Saturday: Ride of the Valkyries

Yeah, so I spent the night at Misha's because he was closer to the airport. He kept trying to make me go to the airport later than the requisite two hours you're supposed to be there before. I have NO idea why. But yeah. He did. Anyway, we got there a bit after 6:30, and yeah it was fine. But I was freaking out nevertheless.
I had overcome all my illnesses of the past few weeks (Yuk! Dan just killed a fly or a mozzie or something with a fly swat. "To the winner go the spoils!")

Anyway. Checked in ok. They (being Dad and Misha) took me to the, you know, glass doors you have to go through, about half an hour before take off. And I did a bit of a Dan... (Let me explain, so I can have cake tonight, but I was a bit upset is all.) fuck I'm going to miss those two guys, and I mean, shit I'm almost getting teary about it now, but yeah. Ok, it's ok, I'm ok. I miss everyone in Australia now, I miss famiiar buses. I miss seatbelts in taxis. I miss... yeah well, I should stop complaining, because it's actually pretty cool here too.

Anyways. I get through the customs (?) check where they take your little form off you that says who you are and why you are leaving the country etc. And the first thing I see when I get through those gates is a clock that says 7:51. Now my flight leaves at 8:05 and I have no idea where gate 58 is. So I piss bolt until I see another clock that confirms my watch saying something more like 7:43. And then I go to the toilet, for the hell of it. Get on the plane. Leave Terra Australis. :'(

Singapore Airlines is actually pretty fucking sweet. Even economy class! Every one gets their own TV and you can watch any of about 80 movies and some TV episodes, and some cds and stuff. I watched... V for Vendetta, She's the Man (hey it was funny), The Road to El Dorado, some of Date Movie. And Kinky Boots. Problem being is in about two weeks I'll have 14 odd hours of flight with no movies to watch because I've seen everything I wanted to see already. Oh yeah I also watched an episode of Malcolm in the Middle. I may be forced to read, or god forbid, sleep on the way back.

I was sitting in the middle of these two guys, and the guy next to the window shut the blind so I didn't get to see much of the scenery on the way to Singapore. We did fly over Prospect Reservoir, and almost all of the Blue Mountains, but I don't know the towns' positionings well enough from an oblique birds' eye view to know exactly what was what. Yeah, and then the dude pulled down the curtain. There was a little turbulence, but most of it was in my bowels. You may or may not know I was suffering a sort of gastric flu for the weeks preceeding this trip, so I'd been enduring a pretty strict diet and my gut was reacting accordingly. For some reason I've always my innards always act up when I'm not in a position to ease their pain. Like, at my first boyfriend's house, or at a dinner party or whatever. Or in the middle seat of a Boeing 747-???. I didn't get to sit in the upper part like Vylette did. But that's ok, I have another chance on the way back.
Anyway, in an attempt to not piss off my fellow passengers, I limited myself to two toilet breaks. And stopped drinking so much liquid. Man it was hard to pass up all the coke that the stewardesses were offering.

The food was remarkably edible as well! I was really surprised. I won't give you a reproduction of the menu or anything, but it wasn't nearly as bad as I had been led to believe plane food was by my brief breakfast flight to Brisbane in the 90s.
As we approached Singapore, thank god, the guy in the window seat opened the blind, and I could see some of the country in which I was about to land. I remember mostly these weird plantation like fields full of weird roundish tree-shrub things that I meat to look up, but haven't yet got around to. And the canals, or shipping channels I guess! It was awesome. Some how there was cloud everywhere, but it seemed quite sunny.

Oh! I never mentioned the other channel on the SIA TVs... it has a little map and a little plane on it, drawing a line to show you where you've flown and where you're going. Very much like a turtle in MS Project Builder. Haha, guys do you remember that? I was such a 1337 MSPB programmer in 2nd and 6th grade...
To get to the point, it also told you the head/tail wind speed, your ground speed and air temps and times where you were, are and where you're going. Oh and you're altitude. It gets cold up there, folks, let me tell you.

And then we landed. BIG thud... everyone went "Oh!" and I laughed.

Singapore Airport is NOWHERE NEAR as cool as their website says.
I stayed there two and a half hours, and I spent some of that wandering around the various shops and being staggered at how cheap things can be when you take off all their taxes. The rest I spent in front of the series of widescreen TVs showing repeats of the soccer.

