arm and said I love you like 8 times in english and wouldn't let me go.. it was annoying since I was already in a bad mood from being tired and knowing I had to get up in 6 hours. I think I just made an indiscriminate angry noise, yanked my arm away and marched off.

Reflections on the First Month (coming soon)

I guess I never filled this in and now it is reflection on the first month and a few weeks.  

When I first got here I was pretty dubious about whether I would like China or not.  It was a actually very different than what I had been expecting.  It did not feel like a foreign country to me, but more like I was living in chinatown and knew the rest of the city was somewhere, but couldn't find my way back there. I think this is because there are so many american restaurants here, like Pizza Hut and KFC, that I still feel like I am somehow in the US. I really didn't like that at first, although on the flip side it is very fortunate because I can get any food I need, even cheetos, but not in-n-out. Another reason for this is that the architecture is not vastly different than it is in the US. Because industrial China has been built in the fast 30 years, it could be any city in the US. Once you start looking at the cultural sites this is clearly not true, but if you stay downtown you tend to forget this. It is very different from in a european city, where the architecture is so different that you are constantly reminded you are in a culturally different place.

I was also a little homesick, which I expected since in Prague I missed people for the first month. My parents are out sailing in BC (British Colombia for those of you who don't know Canadian lingo) and I would LOVE to be out there with them despite all the alternator and engine problems they are having. I haven't been able to spend a whole summer on the boat in years - the past summers its been a few weeks here and there between jobs and traveling. There in nothing better in the world that packing a bag and casting off from civilization* for a month or two. I had a completely different set of clothes that I would take with me, summer hippie clothes, but most of the time I just wore a swimsuit anyway, and no shoes, there is nothing better than dock planks and bare feet. I would pack a obscene quantity of books or just bank on the "take a book, leave a book" at Refuge Cove having something good and devour them at an alarming rate over the course of the trip, I would be Palin's nightmare. Actually, my whole family would be Palin's nightmare. I bet my sister, a librarian, my mom, an ex-Planned Parenthood volunteer, or my dad, a generally ridiculously well informed farmer (ha), would kill her with vicious rhetoric. Anyway, this is supposed to be about China, not about how I miss Desolation Sound, and hate Palin so i'll shut up.

* our boat is not roughing it, I have a door on my cabin, and we have two heads. BUT it still is a sailboat, so much better than all you noisy pig boaters with your trailer park dogs and outboard dingy motors that are larger than our engine.

I also miss everyone from CMC, and had a great flashback session looking at the 6:01 pictures people have already posted from last night. Some people I miss more than others, and strangely I miss a lot of people I didn't think I would, and the some people, who I was really tight with, I don't miss at all. Then there are all the outside CMC people that I know from home, abroad and SF. I miss all you guys too, luckily i'm coming back to The Rock for xmas so i'll get to see everyone; I'm pretty fucking excited for that.

Enough sap, unless you know me really well you probably didn't think I was capable of it. haha. I remember from freshman year I told Chels I was nervous since a bunch of the guys were coming to the dance show we were having, and she looked at me in shock and said: "Mundty... you have emotions???" haha, I guess I've changed a lot since then though. Many thanks to everyone who made me better at that..

Now that I have a bunch of friends here its much more fun. The pollution is back, so now the city isn't quite as nice as it was during the olympics, but the fact that I know my way around more now makes up for that. I could see myself spending definitely a year here, and maybe two, who knows, it all depends on the people I meet.

So I think that is a pretty good summary for now. My parents will be pleased at this post, as they said that they thought my blog was to party-heavy.

Anyone who wants to come visit, I would be ridiculously ecstatic to show you around my new home, maybe make sure you are one of the people I actually miss though first. (I'm kidding, I love everyone who flies across and ocean to see me). I know most of you are Ibanking and so won't have vacation until you die from muscle atrophy in your cubicle.... but if you ever do get vacation... asia is awesome, and cheap. I recommend it.

Peace

September!

Just finished reading: The Three Musketeers by Dumas. This book is great as long as you love action movies or are a guy. I think the Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas is better though.

Starting to read: The Long Walk, true story about two Polish men who escaped from a Soviet labor camp in Siberia and walked all the way to India across the Himalayas. So far so good, but last night it made me dream that I was a French POW in WWII.

Anyway, back to life;

I'm going to Vietnam in 3 weeks!!!

