Grass that throws poo at you

Woke up this morning feeling fine which is always a boost after having drunk a few the night before. There was a bloody racket going on outside my room though as some of Benjamin’s mates had arrived to play. Took the pressure off me at least. A nice surprise arrived in the mail a card from my mate Rowan and his girlfriend Shona, aptly entitled “Beer” with some Aussie money inside for purchase of said refreshment. Cheers guys! 😀

My breakfast (note: brunch) was Papa John’s Pizza. I surfed the net and read a bit until around 3PM when Benjamin and Co. went out too play. I said I would join them a few minutes later, Benjamin said they would be near the baboon. Haha! (Bamboo by the way) When I did leave I couldn’t find them anywhere in the compound, no baboon’s that I could see, so I proceeded to kick about the football I had brought for over an hour.

With the air going bad I returned home to find Benjamin and his mate playing away, fudge knows where they had went. His friend stayed for tea and overnight so that meant I didn’t need to entertain the wee man at all, except when he needed my password to download an iPad game. Yu came home later on in the evening (6 day work weeks, arsed) and told me Ben should be arriving tomorrow, cool.

Overall it has been a very chilled Saturday, if the weather is good tomorrow I’ll try and make up for it.

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. 🙂

An alcoholic, an angry vegetarian and a dinosaur

Happy Birthday Randy, you have survived another year on this planet. Randy wasn’t Officially celebrating this achievement until next weekend, nevertheless today was going to be a long one.

I headed to No.12 for lunch and a few pints, inadvertently having their new ‘Dubbel Happiness’ (8.2%) before 12PM, that’s OK though, right? I was waiting to hear back from both Beth and Randy so we could meet up and do stuff. Eager to get some food in ma belly I ordered the deliciously massive (and a tad greasy) double cheeseburger and onion rings (50RMB/5GBP). Oh me this was good! Oh nom! After polishing that beast off and nursing my ‘Pale Ale #6’ Randy eventually turned up (we didn’t meet up with Beth).

Is this not but a thing of beauty?

The rough plan was to hunt for bourbon (for next weekend), head to the ‘798 Art District’ and check out free beers at some bar. We left No.12 and popped into ‘April Gourmet’ (import shop) and scanned the booze on offer. At this point a somewhat inebriated dude (John, we found out later) recommended a cheap Russian vodka because “I’m an alcoholic” he said, fair enough. Seeing nothing Randy wanted we left to pickup a beer for the road.

Really cool warehouse market

Who should we meet at ‘Heaven Supermarket’, placing down his bags of booze, but our alcoholic friend John browsing the beer selection. Wow this boy committed. We got our beers (mine a yuk peach lambic) and headed to the bus stop (which was a fail) and then the subway for a few stops North. No one batted an eyelid whilst we entered with our beers. We checked another International shop but it’s selection was worse than the last. Not far from the station though Randy showed me an awesome warehouse market selling veg, fruit, fish, meat and food products. What caught my eye was the huge tin of ‘Lyle’s Golden Syrup’ for only 25RMB/2.5GBP. My precious! I’ll be back for you yet… As we were leaving some guy was hurling strong verbal abuse at a vendor, didn’t seem clear how you could get so heated over veg.

“Shoot her! Shoot heeeer!”

We left, jumped in a taxi and arrived at ‘798 Art District’. So a rough description of this place would be old factories now used for art exhibitions, cafes, restaurants and fancy shops. You got the arty vibe from the buildings and people milling about. Randy knew of some exhibition (think this is it) that engages your senses, or something, so we popped into that building, bought our ticket (10RMB/1GBP) and got in line. People were being slowly added to the room next door, protected by a big sliding door, what was on the other side? It was our turn…

A white maze. That’s essentially what we were in, about half a football pitch in size. A young girl greeted us (dialogue was all in Chinese, Randy’s translation skills were pushed to the max here) and then started asking about our thoughts on progress and beauty. Right… She was then replaced by an older girl as we walked and talked through the maze. So what is this all about? This girl was then replaced by a chick our age (who turned out to be an American as, when Randy was translating, she blurted out “That’s not what I said!” Haha) who asked us about ‘Absolute’s’ and some attempt at a thought provoking, profound and unquestioning statement. I answered it and she deflated “Oh… I suppose that makes sense” Ha! In your face art. Then an old dude met us, we chatted about life (I think) and then exited the exhibition. Not too sure what to say about this, it was different, stupid, I can’t appreciate this stuff.

“Get off of there before you REX it!”

Funcy

ART

Buuhhraaains!

Look intelligent

Another exhibition was a semi pitch black room with performers inside singing and making beat box sounds. We explored more of the district checking some paintings and photographs (this place is big). Then we bailed on a bus to get stuffed at ‘Stuff’d‘.

I had the spicy homemade sausage (super nom) washed down with their newly tapped porter. Thomas was working so we chatted to him the whole time, he is such a dude, gave us some free shots of ginger bourbon as it was Randy’s Birthday. We said our goodbyes and headed to the dive bar ‘i-forget-its-name’ which was nearby, had pool and was hosting a mascara party. Interesting.

The chips are fantastic too

BEER LIST

It was deed when we arrived but soon got busy

We stayed here, listening/the-odd-jive to the DJ, drinking beer, playing table foozball, pool with the locals, until after 3AM. Loads of fun. Hit the streets in search of foo, there was none. It was time to call it a night and off home I went.