Then the flight to Beijing -- less turbulence on both counts. There was like NOONE on the flight so I could stretch out over three seats, and nap a bit. And after a while and some more plane food, we ended up landing much more softly in Beijing. And I nodded and smiled my way past the health, immigration and customs people, then wandered out into the open arms of my dearest Danbee. And huzzah! My prayers had been answered – she was actually there, and not en route, or asleep in bed, or anything equally horrific.

After a brief hugging spree, she bundled me into a legal taxi and fed me a cookie.
Mmmm cookie.
It literally took me twenty minutes to realize we were driving on the right hand side of the road. Since then every time we’re in a taxi going round a corner, I have mild freakouts. Or when I try to cross a road and suddenly there’s a car that shouldn’t be there, honking at me from the other side.

I slept a bit, after trying to maintain a realistic conversation. And then I insisted I was to be woken up for the Germany vs. Portugal game. I woke up, sat up, lay back down but was awake enough to restart the conversation with Dan. I was sort of facing her so I missed the entire game, AND all the goals. Boo Germany... I wanted Portugal to win, but they were playing rather badly, so yeah, I accept their defeat.

Sunday: World Cup Extravaganza

Then we slept until about 11. And Dan took me to Lush for breakfast, because on the way there was an ATM. OMG, the money here is ridiculous. It's like so worthless. Like, six kuai to the Aussie dollar. Whenever you buy something you make yourself feel better by converting it to $A. I think I've *just* managed to spend over $A100 today. I had this *ridiculously* large Homestyle breakfast with hash brow and pancakes, and Dan gave me her fruit bowl (Dan doesn't eat fruit).
Then we walked around Wudaokou. And bought me a hair brush (I think I left mine on the plane) -- it cost a little over $A2. I mean, wow.
Then we went to lunch with a bunch of the other students here, including half Spanish Cho. Man, there're Dutch people, French people, heaps of Africans, Germans, Americans, Aussies and yeah -- I could actually get away with not speaking a word of Chinese here, in the university anyway. We had this lunch at… at… oh god. I can’t remember. Wait yes! Thank you Dan, Some Japanese Restaurant. With Cho and his gf? And This Russian girl. “Hey, Stef’s boyfriend is Russian!”, “Yes?”, “Yeah.”

Dan wrote me a list of things to say. So far to my eternal shame I have only learnt "Ni hao" and "Xie xie" (Hello and thank you) and I've only ever actually said thankyou. I just feel so stupid speaking in a language I know so little of. Good point is that I'm starting to get an eye for kanji. Problem is that I know a lot of kanji in Japanese. Now it means the same, but it sounds rather different, most of the time anyway. And I'm actually beginning to recognise more kanji, problem being it's simplified kanji and I recognise the sounds in Chinese rather than Japanese. Dammit lol... Oh well.
Then we went to Korean BBQ for dinner. Mmm yum. Have photos, will show. It's hilarious, at this point (Sunday night), I haven't actually eaten any Chinese food yet. Perhaps more hilariously is that, other than the strange, pervasive and roaming aromas that I am experiencing, and the slightly higher than normal asian-to-caucasian-or-anything-else ratios, I can’t believe I’m in another country.

We arranged to meet at Nanmer (South Gate) to catch taxis to Browns, some club to watch the Soccer. Stupid me. I haven't been drinking since my birthday. I bought a long island iced tea. Dan's friend and ex-Brown's employee Diederik was there. Perks: free entry, extra alcohol. Anti-perks: extra alcohol. Dayem that was a strong LIIT. Then a lot of the students left, and Diederik says, "Oh yes, now we can get FREE drinks." Huge green shots. Probably about triples. Dan's still going on her LIIT (<$A8) so I, the patented Aussie Chick, beer swilling she-tank, stood up the hero and drank both her own and her friend’s shot. Fark. Yeah. Go Stef, she so smart!
Oops, mistake.
Vomittus eruptis!
All in a toilet, luckily. So yeah, all was well. At one point I stuck my head under a tap to rinse my mouth of the spew-tastic taste, and some one grabbed me around the waste and yelled in my ear, "Don't drink the water!" And I'm like *spit* "I wasn't going to!" At least I think I wasn't going to.

So then, a little before half time, Dan and I bailed and she took me back to her room, via the local shop to buy me bread, or croissants, which I didn't eat. And yeah, I woke up hungover. And had missed ALL of the final. Italy won. Half-hearted attempt at a boo.