The weather has been spectacular here for the past three days...I had forgotten what the sun looked like when it was not obscured by a layer of smog. Although to be fair, I have had it pretty easy the past month because of the Olympics: In August this year there were 16 days of "excellent" air quality, last year there was 1.

I finally made it to the llama temple on Sunday, but only lasted there an hour or so because it was so hot outside. Llama temple is a fully functional Buddhist temple, so it was packed with chinese people praying and burning incense. It was really cool to see them pray because it was much more interesting that watching catholics sit in their pews, but I felt very awkward being there since it was so obvious I did not fit in. Since I am atheist I am a tourist to all religions, but I felt much more like a disrespectful foreigner here than in the cathedrals in europe.

It was such a nice day out that I asked Alicia, who grew up in Beijing, where a good swimming pool was. I guess I probably should have specified a good tanning pool. She gave me the name of one and I set off on the subway to find it. I had no idea where I was when I got off the subway so I asked a woman on the street, and luckily enough she was going there with her daughter, so I just waled with them. I payed my 30 kuai, changed, and then armed with my tanning oil, sunglasses and a book went to to what I thought was an outdoor pool. I was sadly mistaken... It was a indoor, lap swim pool. I must have looked so funny standing there dejectedly in my sunglasses and bikini while everyone else was in swim caps and goggles.

Came back to the apt very hot, sweaty and not tan, and crashed on my bed for a while until Adam came home and I could grill him about his third date with the chinese girl he's been seeing (I am living vicariously through him since there are no men in beijing). Apparently he agreed to work at her school teaching english on the weekends.... its really ridiculous the things guys will do for girls, like one time when someone created an entire pool party just because he wanted to hang out with a girl..... it was an awesome pool party though.

Anyyyyway... i'm already getting excited to eat in-n-out over xmas break.... its going to be a long three months of anticipation.

Caio

I Need to Cut Back my Redbull Consumption

Entries in my phone from last night: Gillian Singapore, Tall Girl, and Matt-oz. 

I apparently met a lot of people last night, all of whom I don't totally remember.  Its a good thing I know myself well enough to know that descriptive names are a completely necessity for me to remember who anyone was the next day. 

Non-china related comment: go watch transporter 2 because apart from being a wonderful piece of cinematography, it has one of the best characters ever created:  Really awesome girl that kind of looks like an attractive alien that just walks around in lingerie and shoots people.  She is awesome... I'm kinda obsessed.   I kind of want to be her.   

Anyway, back to my real life:

Last night I met up with Alicia, the chinese girl that came to Suzie Wong's last week, and her friend, who is studying to be a doctor in Beijing.  We went to a really good chinese place and had really delicious fried eggplant and this drink that was kind of like sangria but had coconut milk instead of wine.  It had lots of the dragon fruit in it, which is the one that is kind of white and opaque with the black seeds.   

At the end of the meal I cast a glance at the dish of boiled baby cabbage I had been scarfing to see something small and black squirming to the surface in a desperate attempt to get out of the boiling water.   I didn't say anything because I didn't want to cause a scene, and we were finished eating anyway... so instead I just tried to concentrate on the conversation while keeping one eye on the mini-centipede-larvae thing that was valiantly struggling to keep above the water.   On the bright side, at least it was still in the dish, not in my stomach, although then maybe I would have gotten some protein since larvae are very high in protein -- Adam told me this yesterday.   Bottom line is: I really don't have good luck with food, the first night I was in japan I turned the tofu in my udon over to reveal a very large cockroach. 

After the dinner we walked around HouHai to a part I had not been to before, which was much quieter and less neon.  There were tons of little boats puttering around on the lake and Alicia said that you can  have dinner on them.  I am definitely going to do that if I ever have need for a romantic occasion, since I go on so many romantic occasions (sarcasm).  Really though, I need to start acting like an adult and assimilating into the dates/flowers/etc world or else I'm going to end up old and alone.  Maybe I'll take my parents there or something instead.  

