A day out to Bunnings

I was going to go out for a cycle but ended up vegging instead. We did go out to Bunnings though to buy some kit for brewing, also got chatting to an older Scotsman that worked there. The staff are all uber friendly in this place, it must be part of their daily quota to greet everyone they see.

For tea I attempted to make the super nom ji dan guan bing. Easy to make and tasted nom but I need to perfect and adjust the recipe to get it bang on, not bad though (would be great to taste the real deal again, especially for 3RMB!).

Time fly’s in China

I woke up at 4AM this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep for another hour, that was horrible. When I did get up, at the back of 9AM, everyone seemed to be gone… Eventually Goa A Yi turned up and Benjamin not long after, by himself, said he was at the zoo. We had lunch which included bing (yas!) and he set off again but this time to watch a film, I took this opportunity to wash clothes and pack.

Wow packing feels weird. Has it been 6 months all ready?! I’m not even going home! This has been my home whilst in China and I’m excited for new adventures but a wee bit sad to see it go.

When Benjamin came back from the cinema we built the other Lego kit he’d got from his Dad, a hovercraft. His Dad and Mum arrived home just before tea and handed over a brand new iPhone 5 to Benjamin. A 7 year old has a better phone than me, jebus. To be fair he is off to Taiwan tomorrow and this means they can always be in touch, I got his number as well so we can WeChat. 🙂 Talk over food was fairly standard, they are quite preoccupied with travel plans for tomorrow (they are off to Japan on a business trip), I will be joining them to the airport. My flight isn’t technically until Monday (2AM) so I’ll have a long wait at the airport, I would stay at the house but no-one will be there so I can’t.

After food it wasn’t long until Benjamin needed a shower and I finalised my packing. He’s been OK today, definitely acting sad but overall fine, kids get over stuff quite quickly really. Randy and Suzy were out and obviously wanted me to join them for some last drinks but with Benjamin leaving so early in the morning and me feeling knackered I couldn’t go out. Glad I got to see them yesterday though, that was good. 🙂

So an FYI my blog will have some delayed updates whilst I’m travelling but I’ll make sure and update it when I arrive in Oz. Tomorrow will be my ‘Goodbye China’ post.

Quaffing beer like Professionals

The family were up and ready before me so as I was tucking into my golden syrup drizzled porridge they up and left without saying where or even a goodbye. Haha, to be fair this is quite normal and I’m used too it. So after I was fed and cleaned up I headed out, fudge knows when they would be back and I’m not sitting about to find out.

Hopped on the subway to the funky tee (not tea) shop Plastered at the touristy hutong Nanlouguxiang and bought two t-shirts. I was hoping there would be a sale on but for what I bought there was not. Not long after I was scoffing into one of my favourite Jian Bing’s, oh so nom. Had a wee walk to the Andingmen subway station and got off near Heaven Supermarket to purchase some beer. The plan today was meeting up with Randy and going to Henry’s house and drink said beer.

After buying a reasonable selection of beers (the shops offering is looking somewhat dire now) I toyed with the idea of wandering around Chaoyang Park but I had too much time on my hands so figured I’d go home, show face and then head back out again. When I got home no-one was there so I just sorted my stuff and bailed back out again. Met Randy at Liangmaqiao station, got on a bus and arrived at Henry’s hoose.

Henry had some home-brewed pale ale waiting for us so it was the first beer of the day and really quite good. Many a beer was sampled before we realised none of us had eaten, a liquid diet would not suffice. They both vouched for a restaurant nearby so we scooted off there and ordered a four course meal of spicy egg, tattie fritters, spicy long beans and scrummy kung po chicken. Some rice and a beer each this set us back 100RMB/10GBP in total, jebus these kind of prices I will miss. Back at Henry’s we continued drinking and chatting late on into the night before getting a taxi home (deploying Randy’s technique of walking in front of a taxi).