Monday: Recovery

Dan took me to Lush again for breakfast, and I could barely stomach the fruit salad. I ask where the bathrooms are. They're pit toilets (well not pit, but ditch, or whatever they’re called) and the smell alone is enough to make me seriously want to throw up again, so I bail back to Lush before I empty my already empty stomach again.
Then Diederik tells Dan I look like I'm about to fall asleep, and she finishes her food and I have another half hearted attempt at the watermelon. And it's suddenly pissing down outside so we run across the street to the bread shop (there's like NO proper (western) bakeries in Beijing, well I haven't found one. But when I'm feeling sick, I always lust after a crusty bread roll and or a lot of watermelon) so I got a tiny loaf of bread and a few bagels. Then we caught a cab back to Dan's place. The women who run the joint still haven't made a mention about the fact that there's an extra person in Dan's room.

I fell asleep and woke up a few hours later. Bolted down the bagels. God they were good. But I still had a headache. Then Dan was about to leave for dinner with Diederik because he was flying out that night. And I thought, nah fuck it, he’s a nice dude and all, but I need to sleep off this headache. And if I did start to feel sick again, well, I didn’t want Dan to have to leave to take me back. So yeah, Dan returned in a few hours with some yummy food from the Muslim restaurant, and we sat back to watch Narnia. Yeah, Narnia! At some point on Sunday I also watched the 40 Year Old Virgin. Tres marrante!

Then I slept. And I vowed – Never will I START drinking on a holiday again. If I must drink on holidays at all, I will ramp myself up to it big time. Because, it is plainly evident that I am unable to restrain myself from drinking in excess. Possibly because there is such a discrepancy between my stomaching-of-alcohol-abilities when I have been drinking and when I haven’t.

Dream:
I dreamed at some point that my nail was falling off, and that there was another nail underneath, a perfectly formed nail on a perfectly formed finger, inside my normal finger. There was no blood, and they were both the same size, although obviously the inside one was smaller to fit inside my normal finger. There were plastic things holding the inside finger in place. There was words engraved on them, but I couldn’t make out what they said.

Tuesday: Planes, Trains and Automobiles

I lost a day on holidays. I am completely disgusted with myself. I won’t do this again. Well, not any time soon, anyway. So Dan and I decided to get into the tourist spirit and go see Tian’anmen Square and the Forbidden City.

We had breakfast at this little restaurant near Dan’s uni. My first Chinese food eaten in China! Yummy, yummy broccoli (is broccoli a real Chinese vegetable?) and these pork thingies that I want to find in Sydney, and so many dumplings. We probably ate about a quarter of what we ordered. But when it all costs less than 50 kuai, who gives a damn? How does one get there from Wudaokou? Train! Man that was an experience… It cost LESS than $A1 to take a half hour train trip on three different train lines.
The Yellow line (line 13) was heaps cool! Sort of open to the outdoors, so it didn’t really reek. Dan keeps saying I need to be more pushy, and I guess it’s true… You need to smash your way past people to get on or off the train at the appropriate stop.
On the walk to Wudaokou Station, Dan stopped to get me a map. It was 6 kuai. And I tried to pay the guy with a 1 kuai coin and a 5 mao note. WTF mao notes? And Dan just showed me a 2 jiao note. Jiao are like cents, mao ten cents. Who has both notes and coins for there cents?
Anyway. I got the map, haven’t really used it yet, But I’m thinking I’ll draw little snail trails on it to show where I’ve been.

Anyway, we smashed our way onto the train and at the 13/2 train line crossover station thingy, we had to walk out, across a road and back into a completely building. And by now it was hot, and hazy. I forgot to mention, on Sunday and most of Monday, Beijing was covered in some really low lying smog/fog/cloud crap and it wasn’t THAT hot. But today it was still cloudy, but sunnier, and I could even feel the possibility of getting sunburnt. Dan started to talk to this Canadian dude from Canadia, I mean, Vancouver, on the train. But I said very little. I guess it’s like here in China, I feel I can’t talk to many people, so ever though I often can, I turn into this hideously rude taciturn evil bitch. :P oh well.

I looked in horror at the road we’d have to cross to get to Tian’anmen Square. It was about eight or ten lanes and yeah, though I was beginning to feel a bit more confident about crossing roads without holding someone’s hand, this one was a nail-digger-inner. Then I realized there was no way that we could cross that on top, and that there was an underpass. Thank God.
Then we stood in the searing sun and took photos while all around us tour groups, mostly of Chinese school kids, ran around looking hot and bothered and lost, and… stuff. I was a bit confused because I thought Tian’anmen Square was a lot redder, and more flaggy. But Dan pointed out I could be getting it confused with Red Square in Moscow. Which is entirely likely. I mean, hell, I didn’t know Khazakstan existed until Ukraine played Tunisia in the World Cup.

