My China in bullet points

Thought I’d put together a rough outline of my loathing and loving of China in a few bullet points…

What I won’t miss:

1. The Smog (quite a big one this)
2. People spitting everywhere
3. Having to use a VPN
4. People’s driving
5. Not being able to cook (unique to me this one)
6. Oil stains from food
7. Not being able to drink from the tap
8. No one gives a f*ck (note: see things I will miss)

What I WILL miss:

1. Friends (Randy, Suzy, Henry, Yuki)
2. Family (they were great)
3. Food! (Jian Bing, Jidan Guan Bing, ANY Bing, Dumpling, Baozi, Noodle, etc)
4. CHEAP CHEAP
5. The Subway
6. Hutong exploring
7. Great Leap (Enda you’re a dude)
8. Learning a new language
9. No one gives a f*ck (it can be of advantage sometimes!)
10. Food! (yes again!)

There will be more but this is what came to mind…

A quiet lunch and spicy food

To my surprise I think Benjamin went to school this morning. WTF is going on?! Not questioning it I was quick to get out the door and for a walk (it was smoggy but cleared a bit). I followed the subway line all the way to Huixinxijie Nankou station, which took a little over two hours, following the river/canal parks and observing various morning activities being performed by older people. Since I was meeting Randy at the pub I hopped on the subway so as not to be late.

I arrived early. Enda was working and asked where I was yesterday wondering if I’d left all ready, the regular that I am. He gave me another sample of their 100th Brew Barley Wine and we chatted, he wasn’t as busy today. Randy arrived so we ordered (and destroyed) burgers straight away and not long after my mate Royce arrived (Aussie/South African, actually from Zimbabwe) then pub acquaintances of his arrived and we soon had a posse going. After many drinks (free one from Enda and Royce along with Randy footing the bill, what a pal), lots of varied topics of discussion (Royce being the eldest had the most taboo subjects to talk about!) I said my goodbye’s to Enda the Irishman (such a dude I’ve been treated so well in that place) along with Royce and crew. This was around 7PM, been here for about 7 hours…

Tiny ‘VIP’ room

Me and Randy met Suzy at Andingmen for food at a nearby Szechuan restaurant called ‘Zhang MaMa‘ so it’s spicy food and Suzy’s home town. The place was full but they had a room around the corner where we could eat, was like a VIP room hutong style. Food was great (can’t remember much about it to be honest other than it was tasty and cheap) and we stayed a bit before getting the last subway home. Turned out to be a great night. 🙂

How to block your eBay account: Step 1.

Bloody hell so much for him being back to school! It would seem holidays have kicked in (which would explain why Linda was home too) but it felt like the school had been brought here as four of his mates turned up along with some A Yi’s. Jebus. I would have been out the door and to the pub but the air was shite today. 😦 Everyone buggered off after lunch so I was able to really chill then, until I tried to buy something on eBay…

At least this made me smile a bit

I was all set to buy some brewing equipment (shock horror) on Aussie eBay when my account was blocked. Fair enough, I’m in Beijing buying something in Melbourne, it looks kinda suspect. I couldn’t do the verification process as it had an old telephone number and their online chat directed me to a customer service call centre. I was on the phone for 30mins trying to get the block removed but ended with me having to send a photocopy of my driving licence to prove who I am. This process can take 7-10 days. WTF. Slightly pee’d off I resigned to the fact I could do no more and joined Randy and Benjamin for a game of Scrabble. (Mum tell Andy this is for his own good… 😉 )

I’m so proud…

Benjamin’s Dad didn’t arrive today (he’d left by-the-by but was coming back) and Yu was off to Hong Kong. I got my certificate in the mail, yaaaay. At least one thing today fairly perked me up from the eBay nightmare, Nat had emailed saying a group of us would be staying in a pimpin’ beach holiday home after the festival! HELLZ YEAH. 😀 I’m loving Oz all ready.

They came from Mars…

The bloody air was guff today so I didn’t want to go out in it, feeling better too. Goa A Yi has definitely been hit by the cold though as she asked me to take Benjamin back to school after lunch. Not a problem.

Got my flight checked in for Oz just need to print my boarding pass, apparently I’ll be charged for one at the airport if I forget it. Haha. Been reading a lot about beer, where I can go for beer in Melbourne and playing a game on my phone about beer. I may have issues… I’m also re-reading H.G. Wells “War of the Worlds”, it’s such a fantastic read and leaves you with a scarily awesome depiction of what it would be like if Victorian England were attacked by Martians. It was published in 1898 and it’s like reading something newly released! Mental.

Benjamin was home earlier again today so after tea we played with Lego and filmed a scene on the iPad (possible nod to an Oscar this one). As you can see my creation was somewhat influenced by my current read…

Tripod complete with Heat Ray, Black Smoke launcher, human storage area and robo tentacle

War of the Worlds II, coming to a DVD store near you!

