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. 🙂

Does exactly what it says on the tin

Noodles for lunch (Nothing but noodles these past few days! Thankfully I love noodles.) then off to class. The basic structure of our lessons is definitely 90% chat with 10% learning new words. I think she has picked up on this though as I’ve been given homework, write about Christmas Day back home compared to what I did here. I also learned (The 90% chat includes a lot of cultural lessons) that in the North of China they like to eat salty food but in the South they prefer their food sweet. I explained “Smoked Corn Chicken” (If you’ve not eaten that why not?!) back home and thought it was made up for us Westerners turns out it could be a Taiwanese dish called “Sanbeiji” or “3 Cup Chicken”. Turns out it’s not the same dish but looks good.

Nom’d some baozi on the way home and when I got in, all relaxed, Goa A Yi had realised she’d run out of oil so asked me to nip to the shops and get some. Nothing gets in the way of food! I was the Hero of the hour. Tea wasn’t noodles either it was pork (Surprise!) but I do love this though, the meat clings on to fairly large chunks of fat but they almost melt in the mouth. Nom. Talked to Yu more about Australia and found out everyone will be leaving on the same day, so the parents are off to Japan, Benjamin is off to Taiwan and Goa A Yi will be heading back to her home town. Everyone is apparently leaving in the morning (I was hoping to go with them to the airport but I have a late flight) but Yu said she would try and get her driver to take me there. Yas! One less thing to worry about.

When Benjamin got home we played a tad of Lego and a bet was made (as usual!) but if I lost it would mean I couldn’t leave and had to stay here forever. Awww! Cute little sod. He’s been mentioning this more as it gets closer to OZ-DAY, it’s nice to know he will miss me. 🙂

Oh and all of a sudden today I’ve been hit by, possibly, another cold. Yup! WTF. I was sneezing a lot today, then a running nose in the evening and at night my throat went. This better just be a passing thing… 😦

No leftovers? What is this madness?!

So today I did Sweet F A, pity too as the weather was much better than yesterday. Typical. I told myself the day before that I would do nothing today so I stuck to my word.

Surfed the net (becoming envious of Christmas updates on the Facebook, food related ones especially), played some computer games, listened to music, read stuff, listened to Christopher Hitchens audio book, ate lunch, rinse and repeat until tea time. I also filled in my Completion Bonus form for when I end my Au Pair program, this should give me a small but welcome amount of pennies for Oz (not relying on it though).

Benjamin was at after school class today, unusual as he also had class with Randy which he was half an hour late for. This also meant we didn’t do anything until after tea, and even then we basically did nothing as we watched TV until he went to bed. He clearly knew his mum was working late. One of the programmes we watched was a Science style kids game show where the young contestants must solve puzzles in the Game Box (a few wall divider rooms). The host was a crazy scientist dude with a wig, what was kinda surprising was that each player gets a class (if you will) in the game, like Warrior and Magician, one of them was Businessman (haha oh China) but he also looked like a gangster with dog tags and a fat cigar hanging out his mouth. Ha! Also there was a character meme from the internet used a few times and it ended with the kids opening up a box with lighter fluid and setting some string on fire. This isn’t the first time I’ve noticed these type of H&S failures or no watershed on the TV, it does make it more interesting though I must admit.

Tomorrow I have Mandarin class so that will get my arse outside and then it’s the weekend too, yas. 🙂

Sheng dan kuai le! Merry Christmas!

“IIIIIIIIIIIttt’ssss Chrrrrrriiiiiiiisstmmaaaaaaaaass!”

I felt like shouting that out this morning to remind everyone as the morning activity was just like any other. Felt odd I won’t lie. I wished everyone a Merry Christmas and gave Benjamin a lollipop Suzy had given us last night, that was my “present” giving for this year. Haha.

So sticking to my plan (albeit a little later than expected) I set off to ‘Happy Valley‘, Beijing’s main theme park. I knew which subway station to get off at and also which bus number, but finding the bus stop took a little longer. Found it, on it, arrived… it. Paid my 160RMB/16GBP and waltzed on in at around 10:30am. The ticket staff tried pointing out which rides weren’t in operation today, turns out it was basically all of them.

Yay, Happy Valley!