It was impressive, I’ll grant it that, but it was so hot and humid, that I was dying to go into the Forbidden City. So we went under the underpass again, and we both suffered the stares of the white person. It’s so weird. I mean, imagine in Sydney, an Asian person walks past you. Unless they are absolutely stunning, no one gives them a second glance. But Dan and myself warrant second, third and even fourth glances. Stares even. I mean, wtf? You’ve never seen a Caucasian before? I think with Dan, they’re trying to figure out what her genetic heritage is, but with me, I don’t know. I didn’t realize I was that white. Me, I’m quite comfortable in China. It’s like I’ve wandered into Sussex Street and haven’t yet managed to find my way out again. It reminded me of when I went to Alice Springs and I got freaked out because suddenly there were Aboriginal people everywhere and I don’t think I saw a single Asian in the week or so we were there. That makes me sound very racist, I’m sure. But you don’t understand, where I live the mix is predominantly people of Asian and European descent. And suddenly to be in central Australia where like 3 out of every 4 people were Aboriginal. It was just a shock to the system. No, I haven’t explained myself very well, but I hope you know what I mean.

A final word about the staring thing. It was so funny, because in recent years I have become slightly more attuned to people staring at me or my friends. And at first I was thinking, hey s/he is checking you/me out ;) but then you realize that no, you’re a freak alien that has a head growing out of her arse.
Not only kids do this, but grown adults. It’s sort of really, seriously, extremely disconcerting.

The Forbidden City
You have to walk SO far before you get in there. I bought a frozen water bottle for 2 kuai. That’s right Sydney, around 30 cents. Get with it!
We missed the ticket office and had to walk back to it. That was fun. And a beggar with yellow hands was asking me for money. Dan said he was saying I was pretty, or something. But I’ll get onto that later.

God, I was hot. And the first thing we see when we walk into the must-have-paid part of the Forbidden City, is a whole building covered in scaffolding. The Olympics in 2008 have caused the government to panic and run around restoring it’s famous and wonderful bits of history and architecture. This means I didn’t get to see inside a lot of the place. It was that hot, that as soon as I realized, we walked on the western side o the enclosure to stay in the shade, and ducked into all the airconditioned rooms housing treasures of the Qing Empire. Unfortunately the temperature benefits were traded off with the smell. Out in the sun, it smelled great, but considering I didn’t have a hat or sunnies, I would have died of sunstroke and lost another day of my holiday. The shady walkways smelled because of all the little crotchless pantsed kids pissing everywhere. For some reason the airconditioned places reeked most of all. I have NO idea why. But there were some BEAUTIFUL things in there. So I held my breath and stared.
The thing I remember most of was this copper disc showing the constellations, next to this beautiful copper telescope. I spent a few minutes trying to find familiar constellations, then I realized that they probably didn’t have the same ones I knew anyway, and also, in the low light conditions I couldn’t see them anyway.

We made our way further and further back, past more and more closed buildings. Man, some of the details on the roofs are beautiful. Don’t worry I took pictures. And suddenly we were in the garden bits. Some really pretty trees, and the shade was exceedingly welcome. I had a look in one of the souvenir shops, but there was nothing worth buying, even for the sake of having bought it in the Forbidden City.
Then we walked right out the north gate of the City. I probably could have spent another hour going through rooms on the east side, but it was hot, and I didn’t feel like putting up much of a fight. Plus Dan had more to fight for, not having found the Starbucks that purportedly was inside the city somewhere.

So we jumped in a cab and made it to Xidan (West something) where there was ridiculous amounts of shopping. We found Starbucks and Dan coffee-fied herself, and I got a Chocolate Frappe thingy. I don’t even know what that is, but it was cold and not full of coffee.
Then Dan said, let’s get our nails done. And she managed to convince them to go from 30 kuai to 20 kuai. By pretty much laughing at them. It’s frightening, I can’t bargain for shit. So I’m glad Dan is with me. Apparently the manicurists’ conversation went something along the lines of. “Oh you’re so pretty. Your friend doesn’t speak Chinese? Oh you’re both so pretty.” And so on, and so forth. I’m bloody glad I don’t understand Chinese if people are going to be saying that at me the whole time. The woman also cut a living part of Dan’s cuticle off and fuck it was hilarious how horrified she was, the woman, not Dan. Lots of blood. Well, not lots, but some.