All that was missing last night was a selection of good cheeses. Mmmmm… 😉

Street barber’s and stupid board games

I left the house a good bit earlier than I normally would, the back of 8AM, as I was keen to arrive at the pub earlier (for my Skype chat with Nat, honest that’s the true…) and get a jidan guan bing for breakfast. 🙂 This breakfast street food favourite of mine usually stops selling around 10AM and today I got mine with meat in it (possibly pork or chicken) which made it extra tasty! This may also increase the likelihood of having a case of the shits tomorrow, time will tell. I was also offered the services of a street barber (yup on the street, somewhat common here) to shave my beard. Haha! I told him I liked my beard, he said something, I laughed then continued walking. (I realise I need to take more pictures but it’s hard to remember sometimes when everything seems fairly ‘normal’)

Got to the pub early enough that it wasn’t even open, they kindly opened up for me though and I had a pint in my hand before noon, probably a bad thing. Was soon on Skype having a good ol’ blether to my mate Nat (she and a mate were making tee’s and stuff for the festival) this will most likely be the last chat with her until we meet again in the flesh in a little over a week. The excitement is building. 🙂 Enda wasn’t working today so no chat from him, I ate a salad (Yup! A salad. Had blue cheese in it though), surfed the net then bailed.

Much like in the morning I left earlier than usual so decided to skip a few stations and walk instead. Navigating a few hutong’s and popping out next to Yong He Gong Lama Temple I nipped into a wee import shop in Wudaoying hutong and bought a bottle of Punk IPA (it’s cheap here at 28RMB/2.80GBP) then hit the streets like a slightly upper class hobo (definitely something I’ll miss doing). Got on the subway at Guloudajie and headed home.

Opened the door to a bunch of people, some other A Yi’s and Benjamin’s mates, I left them too it and chilled in my room. Randy turned up to tutor Benjamin and over tea I found out the wee one had scored 90.5% in his Chinese test. Top job! I honestly thought it would be a chunk worse than that… After tea we played a game of ‘Weiqi‘ which was my first (get the excuses in) and he subsequently kicked my ass. Always a wee bit demoralising getting beaten by a 7 year old. He had his maths test today and tomorrow is a day off (news to me!) so if the weather is good we will be playing outside. Fooshiz.

Ill again. You cannot be serious?!?!

Well last nights “sleep” was pretty rubbish, my throat doing it’s best to keep me awake. I woke up this morning feeling a tad shite. Seems to be a different breed of ‘cold’ than the other two and came on quick. So it’s been nearly 6 months I’ve been here and this is the 3rd time I’ve felt ill, totally crap as back home I could go a year with maybe one spell of illness. For this China I dislike you.

Because I felt crap I stayed in today, try and rest up this time (drink plenty of fluids, etc) rather than power through it like the other times. It was by no means an uneventful day though as Kathy (Benjamin’s mate) came over and I was soon mucking about with them. The main game we played was ‘Detective vs Thief’ where the thief hides an item in the room, leaves a written clue and the detectives hunt for it. Quite fun actually, was good to spend almost a full day with the little ninja. A Christmas card from my Dad and co arrived, that was nice and Benjamin got the stamps. 🙂

Lunch was Papa John’s pizza’s and for tea we went to a restaurant in the mall. Stuffed as usual, favourites were the stuffed bing and sweet sticky rice ball things, nom. Afterwards Benjamin bought (note: his mum bought) some playdoh. Most of the kits there, and the advert that was running, all amount to making food! Pizza, ice cream, cakes, fruit, spaghetti, etc. Jebus H, it’s bad enough telling kids not to eat it without this.

Leaving the family I popped past Costa and paid the extortionate price of 31RMB/3.10GBP for a mocha. The plan was to leech their wifi and have a Skype chat with my mum but it turns out no one was awake, it was after 12 noon there! Michty me. Anyway I got home and (when they got up) chatted to my mum and younger brother, was good to catch up with them. I haven’t spoke to my mum since I’ve been here, oops sorry mum.

The rest of the night I chilled and watched ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, such a good film. 🙂

I love breakfast street food

So horribly tempting to run over this, and that’s without alcohol in me

Another early jaunt (this will more than likely become a regular thing, mixing up my route each time) to the pub this fine morning. Was fairly chuffed too as I got to scoff on a ‘jidan guan bing’, I’ve missed these bad boys since my Mandarin class times have changed (I’ve also added a recipe here). I followed more frozen rivers and sauntered past the ‘Beijing Normal University‘. Ha, the name made me chuckle a bit, sounds fecking boring.