The site looks nice and big with a huge ‘Atlantis’ tower in the middle (Disney what?) and different areas dotted around it, like Mayan, racing, ant world, etc. Have a walk around first, scout the place then get on them rides, was the plan. The main rollercoaster’s were easy to spot and looked quite insane actually but the worrying part was they weren’t doing… anything. I knew that certain rides opened at certain times with anything after 11am being the opening time (that’s what I gathered from the Chinese sign at the entrance).

Holy Crystal Castle

Extreme Rusher in the background, closed

The map says ‘Funny Funcy Diving’ haha!

Think this is some water show thing

Jungle Racing, closed

That’s Crystal Wing, went on that

This was a restaurant

Golden Wings in Snowfield, closed.

Right let’s just cut this short. I spent about 4 hours here and was on at least 4 different rides purely because nothing was bloody open. Jebus. Now don’t say “It’s fecking Christmas Dan!!” as that means jack shite here, this is just another day. The water rides fair enough as they are frozen BUT why everything else?! The park was quite dead, granted, but still wasn’t a good excuse in my eyes. Thankfully I did ride one of their main coasters though, Crystal Wings, it was really cool. You sit in the seat and then it tilts you forward so you are in the Superman position, bloody intimidating at first (seeing the ground like that with someone that doesn’t like heights too much) but bloody good fun too! Despite the somewhat negative write up of the park I still had fun. 🙂

TROJAN HOERS, closed

Olympic Culture Square

Apollo Wheel, went on twice, good fun

The start of Crystal Wing

As ever though the smog was about and really got to me at the end of the day, feeling a bit ‘guh!’ I left for home. I had a bit of a nap when I got in, recharge the batteries a wee bit. Yu came home and we had some noodles for tea whilst chatting about how different it is here during Christmas. Essentially each year builds up to this day plus New Year, at least that’s how I feel about it, not that I’m a Christmassy person at all I just think that’s how it is in our society. Benjamin came home and we started building some of his new Lego he got for his Birthday, then bed.

Well I hope everyone has had a great day, given and received many a present, eaten lots of food, drunk lots of drink and pulled many a cracker. Family and friends, I’m thinking of you all (soppy git!). 🙂

I would like some meat with my meat please

This morning I helped Goa A Yi take down some curtains for cleaning, the balancing act to do this wasn’t exactly safe but made it more interesting. Ben also left for England today and before he did he gave me some money as a gift, what a nice dude.

It’s Christmas Eve?!?!?! I have to keep reminding myself that.

Class today was chilled, didn’t learn too much other than drawing comparisons between Christmas/New Year and Spring Festival/Chinese New Year celebrations. It’s a pity I won’t be here for it as that was one of the things I wanted to take part in.

Since I was meeting up with Randy and Suzy later I didn’t see the point in going home. I wandered around for nearly and hour but the smog was doing it’s best to make this as unpleasant as possible. I decided to sit my arse down in Heaven Supermarket with a beer (or two). Thanks to free wifi I was able to pass the time without relying purely on beer for entertainment. A wee while later I met Randy and Suzy at the restaurant.

Home Plate is a new setup, well this particular establishment is, and I thought it was a chain of sorts from America land, it isn’t. It is owned and ran by American’s though and this is good, really good as cooking meat on the BBQ is it’s game, and oh boy do they know how to play. A small, but correctly balanced, buffet was setup which had mixed red cabbage salad, tattie salad, corn bread, creamed corn, chilli beans, butter fried buns, pulled beef brisket and pulled pork. Oh sweet Jebus! I had three plates of this along with three pints and I was horribly stuffed, but OH so happy. 🙂 There was a scrummy looking date and sponge pudding but I couldn’t risk eating it I was THAT full of meat. Good company, good chat and we all left feeling stuffed good.

Get in ma BELLY

Christmas tomorrow eh? 😉

Christmas has arrived

This morning I was conscripted to setup not one but two Christmas tree’s, it’s finally arriving to the household! It was a bit of a pain in the arse though, takes longer to set these fake things up than it does to decorate them. I use ‘decorate’ loosely, my skills in this area are poor at best and I was set a greater challenge as what little decorations there was, were fairly shite. Haha. Bahumbug eh? 😉

Scoffed some noodle lunch and headed off to class. Did a bit more work this time and I also revised the textbook’s word index, remembering most of them which is cool. Kinda crazy how the pin yin of the character can be exactly the same as a completely different character, this happens more so than not. It seems the only way you can tell is in the context of how it’s written or spoken. English really is a piece of piss in comparison, learn the alphabet and your sorted.

