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.

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. 

Handball is Cool

Day 3,

Last night I finally got to go see the olympic venues! They are at the complete opposite side of the city from our apt so we had to ride the subway for 45 minutes to get near the area. We had no idea where the gymnasium was, but this turned out to not be a problem, there was a herd mentality coming off the subway so we just followed the crowd. It was dusk so light was reflecting off of the Birds Nest, and the lights in the water cube had just come on. They were both much more beautiful than I had expected them to be (if a building can be beautiful).

Our tickets were only 11 dollars, so I was expecting handball to be a bust, but in fact it is an awesome sport! The match was Norway v. France (still prelims) but the crowd was pretty much all Norwegian, all pretty rabid fans, with face pain, cowbells, and viking hats. There was also a tremendous amount of flag waving. I felt a little bad for the four french fans gallantly cheering for their team. I got to try out my new fancy camera, and took some great action shots, but I still haven't mastered it so although they are clear they color is a bit off and they are a little grainy.. I'll have to play around on photoshop with them.

After we went to HouHai:

A really pretty lake rimmed with bars. Not the best place to go out though because all of the bars are the same: a chinese person singing inside and then seats outdoor, its more of a dinner / lounge spot. we only go because there is a little tiny bar we like where they give us free drinks, and there is a really cute chinese kid I play with.

Then we went to Club Bud (budwiser) which they apparently have at every olympics and is free and all you can drink. The crowd was mostly foreign, and I had a great convo with three dutch guys all wearing soulja boy shades about Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates. Love the conversations I get myself into. Left at 3 to go home but ran into the rest of my apt on the way out, and walked to Sanlitun to get breakfast instead at Rickshaw, which is open 24 hours and has awesome american food. I proceeded to consume a disgusting amount of mozzarella sticks, eggs, pancakes, bacon. It reminded me of the epic breakfast Arun and I had in Vegas at 7 in the morning. I still feel sick today - but that could be a hangover, right now I am very thankful for Tyler Bradley-Hewit's prescription ibuprofen, that I somehow ended up with after graduation, thanks teebs.