Also Yu gave me the money from the Au Pair company bonus PLUS a chunk of cash on top. Jebus I wasn’t expecting anything but she’s given me 2000RMB/200GBP saying how grateful they were of me coming here. I couldn’t accept it but she was insistent and wanted me to have it. Bloody awesome I thanked her loads! I also got my Scottish money back as it was kept in her safe along with $40 (Canadian) as she couldn’t find one of my 20 notes and she didn’t want the dollars any more. This will help me loads when I arrive in Oz super chuffed. 😀

Look at all that pink!

Oh and Goa A Yi is definitely ill as she’s just been barfing in the bathroom next door. Nice.

“How did you get in?” “Fishing?”

I seemed to be up before everyone today, which is not normal, perhaps it had something to do with Yu not being home so it was lie in day. Benjamin blasted through his EF homework without me saying a word, fantastic. I chilled with him until 11AM then set off to meet Randy.

We met at a transfer station on route to the ‘International Garden Expo Centre‘, a large bit of land worth exploring I was told. The weather today was bu hao (no good) which was a shame and annoying as yesterdays was great. Undetermined, but ultimately not wanting to spend all day in this shit, we “entered” the Garden Expo Park. I say “entered” as it was technically closed, but we found part of the fence and barbed wire flattened so just walked through there.

This is where we got in then under that bridge

The park is huge, the entire site is huge really, quite bare though possibly because it’s winter, the lakes were frozen and two guys were happily fishing in the middle of one of them. Heading up the slope we ventured further into the true Expo area. Over the crest was what looked like frozen padi fields dotted around them were various buildings each with unique architecture and design. There were also a bunch of space rockets here, yeah I don’t know why either. Many little specially designed gardens lay spread over the vast site, really it was much, much bigger than I initially thought it would be.

In the future these will replace Gnomes

Where’s Dan?

The place really was big

There were staff clearing bins and leaves but they paid us no attention, remember we are not supposed to be here no-one else was! The second security guard we met (the first simply drove by us) quizzed us as to how we got in, playing the “Stupid Tourist” card we spoke very basic Chinese and Randy did actions for fishing. He laughed we said goodbye and walked away. Ha, simples! We would encounter many other security guards during our “visit” who quite simply didn’t give a shit about us. Would not be doing this back home.

Smoggy smog

Some temple

Randy and the Giant Pagoda

We continued our exploration up a hill to some temples and a big pagoda, then back down into a fake village eventually squeezing through a gate to freedom. We had spent a few hours there and it was real good fun, if only the weather was clearer. Our escape vehicle (a bus) took us to the subway station where we got off near a mall for some hot pot. This restaurant was quite swish, you each get a bubbling pot of broth (we both chose spicy) and to stew we ordered meat, lotus roots, fried bean curd and noodles. Along with this you get access to unlimited different kinds of sauces and salad bar. It was nom and not bad for 70RMB/7GBP each. 🙂

My new mate!

I was still feeling crappy and Randy was in the early stages so we called it a night. I didn’t drink a drop of beer! No-one was home when I arrived so I just chilled. When Benjamin did get back with Goa A Yi he just watched some TV before bed. The day was done really.

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. 🙂

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? 😉

Eating out, Korean style

I was up and washed reasonably early this morning, especially for a Sunday. Suzy had mentioned skiing today a few days ago, I’m glad I didn’t go purely for the 5.30am wake up. Benjamin had received a magic set from one of his friends yesterday so we spent a little time looking at that. He and his parents went off for a few hours to do their annual photo shoot.

When they came back I was asked to take Benjamin to Subway (or wherever we wanted to go) for lunch whilst they went to a different restaurant in the mall. We ended up going to McDonald’s, the pull of a McFlurry was too strong for us both. Afterwards his friend Kathy came over to the house and not long after that he was off to EF class.

Maybe I’ll go here instead of Happy Valley…

I went for a short walk (just over an hour) around the hood, but the smog started rolling in and it wasn’t much fun walking around in it. A little after arriving back home Yu phoned me and said they would pick me up outside as we were eating out. Getting in the car I was told by Ben that it was a Korean restaurant we would be eating at.

Holy shit this place was fancy. Slightly hidden away and housed in it’s own building, we entered the front door to be greeted by waiting staff. We were lead upstairs, over looking the outdoor Korean country themed room, to our own private booth beside the violinists. Wow. The food was excellent, lots of little dishes to from, like many variations of kimchi, salad, noodles, meat that gets BBQ’d at your table, omelette style dish, fried rice, fish, etc. NOM. Ben showed me how you take one of the salad leaves, fill it with meat, add some sauce/seasoning, fold up and then shove in your mouth. It finished with a big bowl of slush ice and red bean on top, shared out amongst everyone. The taste of the bean reminded me of custard and kidney beans. Fudge knows what this cost but it couldn’t be cheap, worth every penny though, I was a happy chappy. 😀

(Apologies for the shite picture quality, what do you expect from a phone that’s 4+ years old)

The music was great though

Smile ladies.. OK fine

Extremely well styled place

Family Photo Time

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!