day

Doing the dishes, a new blood sport

Today was Labour Day, a public holiday for Australians (this one only for Victoria and Tasmania) and was supposed to be wakeboarding day for us. However me and Nat both woke up feeling a bit crap, two days of late night drinking seems to have finally caught up with us and her leg is still giving her jip.

I was aiming to go for a cycle until I decided to do the dishes and split my head open. Haha, who knew it could be such a dangerous task? Basically I slid the top of my head across the corner of a cupboard which in turn cut me open, it didn’t bleed for too long though but I decided to chill for a bit afterwards.

So another bloody (hoho) lazy day. Moomba parade was on in Melbourne, luckily for us it was also televised. I did go out for an hours walk in the evening along Moonee Creek as I had to get out, then caught up with Top Gear’s Christmas special and the latest episode of The Walking Dead. Should be Brew Day tomorrow. 🙂

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!

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).

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. 🙂

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!). 🙂

The Song And Dance Troupe Of General Political Department, PLA

Today I left the house a little before 9AM for a long walk, to stretch my legs, see the sights and maybe burn a handful of calories. My destination? The pub of course. To be fair Google told me the walk was 16km/10miles and I did it in around 3 hours. So what did I see… not much to be honest. There was a political dance troupe building (see photo) that confused me a little and I got whistled at (by a traffic warden). It was a nice walk though and only fuelled on a cup of coffee so when I arrived at Great Leap food and a beer was much needed.

Next show is 'Communist Cats: The Musical'

Next show is ‘Communist Cats: The Musical’

They had some new additions to the menu, I had a quick scan and decided to try the chicken burger. It was good (a chunky bit of chicken, not a processed breaded burger) but a wee bit messy to eat, nicely washed down by their ‘Little General IPA’. I was chatting to Enda (he seemed like a busy loon today) and he said they might be at the homebrew festival this weekend, a poster was up on the main door. I also had another sample of the strong lager they (accidentally) made, it was being released today as it’s Lager Day? (In Scotland I think that’s everyday…)

The saas is fecking awesome too

The saas is fecking awesome too

I arrived home not long before Benjamin was to have his class with Randy. We hadn’t done his homework as ‘free time’ is an unknown phase at the moment. After tea Benjamin got a wee telling off so I only seen him for a few minutes. No Lego tonight and I attempted to learn about how language came to be but the WiFi died. It just won’t give me a break that thing.

Chuck another corn on the barbie

Well that was a piece of piss.

Got up today at 0620 and left the house at 0700 expecting the station to be heaving, or at least the train. Platform was quiet and I got a seat as soon as I walked onto the train, that is not normal. So it was easy, and I arrived well on time.

Run that by me again?

Run that by me again?

We left for Teacher Day Adventure Times on a minibus (two other mature students – Claire from France and Larry from Southern USA – were with us) to a woodland park about 1.5hrs from the city of Beijing.

I didn’t take in the park that much to be honest as I was constantly engaged in conversation with people, I can say it was fairly big, quiet, had a lake, some corn fields and a bird watching building. The building was small and housed many stuffed birds (fairly good taxidermy), a large panoramic window with binoculars to view birds on the lake and a video presentation about birds (in Chinese).

After this we headed to the BBQ zone (we were being scooted around on large golf carts) where, as it was all being setup, we collected corn from the fields which was cool. I was thinking of the film ‘Signs’ whilst doing this. The BBQ was kicking off and there was a huge selection of food to cook and a crate of beer to be drunk. 🙂 Larry manned one of the BBQ’s where lamb, chicken (+ hearts), squid, bread, peppers, freshly picked corn and egg-plant (which is also what the Chinese say when getting their photo taken, instead of cheese) were all sizzling away.

After the BBQ it was a quick drive to the orchard where we picked 5 peaches each, but I walked away with 10 as some of the girls didn’t want theirs. Scoop. The peaches here are super nom when ripe and not full of maggots. We headed back and got dropped off at the nearest subway, so it wasn’t long before I was home.

Randy was busy tutoring Benjamin so I left them too it. Over tea Yu asked me to try a more constructive approach with Benjamin’s teaching, like carrying out fun experiments. I said this was brilliant and that it had already been factored in my rough teaching plan, so now I just need to focus on that and get some organised for this week.

I helped Benjamin with his maths homework and chilled.

COME ON YOU…. who am I supporting?

So via WeChat (seems to be one of the main communication apps here in China, that and QQ) Randy mentioned there was a football match on Saturday and if I was interested in going. Hellz yeah! I want to see all different kinds of sports here in Beijing and football is most definitely one of them. He gave me his friends details and she is going to get me a ticket, along with the 10 other people going, so it’s a big group. Beijing Guoan VS Guangzhou R&F, at the Workers Stadium, this Saturday, 4pm and I’m super excited. 😀

After lunch I went out for a wee walk killing a couple of hours. I wandered a few blocks around the neighbourhood I live in to see if there was anything of interest, but I didn’t find anything worth noting.

When Benjamin got back from school he told me that his Dad had left this morning for South Korea, no-one told me! Doesn’t surprise me though. 🙂

After eating a mountain of dumplings Goa A Yi tried to get Benjamin to do his homework, something happened and he got fairly upset. This lead to the rest of the day being a write off in terms of playing or homework. Yu has also caught a bit of Goa A Yi’s cold which isn’t great.

Tomorrow, instead of class, we are going out with the teachers for a BBQ and fruit picking. It’s ‘Teachers Day’ (or something similar) across China so people give presents and things to teachers in show of appreciation. Unfortunately this also means I need to get an early subway, during rush hour.

Wish me luck…

“Your exit’s are hair, hair and hair.”

For breakfast Yu took me to a traditional cafe where you munch on tofu soup (sort of), bao zi (steamed bread dumpling) and a long deep-fried donut. It was good and very filling for a breakfast. Later we went to the police station to get me registered, this needs to be done for long stays.

Mandarin class involved a cake and other snacks as it was Freya’s birthday (we attempted to sing happy birthday in Chinese…), it was also Chinese Valentine’s day. We were told this follows an old tale of a fairy falling in love with a man, which her mother disapproves of, so today is the only day each year they can meet. I didn’t receive any cards. (Read the link, the story is a tad… different)

Tea today included Kimchi from Korea. I had heard of this before but never eaten, to my knowledge. It is made from fermented vegetables (in this case sesame plant leaves) in a spicy pickle marinade, different and quite nom.

Randy was tutoring Benjamin today so after tea we went to get our haircut (a manly thing to do right?). I needed mine done and he had a wedding to attend tomorrow so he took us to a place he had been before. This is the best haircut I have ever had. The staff are dressed up like flight attendants and when you walk in they wash your hair, then cut it (the guy took a while with me, I think he was a perfectionist), wash & massage your head then a final blow dry. All this cost me 50RMB (5pounds). 😀