I went to Gongti afterwards and met up with Emma and her friends, stayed there for a while then went to another bar that was having 80s night, which was awesome.  I rode on the back of Emma's bike there and I think we nearly died quite a few times, but we were both too full of redbull and vodka to care.   I feel like biking under the influence maybe should be deterred a little bit more.   Everyone left at 3, but I was just hitting my stride so I decided to stay completely alone (sounded like a great idea at the time) and make friends, which I did, with a bunch of brits, and went to white rabbit with them till really far to late at night.  I'm thinking of allotting myself a limit of redbulls per night, this staying out till 5 is getting out of control.  I was actually really disappointed in white rabbit, there weren't that many ppl there and the music wasn't that great, but I think it might have just been too late in the night for me to be a good critic anymore.  

Upon arriving home I decided that just drinking water and going to bed was insufficient, and instead I thawed some of the gnocchi I made last week and whipped up a pesto cream sauce from scratch, then proceeded to lick the sauce pot afterwards, because to my drunk self it was absolutely delicious.  It really probably was't that great seeing as my culinary skills were no doubt impaired... but it tasted pretty damn good at the time  -- kind of  like the time Arun and I made tempura at five in the morning and created "the best dipping sauce in the world!!" from Sriracha and Soy Sauce, only to discover later while sober that it really wasn't all that great. 

Anyway, that is the reason why I am not out drinking. Instead I am getting my life together.. especially since I spent 300 kuai last night which is waaaay over my limit.  

hopefully you are doing something more interesting than me, but if you are reading this it means you are at a computer, which means you are at home, which means you are a loser. get out. 

Night.

Madness Hamsters are gnawing my brain

Ouch

I am at work.  Hungover, maybe possibly still drunk.    I just slept for an hour here though, so I'm feeling better than I did on the cab ride in.   Sleeping is one very culturally interesting thing about the chinese workplace.   It is completely permissible to take naps at any point in the work day; In fact, most people bring a pillow to work. I kid you not. After lunch most of the office is asleep and snoring for a good 30 minutes, although in their case it stems from hard work, not too many shooters with crazy aussies. 

Last night was great in a random sort of way.  Went to dinner with three other guys from Pomona, then went to Nashville near Solana Plaza and listened to a really good chinese guy sing Simon & Garfunkel songs while we played spades -- Jeff and I won of course.  I also had an amazing drink called a Gin Fizz, sort of like a fizzy gin creamsicle. Next time I will inquire as too the ingredients. 

Onward into the night, we went to shooters in SanLiTun, which I need to remember since all shots and beers are 10 kuai. (thats about 1.30 US).  Danced with the guys for a while which made me remember that american guys really can't dance.  Then I ran into the flamboyant spanish guy that I salsad with on saturday night, named Ernesto, which is awesome cause now I have his number!  Made friends with three aussies, got Kebab, went home at like 2 to wake up at 7.  No wonder I am struggling.   

Since I'm trying to build an empire of friends I decided I would not turn down any invitation to go out / hang out, no matter how hungover I am or how early I have to get up.  So I am having a greeeeat time, but my sanity and liver are suffering.   Luckily for me, a retarded child could do my job so a hangover doesn't stop me from being excellent!   Emma texted me last night saying she wanted to go out tonight, so I am going to try and drink as much water as humanly possible and sleep for another hour at work to prepare. 

Luckily my workload is really light right now because we just did  a demo to the client and they loved it... so unlike Adam, who has a miserably horrible client... I can just keep working on my project in peace, which only occupies about three hours a day. 

I havent talked at all about prices so here is run down on what stuff costs in china: 

7 Kuai = 1 US $

Large beer from a convenience store: 3 Kuai

Dish at a semi-nice restaurant: 18 Kuai

Rice: 2 Kuai

20 min cab ride: 20 Kuai

Full american breakfast at Rickshaw: 45 Kuai

Batteries: 16 Kuai

Beet at a bar: 10-20 Kuai

Drink at bar: 10-40 Kuai

Recovery

Not unlike Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, I have spent the past two days in rehab.  But unlike them, what led to mine was my great desire to see the great cultural relics of china, kind of. 

Rehab means watching movies, cleaning my room, taking my vitamins, and eating ice cream. 

I also spent a good 6 hours trying to straighten out my: I-have-no-return-ticket-from-vietnam-sitch, which in the past 24 hours actually denigrated into:  an I-do-not-even-have-a-one-way-tic-to-vietnam-sitch.  Apparently I waited too long to verify my credit card information so they canceled my flight to Vietnam.  