Then Dan wandered around the markets with me trailing around, while she bargained for belts and earrings and the like. And these plastic fob bags in which to put the stuff she’s leaving in China while she goes home. Oh yeah, the bargaining I find hilarious! She bought this belt for 20 kuai down from 70, and then the woman gives her a card because they’re “best friends” or something, and she’ll get easier discounts if she buys from her again. Amazing. *shakes head* By this stage, it’s a bit after 4pm, and the afternoon low and the heat and the walking around all day is hitting me pretty bad. But I buy a set of chopsticks for 25 kuai. That’s one present down. Not a very thoughtful present, but one none the less. Booyah!

So, it’s around dinner time, and we go upstairs in one of these weird indoor multistory market thingies to all you can eat 25 kuai hot pot. Yeah, that’s right. It’s cheaper here in kuai than it is in Aussie dollars. So we’re simmering away meat and mushies and tofu and crap in these little pots of stock and yummy stuff. Good meal. Good, cheap meal.

Outside in the street, there was this beggar with a horrible looking red thing in a plastic bag tucked into his pants. I didn’t want to know. But yeah, we saw him later and people had given him money, but it was windy and all the notes were floating around in the wind. It was shit.

We decide to go back to Dan’s dorm, and I begin to write this while Dan packs up the bits of her room to give to her friend the next day.
Then Ang turns up. Ang is a legend. I swear, funny bloke. Aussie too. But yeah, so Dan begins to recount the night of the Final to him, and apparently I was asking Dan to make sure that I didn’t make out with anyone. It’s a bit much to ask someone that sort of thing I know, but hey, considering my track record, It’s a precaution I often feel necessary to take. Certain people may be relieved to know I didn’t make out with anyone. In fact I haven’t even seen anyone I’d even consider making out with. As soon as the thought that someone’s mildly attractive pops into my head I suddenly start thinking, “Misha, Misha!” And go into this delicious, yet unfulfilling day dream.

So, Ang and Dan and myself traipsed off down to Lush to watch The Tribesmen, this bunch of mildly Chinese dudes playing what sounded seriously like Spanish music. Tres confusing, but rather cool. Misha, you would have liked it.

But I was a bit tired, and sick of people like Ang trying to convince me to drink so soon after I’d convinced myself not to drink at all ever again this holiday. So we came back to Dan’s room. And I fell asleep.

Wednesday: Why are we waiting?

Dream:
Saw a school teacher ripping off a shop keeper in Edgecliff, resolved to steal their sacred document that told them which shop keepers to rip off/get protection money from. I stole said document from the Music Department, which turned out to be this mystical document of where to get cheap lunches from, photocopied out of magazines and hand written accounts through the ages. They are angry and want it back.
Ridiculously-Tall-Mike starts coming onto me, and it’s ok, because I don’t have a boyfriend. But then I do, and I summarily tell him to fuck off, because I have a boyfriend. Then he takes my brother and all my brother’s friends who I haven’t met yet to Surf Life Saving Club/Lessons or something.

And for the folks who’ve just tuned in, I am weird.

Woke up when the woman came in to sweep the floor and flush the toilet and do all those menial tasks we can’t be expected to do for ourselves. It’s around 9am at this point. The girl who’s taking all Dan’s gear messages to say, no actually can you come at 12 not 10? So we bum around, I write more of this, and then at about 11:45, with grumbling stomachs, we hop in a cab and go up Wudaokou to this girl’s flat. While we wait for her, someone moves in. I ponder the differences between Chinese and Australian labourers. I mean, Aussies won’t pick anything up unless they’re young and it’s ridiculously heavy and they’re showing off. These dudes carried even the things with wheels up the stairs instead of rolling them up the ramp.
A Chinese couple enthusiastically enquire if we’re moving in, ‘cause we’re sitting on the steps with large boxes and bags. The husband was more enthusiastic than the wife. Whatever, I don’t want to know.

Lunchtime, Dan calls Ang to see if some buffet place they went to is open at this time. Huzzah it is! And we enjoy fake western food, sort of Italian, or something. Tafi’s “Table and friend indispensible” WTF?
There was this really really sweet, watery pumpkin soup, but the pasta was quite passable. In fact, everything was a bit too passable. That meal was the quickest and most bowel-invigorating I’ve ever had. I could feel little waves and avalanches rumbling through my lower intestines. I have to bring Dan’s digestive “moment” to an early forclosure so she can show me to the toilet. A squat! Hahahahah….

Forgive me, but I have to be slightly graphic here. I’ll try to be circumspect.