On the way home I nom’d some baozi and bought more beer to share with Ben over dinner (he wanted to save it until tomorrow and paid me for it, nice guy). Benjamin was late home as usual, I forgot to mention yesterday that he lost one of his front teeth, looks like a ruffian now. Tomorrow is his Birthday party at Pizza Hut so I’ll be OD’ing on pizza at lunch time. Hopefully it’s not all pepperoni…

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? 😀

The zombies are coming…

Ice ice baby

I left early this morning for another 3 hour walk to the pub. There was a dog prancing about in glass like grass, all covered in ice, as I followed the frozen river. I also had to double take a company car I noticed parked beside the street I was walking down…

And you thought it was just a game

When I got to the pub I was going to try out one of their new salads but fearing small portions I opted for the burger and chips, I was fecking hungry. Wheat IPA was on for 25RMB/2.50GBP, fairly tasty. Did my usual catch up with the world and occasional glance at the NFL. Enda was a busy dude but he did say that his 12 Pubs of Christmas was more like 4 and was very messy, fun but messy. Part of me wished I could have joined in, the other part glad I didn’t.

Left the pub and took the subway to Beitucheng then got off to check the park that follows the river (and to walk the rest of the way home). It accounted for just under half the journey home, was nice and peaceful though. In total I must have walked around 15 miles today. 🙂

HOERS

Another big meal was on display (I’m telling you all guns are firing when the father is home) and I asked Randy if he was off for Christmas day, since it’s not a recognised holiday here he most likely wouldn’t. Bit of a bummer that as I’m planning on going to Happy Valley (either way I’m going!). After tea I helped Benjamin do his homework then we ran around shooting each other with guns.

Beijing Beggars and Bad Gifts

Another rush for class after lunch, it was dumplings though so I was willing to wait. 🙂

Subway Beggars (or maybe that should be Scroungers). Almost every time you ride the subway you will encounter someone walking down the carriages asking for cash. It’s clear when they are missing a leg, some arms or their face is half melted that some charity might be required. On the other hand some are obviously milking the possibility of free Yuan. The use of music is often deployed to grab your attention (a small boom-box strapped to the beggar, sometimes with a microphone so they can sing) but so are children, clearly being used to pluck at the commuters heart strings, guilt tripping them on the way to work. Nice.

We were kicked out of our classroom again today so we chilled in the foyer. We’re focusing on revision now but to be honest we didn’t do much today, just chatted. I’m learning more about Chinese culture though, for example never give a clock as a gift to a Chinese person, you are basically saying “I hope you die.”. Would take the wind out of Christmas that would.

Since Benjamin was at his after school class it was only me, Ben and Goa A Yi at tea. Goa A Yi had made hotpot, yas! Love this. Me and Ben cracked open our beers and had a good chat. In South Korea celebrating Christmas isn’t as big a deal as it used to be but they do get a day off for it (not one to be beat Buddha also gets a day off for his birth too). I got to know more about his side of the family too and that he is staying here until Christmas, that’ll be the longest stay yet. He said we should go buy some more beers whilst he is here, not sure if that will happen but I’m more than game. 🙂

When Benjamin did get back we played Lego for a bit then he had to hit the sack.

Attack of the drones

“Do they know it’s Christmas time at all?”

I had this stuck in my head this morning even though I hadn’t heard it any where. Perhaps it’s my subconscious trying to tell me something?

Again I had to wolf down lunch before class today, think I’ll just skip it from now on. Pork was on the menu, it was trotters I think, ate bits I’d never knowingly eaten before. Really though it’s the fiddly bones that puts me off, it should be labour-some making the food not eating it.

I arrived at class just on time, the classroom was being used by another student so we were left to study in the foyer. It’s like a hotel/apartment building so there was a disused bar that had tables and seating. It was distracting here though as people chatted, construction hummed and Christmas tunes infected the air. This is the only place I’ve been to so far that feels Christmasy. Anyway during class we covered the weather and I think we are only one section away from completing the book and making up what we study.

Benjamin’s Chinese teacher was here today, if this is the regime now I effectively have next to no time with him any more. Not sure what to think of that, oh well. We did get a little time to do Randy’s homework and play dots+squares along with noughts+crosses.

I see that the future is catching up with us as Amazon announces it’s in the process of drone deliveries. That’s mental. It doesn’t sound real. I had to check it wasn’t April 1st. So many questions around how this would really work but… it is pretty bloody cool. 🙂