So I began looking again.... I finally found a great round trip flight to Hanoi and spent a few minutes filling out the tedious information required to book, excited that I would now have a a vacation.  Not so.  A nice little error message came up informing me that "the name of passenger 1 could only be made up in English!" 

I then tried to book on the US Air China site instead since the chinese site wouldn't accept my name as not "being made up in English".  The ticket on the US side was $1000 more!! --Ridiculous form of somehow semi-legal price discrimination.   After a few more hours of angry searching I found a really good website called Wego.com , you should try it out; they use squirrels instead of an algorithm, apparently thats a good business strategy since they work for nuts not dollars.   So here are the places I am going as it stands right now: Hanoi, Halong Bay, HCMC, Mekong Delta, and Phu Quoc Island. If you have been to any of these places and have suggestions i.e: that place sucked, or: I got the best acid of my life there!! (just kidding mom), then tell me cause I would love to have any info on Vietnam since I know nothing about it.  

Im about to hit up some bars with my new FRIENDS!! (which isn't saying that much though since they are all guys.. much easier to make friends with than girls... but its a start)

oh I've also been in Beijing exactly one month.  Crazyness!!!

P.P.S : Check out the igoogle themes by Edward Monkton, in particular the "Madness Hamsters" I am obsessed. 

Ciao

Impromptu trip to the Great Wall at 5 AM

The title pretty much sums up my weekend.  After friday night I did not think the weekend could possibly get anymore crazy, but nooo, I was mistaken.  The events that I am about to relate are the kind of antics that you would expect Jess Perri to be involved in. 

But first, so that I can keep up my: reporting-on-the-cultural-side of-china bargain, A little about what I did during the day:  Went to the Temple of Heaven, one of the three most famous sights in Beijing which was built t0 be perfectly semetrical down to the placement of the plants in the huge garden surrounding it.  I actually found the garden to be far cooler than the temple itself because it was packed with people singing, playing ma jong, twirling long ribbons and dancing with fans.    The highlight was when a tall gangly british guy decided to try his hand at ribbon twirling and ended up so completely tangled in the ribbon that he fell over.  He then decided that his talents were better suited for the fan dance and drew a large crowd again with his antics there.  The old ladies loved it, (although I couldn't tell if they were laughing at him or with him), and he seemed to be enjoying his first foray into the world of dance as well.  It was a little like seeing a really spindly, tall stork surrounded my tiny birds trying to imitate them but failing miserably. 

Now on to the night:  

 

8:00 PM: 

Leave the apt, reassure john that I will under no circumstances be coming back after midnight. 

8:10 PM:  

Turn down two offers to go to clubs since I definitely will not be staying out past midnight.

8:30 Pm: 

Get to Nanlouguxiang, discover that one of the girls there is Becca's roommate and two of the others I met a few weekends ago - small world.  Start playing a drinking game involving animal movements; beginning of the downward spiral

10:00 PM: 

Wipe out while trying to get a cab, reassure all present that I am in no way drunk.  Go to Rickshaw.  Play pool, drink copious amounts of redbull vodka. 

12:00 AM:

Head to Kokomo, still slightly lucid at this point.  Over the next four hours: get in a fight with an aussie, talk about dostoyevsky for an hour, talk to the same dutch guys from Club Bud with whom I seriously discussed Hans Brinker last week, speak in spanish for one hour, salsa dance, and probably much more, we shall never know.

5:00 Am:

Meet a kid living in Singapore named Matt who is leaving for the great wall in 30 minutes, decide that it would be a great idea to get absolutely no sleep and go immediately hike for 11k on the great wall, wearing flats, a miniskirt and a nice top. 

5:30 AM: 

Have a rare burst of clarity and think better of the clothing situation and change into a T-shirt and head over to Matt's hostel to catch the bus.  My excitement about climbing the great wall is interrupted by a guy yelling CMC very loudly.  Turn around to see a blond guy wearing nothing but black silk boxers standing in an alleyway holding a jump rope (completely hammered as well).  Side note: has anyone even seen / let alone owned a jump rope in the last 15 years?   Turns out naked-silk-boxers-while-jump-roping-kid went to CMC.  After a lengthy introduction during which he told me four times to say hi to Christian Wolfgruber for him he demanded a CMC picture and then ran off back down his alley, disappearing from whence he come. 

6:00 AM - 6:00 PM : 

HIKED THE GREAT WALL!!!!