Giganto building at “Normal” university

Had my usual burger and a pint, caught up with BBC News and the Facebook’s. Got to taste a fresh batch of ‘Honey Ma’ but it’s not my favourite beer there and I said as much. That’s probably my beer tasting career with them over now, ha. Chatting a bit about Christmas and preparations for it, now of course I’ll miss the family BUT The Spread! Oh me the spread. Prawn cocktail starter (usually a meal in itself), turkey with all the trimmings, roast tattie’s in duck fat, skirllie that comes out hotter than the sun, Yorkshire pud’s and gravy to drown it all in. Oh me… 😉

Subway home and talking of food a big spread was laid out for tea, jebus I was stuffed after that. Good chat with the family and Randy. Afterwards Benjamin finally got his homework done (me either helping or drawing things) and we started playing FRISBEE BATTLE! Probably not the best indoor game but it was really fun, me scoring a good few hits off his noggin’. Haha. 🙂 (It’s a soft frisbee so it’s OK really)

Oh and a month until I’ll be off for Oz you say? 😀

Jidan Guan Bing Recipe

Tasty breakfast wrap

I’ve taken this recipe from some sources online and adjusted it to the version I’ve eaten and how I think I would cook it. This recipe makes 6 pancakes.

Ingredients:

For the pancakes/bing:

180g plain flour
90ml water (give or take)
1/4 tsp salt
Vegetable oil (for frying)
6 medium size eggs (have a beaten egg ready for each pancake)

For the filling:

A jar of hoi sin sauce or sweet bean sauce
A jar of chilli sauce (if you want it spicy)
A jar of pickled veg (now I’m not sure what they use as it’s clearly home made but any pickled veg you want would be great here, think onions, gherkins, peppers, beetroot, etc)
About 8 – 10 lettuce leaves (Romaine or other green crispy lettuce)

Method:

1.    Mix the salt and flour together in a bowl. Add a few drizzles of oil and the water in stages whilst mixing the flour to form a soft dough. Leave dough to rest for about 20 – 30 minutes and then knead until smooth.
2.    Divide dough into 6 equal parts.
3.    Dust dough with flour and spread it out to form 1 cm thick disc. Then flatten it, dust with more flour and roll it out into a 15 – 16cm round pancake.
4.    Heat a frying pan until quite hot, brush with the oil and put the pancake on. Heat till lightly brown underside and the top of the pancake is beginning to puff up. Turn over the pancake. The pancake should puff up quite high fairly quickly. Using a pair of chopsticks, punch the puffed ball, lift up the top layer with the chopsticks and pour some beaten egg inside the pancake very quickly before the pancake collapses. Let the pancake fry a little bit longer then flip over. Fry the pancake till both sides are brown and quite crisp.
5.    Remove the pancake from the pan and, using a pastry brush, spread some hoi sin sauce (and chilli sauce if you want it spicy) over the pancake. Then add 1 – 2 lettuce leaves and the pickled veg, wrap up and enjoy while hot.

Skiing Adventure Times!

Ugh. 5.30 wake up time. Coffee chugged. Subway dead. Meet Suzy and on the bus we go… for Skiing Adventure Times! 🙂

An hour and a half later we had arrived at ‘Yunfoshan‘ ski centre. We were the first bus to arrive so we hurried to get our ticket, boots (mine were too small but the biggest they had!) and ski’s then headed for the slopes.

The ‘Beginner’ slope

Suzy getting clipped in

There are two to choose from here (a third one had no snow on it), beginner and intermediate I suppose. It’s all man made snow at the moment but it felt all right, maybe a tad too hard. My entire skiing expertise has only been two days in total before today but going down the first slope was like a continuation from where I left off. Yas! (I wasn’t on my arse once, boom). Suzy had done less than me but I passed on what little knowledge I had and she improved massively over the day (minus a few face plants).

Notice the huge resort thing in the background

“Are ye dead mun?” “Yeah mun.”

160RMB/16GBP a shot on the balloon

A view from the bottom

Skier Dan

I didn’t take poles (never used them last time) which scuppered me just a wee bit on the second slope as the tow bar (ski lift thing) was on a slight incline, didn’t stop me though. This slope was big, quieter and had a dip at the end. There was also a bob-sleigh-esk run that used rubber rings to ride down on, it was mainly for kids but looked ace fun (ended up being too expensive a go, bugger). In total we must have spent around 7 hours here, loved it and need to do more in future.

Spicy noodle soup and meat bing

I passed on the offer of soy sauce

After the bus trip back we headed for some food, settling our arse’s down in a local food joint. Scoffed on a ‘man bing’ (think that’s it, bing filled with meat. nom), some spicy noodle soup and a beer. After a good chat I was feeling done, legs aching and energy sapping I headed home. Today was ace and in total (everything that required cash today) I spent about 150RMB/15GBP. WTF. 😀

Freezing my dumplings off here…

Michty me it’s cold today!