Imagine: Squat toilet, Patently-Inflexible Stefanie, extreme urgency, less than…. …. …. Well… Let me just say I was afraid of splatter-back. Splash-back is bad enough. But splatter-back wins out, always. To make matters worse, lack of toilet paper makes itself known.

I will ALWAYS carry tissues in an accessible way from now on.
My calves have not had such a workout since… since possibly… no, ok, a very long time. Me so local!

We got in another taxi and funneled through the traffic to Zhongguancun. What is it with China and these multistory markets?

Dan battled through the “Hello, hallo, Ni hao, lady…” and “This way” guestures and eventually managed to pay about half the asking price for some iPod covers for her sister, a plastic sticky cover for hers, and a nice “leather” case.
She then went and did battle for a set of computer speakers, a graphics tablet, a power adaptor for the speakers, and two mobile phone cases for me. Amazing. So funny to watch. I just can’t do it!

Well, that took simply forever. And we were tired, so we got in a taxi (did I mention how cheap taxis are?) and went to this little glasses shop not far from Wudaokou.
Are you proud? I expanded my spoken Chinese vocabulary from Hello, and Thankyou to Good and Bad. Hao and Bu hao. If I could have remembered clear and not clear, that might have even been more useful when they were testing my eyes. But yeah, that worked really well. And Dan helped me pick my frames. I think they’re pretty cool, but if they’re not, I’m blaming Dan. I’m joking! Seriously. They’re cool. When someone is helping me pick something, as long as they have a reasonable reason why they think something is good or bad, which Dan always does, that’s fine by me.

So sometime tomorrow, I’ll have my 366 kuai glasses. That’s $A61. :O

And then we walked back to BLCU. And Dan bought some yummy but spicy pork bread. And we stopped at the Friendship Store (sort of convenience store) to get more coke.

We’re thinking of going to the Muslim Restaurant for dinner (I missed out when Dan went with Diederik on Monday night. Then we might play some pool. For 12 kuai an hour, I say YES.

And in other wonderful news, I just heard from Noa – she’s coming to Beijing tomorrow and will remain until Sunday, so I’ll have to catch up with her at some point *claps*

And finally, today I noticed three individuals whips out their phone cameras as we walked passed. I don’t know if it was me, Dan, or both of us, but it’s weird. :(

Thursday: Confucius Say...

Well, it started storming last night, so Dan and I ordered out for dinner from the Japanese place near the cafeteria. That put a stop to our pool plans too.
We watched Rent, and part of The Libertine, which had Johnny Depp in it. It was weird, and we didn’t concentrate much on it.

I let Dan sleep in, and played such wonderful games as Minesweeper, Freecell and Spider Solitaire until she woke up.
We went down to the Japanese place in person for breakfast. And my stomach was ok! So we jumped in a cab, and my stomach wasn’t so ok. I resolved not to eat anything until at least 12 or 1 on Friday. I held myself together until we got to the Lama Temple.

And wasn’t it spectacular! In the middle of this dingy looking hutong, all brightly painted and full of tourists, China’s symbol that they respect Tibet and Tibetan philosophy stands still.
Before we could go inside, Dan bought some nice smelling, but foully coloured incense. Oh yeah, and some bracelets, but that’s beside the point.

We went inside, and the first thing I took a photo of was the rubbish bins. I did not know they were the rubbish bins, but after being rather unceremoniously told, I stick by my photographical decision. They’re really cute.
We wandered on down this shady walkway, so cool, quite lovely actually. Then, basically at every, or the bigger ones anyway, of the temple/shrine-ish bits, we stopped (well Dan stopped) to light incense and do whatever it is you do in front of huge golden Buddhas.

Somewhere along the way, my stomach said, “No. Now. Really!” So I made my way back to the toilets and after passing the disabled one, thinking, “Shit, how do you make a disabled squat loo?” I spent an uncomfortable several minutes trying to empty my bowels so I wouldn’t have to do this again any time soon. So long in fact, that Dan came into ask if I was alright. Well I was. So there.
As I left, it hit me. Disabled squat toilet my arse! And I opened the door. Inside there was a normal western toilet. I could have cried. I’m glad I couldn’t see/didn’t check if there was toilet paper in there too, or I really would have cried.

We wondered around some more, Dan being devotional, myself being wonderment-ful. Around us all was the occasional electric cherry-picker-ish thing, that someone was using to clean part of the building.
Oh yes, and before I forget, the enormous dull gold Buddha over four stories tall.
Did I mention that here ground is floor 1 and upwards accordingly. And basements are floor -1. Clever, huh?
So yeah, all Buddha’d out, we left the place and wandered off in search of the Confucius Temple.