In retrospect, this was probably one of my greatest drunk adventures ever considering others have ended up:  accompanying jess to the emergency room , and lighting a senior's couch on fire (by mistake).   

I sobered up by the time we arrived and the wall was extremely amazing.   I was expecting it to be much more touristy because of pictures I have seen, but we were really the only group walking it.  At one point I went ahead of our group and couldn't see or hear another person for miles.  That was truly amazing because the area is so remote and expansive, and the wall becomes exponentially cooler if it is devoid of other human presence.   

The walk was long and hard, but we all made it, although today I can barely walk.   After we got back I went out to watch the closing ceremonies with some girls I met the night before: Emma and Alessandra, then I met up with Matt again and grabbed some drinks in NanLouGuXiang and HouHai with him.   All in all it was an eventful 24 hours. 

Tonight I am taking it easy and going to watch Pulp Fiction at Lush with Veronica and maybe have a beer or two if my liver hasn't completely pulled a coup' d etat by then. 

Later Skater

Back to HouHai...

Day 9,

Chinese quote of the day:  "the authorities however, have refused to explain what happened to applicants who disappeared after they submitted their paperwork." 

Article: Two Elderly Women Sentanced to "Re-Education" in China

Shobhit has some sort of nasty viral throat infection, so i'm hoping its not contagious... although he is keeping himself quarantined in his room pretty well so that is a bonus.  

Last night we went to our favorite bar in HouHai again.  I think we are their only customers ever, so they love us and let us plug in an ipod and play music in the bar.  There was a strange contraption leaning up against the wall that looked like a skateboard but instead of being one piece on top that you stand on, it only had diamond shaped pieces for each foot connected by a really narrow piece of wood in the middle that let the two different pieces twist back and forth independent of each other.  Also, instead of like a skateboard where the wheels keep the board upright, the wheels on this could flop all the way over, so that you had to balance each foot individually to keep it upright.  

Basically, it looked impossible... but once we started playing with it we couldn't stop.   Especially me since I hate it when I can't do something.   The guys who worked at the bar got theirs and we all went outside into the street and spent 20 minutes tripping and wiping out while the chinese dudes were wizzing back and forth past us on theirs.  Apparently is an inherent chinese skill, because they all seemed to be able to do it and got much amusement out of watching our attempts.   After a few to many near-catastrophic wipeouts into angry tourists, we admitted defeat and went back into the bar for more beers. 

Thats another thing... I've only been here a month but at this point feel I have the privilege to look down on all of the tourists who are here for the olympics.   Its pretty sweet; I get to walk around like I know where I'm going (which I don't most of the time) and mutter things under my breath when fat balding men wearing fanny packs and chacos with socks get in my way.  AND I had my first real conversation with a cab driver last night! Usually I can't understand a word anyone is saying because of the beijing dialect - mumbling and putting an rrrr on the end of every word, so that men is mer, and sanlitun is sanlituar, but last night we actually had a convo about where I was going.   That was a big step because I think it meant he didn't take me around in circles for too much more than he would have with a chinese person. 

Roach Sighting!!

(The exclamation points are not in a good way)

Day 8,

8 PM

Today I hate china.   I saw what I thought was a cute little beetle scurrying across our floor  - but it was a ROACH.  gross.   Ever since my dad told a story when I was a kid about two crawling up his pants at an airport I have been mortally afraid of them.  

On the bright side though:  Veronica is in china!!  Hopefully I can find her though because Becca already cant find her, and it has not even been  24 hours yet since she landed in Beijing.  She brought a valuable cargo of items that I forgot in the US and can't find here, mainly: rainbow sandals.   I have been wearing the white canvas shoes that I bought for three pesos in Salt for the past month, and now they are not white anymore, but a disgusting shade of grey streaked with patches of darker filth.  I realized a few nights ago when I sat down for a moment in Guijie that I must look like a bum. 

We are planning on going to Rickshaw tonight to watch the US bball finals against Oz.   Hopefully there will be a big aussie crowd.. they are always down to make some noise and have a few beers. 

Midnight

We got confused about the time and missed the game, but I heard it wasn't that great, we won by a lot.   Instead I watched transporter 2.  Which was awesome, and they left it completely open for a third one.  I recommend it to anyone, as long as you like crazy action movies that have negligible plot and a lot of unrealistic moves.