After lunch (which was super nom, bing chopped up in a stir-fry, I want to make that) I went out for a walk as it looked like a nice day, although fairly windy. Jebus how looks can be deceiving, I could see my breath! My phone told me it was around -2C and it never went above 0C the entire day.

I wandered round the hood strolling into ‘Renmin University‘ campus. They had quite a selection of large and somewhat impressive buildings here, not too many students milling about either. I cut through the middle of it, heading home in a different direction. I was only out for over an hour, not fully kitted for the cold.

Biggest Windows error I have ever seen

Benjamin’s Chinese teacher was here today which meant he was occupied until 7PM. For tea there was a non-meat dish we have had a few times, unsure of the vegetable used (maybe cucumber), that tastes great, the stick chopped veg sits in a sweet & sour transparent liquid. Very moreish. Later we did Randy’s homework (it’s done Randy!) and played a wee bit of Lego. We haven’t played ‘proper’ Lego in ages, if he is keen to start playing again then so am I! 🙂

Nuclear Warzone Adventure Times (+ a years supply of bacon)

So Ben (Benjamin’s father) arrived home last night, I had a sneaking suspicion he might. I said my hello’s in the morning they they went off for a swim and I went to meet Randy at ‘Nanlouguxiang’ so we could head North on one of the long distance buses.

I had a total cluster fuck in going here as I took the wrong transfer at one of the stations (force of habit) so had to re-route myself. When I finally arrived I was confronted by a moving wall of tourists at the ever popular street, navigating through it I was close to assaulting people, at least verbally. I met Randy on the other side and the pay off was tucking into a jian bing.

We wandered the hutong’s to ‘Andingmen’ where the bus stop was located, these things acting a bit more like a subway but on the road and only costing 0.4RMB/4p a ride. It took a wee while and the surroundings continued to get bleaker the further we went. We hedged our bets and got off at the last subway stop so we could use it to get back.

The Rise of the Machines

This place looked like the set from a post-nuclear-holocaust movie. Open area, dead tree’s, rusty skeleton warehouses, rubble and dust everywhere. Cool. (The Terminator theme tune became stuck in our heads) Venturing forth we came across a half arsed construction site, like the foundations had been set but then just left to rot. Going in the building we attracted the attention of a few neighbours dogs, our exit was a single wall (no roof) with a window and door. Opening the front door onto the street felt weird.

Beyond this was the cement shanty town

This place was a fair dump. I commented on how it reminded me of the middle east (not that I’ve been) as the buildings looked different and there was dust everywhere. Piles of coal were stacked up beside some houses and the local’s took interest in us like we were a tourist attraction. After a few dead end’s and the smog rolling in (gads) we had enough and bailed to the subway. I had my moneys worth on this bloody thing today as we were heading from the NE to SW of the city to check out a ‘Xinjiang‘ restaurant.

At least they know how to have fun in this place

Tourist hotspot this…

This is the biggest province in China and to the very far West, so it has influences from the Middle Eastern cuisine. The main dish we got was like a lamb and tattie hotpot/stew, very nom. With a bunch of other dishes and beers it was around 75RMB/7.50GBP each and it more than filled a hole.

Randy had mentioned needing a haircut and I wanted one too so with one nearby that’s exactly what we did (everything is open late here). I love this chain of hairdresser, not only is it cheap (42.50RMB/4.25GBP) you get your hair washed and head massaged (twice) by good looking Chinese girls in air stewardess get-ups. Judge me all you like I’ll miss getting my haircut here. 😛 We then played pool for an hour (me losing again, twice my own doing) and I got the subway home.

I got in around 11PM and was not prepared for what I was about to see. I went to my room and Goa A Yi called me and led me to the kitchen…

There was bits of pig EVERYWHERE! Piled high in the double sink, all over the floor in bags (inc. it’s head), a sack full of bits and a huge slab of it’s side which I helped her get on the table ready for butchering. Holy shit! I helped put the bags in the freezer then bag and put away what was in the sink. The two freezers were soon filled and I took the sack of left over bits to the bin outside. Yu had told me she had asked Goa A Yi to get some pork (her family being farmers) but I did not expect a whole fecking pig! How the hell did it get here?! Shocked and impressed they will be eating pig for a year. That’s a lot of bacon. (I wanted to take a picture but Goa A Yi looked shattered as she had been butchering for god knows how long, thought it would be a bit disrespectful)

Blood from the sack of bits, hope this comes out!