I swear to god, we asked at least ten people, because everyone of them wouldn’t answer simply. Most of the time all Dan could work out was that they meant something along the lines of, “Further on down there.” So we’d keep walking until someone gave us a more intelligible answer. This was actually inside the hutong bit, and we were in danger of being run over by cars, trucks, bikes, and rickshaws alike. Out of the blue, so to speak, in an otherwise quite lane.
We walked past the Vegetarian Restaurant that Dan had wanted to have lunch at. We didn’t though, because we’d had such a late and momentous breakfast, and because of my resolve not to eat anything for a while.
We were simply inundated with bloody rickshaw drivers squealing variations on the word “Rickshaw”. Dan just repeated, “Don’t want,” until they got the idea.

Confucius Temple
It was pretty much all closed for renovations, but nevertheless it was really peaceful. Lovely to sit around in for a bit. There was a gallery with a lot of photos and interesting looking articles, except that they were all in Chinese. *sigh*
So we ended up out the back looking out to what we suspected were the school rooms, making really bad “Confucius say…” jokes, and abusing the other tourists until we met some who spoke/understood English and then looked at Dan funny.
When I say abuse, I mean along the lines of, “Bloody tourists, getting in the way of my photos…”

Well that was fun. And then we wandered back out of the hutong back on the slightly more major road and went back to the incense shop to try to bargain for some more bracelets and necklaces and the like. Unfortunately, this grumpy old man had come back and was less receptive to the bargaining than the woman who’d been there by herself previously.

It was early, so Dan suggested we head back towards home and stop off for some ten kuai massages. The taxi dropped us off inside the hotel compound near where Dan’s uni is, and we walked past “Chocolate Fish Man” (I have no idea) on the way to the massage place.
Ok. Ten kuai is LESS than $2. These massages: head, neck, shoulders, back and arms, went for nearly an hour. I mean, wow.

The masseuses (or whatever) were really nice. I couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying, but Dan tells me they said I had lovely hair, and wasn’t it funny how all westerners wanted to dye their hair dark, and all Asians wanted to dye their hair light, like mine. I said that I liked my hair the way it was, but I don’t know if Dan passed it on.
Dan gave her massager a bit of an impromptu English lesson, which was hilarious. Then somehow we spent a great deal of time talking about how we had killed our various budgerigars over the years. Tres sad!

We left in good spirits, and wandered out in search of a main road, doing the stop-to-ask-someone-every-twenty-metres thing. Eventually, we hit the main road, and it was wuite close to the glasses shop. We were returning to pick up the glasses I’d bought on Wednesday. Them’s cool, yeah. Real cool. I wore them until I went to sleep. And I got used to the way the world shifts and looks different between contacts and glasses pretty quickly too.

So we wandered back to Dan’s room, stopping only to buy me some postcards. When we got back, we decided that we would find Dan’s bike, around dinner time, and try it out and maybe attempt to fix it. It’s a hell dodgy bike, no gears and marginal brakes, but I guess considering Beijing is so bloody flat, it doesn’t matter so much. The guy formt he friendship store took one look at the bike and said, “It’s a boy’s bike. I’ll swap you for a girl’s bike.” And Dan’s like, “Ok!” and we go order her dinner.
Now, I’m thinking, WTF? Dan’s giving away someone else’s bike? But it turns out that the French(-speaking) guy who’d given it to her was leaving and never coming back. Fair enough I say, but what if this dude was going to try to cheat her by giving her a shitty bike? I was heaps worried, but Dan didn’t really care. “I can always say no,” she said. Which is true, I guess.

The bike they wanted to swap was smaller, yes, but had no back brakes. Dan’s not a very confident rider so yeah, back brakes are a must. In fact, I’d prefer she had a bike that had NO front brakes at all. But that’s beside the point. We locked the bike back up and re watched The Libertine. Goddamn that’s a weird movie. Then Dan put on Howl’s Moving Castle, while I wrote my postcards. It was soooo cute, and I think I’ll send them tomorrow.

Ho yes, and I have developed a little cough. Tiny, but everytime I do it, it makes me feel sick. Wow, the pollution here is great, isn’t it?

Friday: Silk Markets

Dream:
I was in Doctor Who. The new one with the dude from BBC’s Casanova. And he was building the Tardis out of glass, and writing things on it in beautiful handwriting. He tested some valve by bringing some poor chick into… somewhere, and opening the door to space. And her head went out the valve, and so did her body, somehow. Then he shut the door to space and it was all fine.
And we were trying to save this family, but in reality sort of looking after the daughter of the family who ditched a big public event with her boyfriend to go shoot up some speed, and go to some emo/punk/hardcore concert (don’t ask). I can’t recall if you can shoot up speed in reality, but she did. So yeah, her parents were giving all these excuses as to where she’d gone, and eventually I convinced the father that something good might not be happening, and to come with me to the concert to seek her out. Chris was there and as we climbed over the rock hill beside the stage, he kept picking up used needles that were spilling out over the rocks and cracks like the coins in the statues at the Lama Temple. I was screaming at him to drop them, not touch them and put on decent shoes.
In the middle of a diatribe of how retarded all the people in the mosh pit were, the cleaning lady dingle-dongled on the bell and I woke up.

My starvation diet is making me feel dizzy. I don’t think I’ll keep it up as long as I did in Sydney because of the heat. Hopefully it will have been enough for my stomach to settle. It’s 10:30 am, and it’s been about 22 hours since I last ate.

We decided to taxi across town to Grandma’s Kitchen. Dear lord. That was amazing. Dan had this beef and bacon burger; it came with lettuce, tomato, onions, pickles and all that jazz, but you could pick what you put on it. Needless to say onion was about all that got put on it. I got a “Spaghetti and meat sauce” which I guess meant bolognaise, a plate of chips, and a vanilla milkshake.
Ok, so the vanilla milkshake was like a glass of icecream mixed with milk. Yum! And the spag bol was quite good. Chips were great too. I was overcome by a sense of needing to go to the loo, as usual, and was so pleased to find that this place actually had dunnies that I neglected to realize that I had gone into the guys one. Hey, in my defense, they both looked like storage cupboards from the outside, and I think someone may have been using the ladies when I had got there so the door was shut. This incessant need of a bathroom after I had eaten was beginning to annoy me, and my self imposed starvation diet obviously wasn’t working all that well, and was putting me in a foul mood, so I finished my brunch in annoyance.

After a long, restorative digestive moment, also designed for me to be able to make use of an, how shall I say, easy toilet, if I saw fit, we asked directions to our next port of call, the Ancient Observatory. Grandma’s kitchen staff said it was too far to walk. We headed out to the main street. As we did so we passed an entrance to The Friendship Store. And man was that place crap. So desolate and boring and yeah… not fun at all. And joy of joys, my stomach acted up again while we were in there. I had a go at the squat, to my credit, but I knew if we were to get out of there any time in the near future, it wouldn’t be that way. I used the disabled toilet (which was actually more disgusting than the squats! I guess through lack of use or cleaning or general misuse) and we got out of there reasonably quickly.

Short aside:
What is it with this country? The restaurants are notorious for giving patrons about four times as many napkins as they need, and yet NOWHERE will you find toilet paper provided. Is there some method to this madness?

On the main road, the first cabbie essentially told us to piss off, which was comforting. The second said something along the lines of, “Go away, you can walk there.” Hence Beijing Walking Adventure No. 1.
We crossed the eight lane highway. I swear, every major road in Beijing is an eight lane highway. A bit like Warringah Road, but flat and with about five times as much traffic as in the busiest time on it. Then we walked. And walked. And got nervous that we were walking in the wrong direction. Until Dan said that from the map, it should be on the south-west corner of an intersection between two huge highways. And we had just come to a highway perpendicular to us. Sure enough, rising out of the hubbub of midday traffic, a big grey squat building rose, and had some delightfully ornate astronomical looking things sticking out the top of it. Huzzah!

After some confusion as to where to get tickets, because the ticket checking man kept sending us back but the ticket selling lady was on a break, we got inside. I also paid 5 kuai for a sort of brochure about the place, which was extremely uninformative.
It was a beautiful place. Standard grey buildings around a shady courtyard. Quite beautiful and restive. Some of the surrounding rooms had exhibits in them, about eighty percent of the accompanying information being in Chinese. Boo. Though it was nice too have even a brief insight as to what their astronomical practices had been.
At this place, at some point, there had been a huge long thing sticking out one end of the place to measure the solar shadow at certain points in the year. They observed the five planets, various comets, the moon and various constellations.

At one point, there was a slab of rock inscribed with a drawing meant to tell the story of the Immortal Cowherd and… oh crap, some girl or other. Damn, there goes my idea of trying to recapture Dan’s retelling of the myth. She couldn’t remember WHEN it happened, and I can’t remember WHO it happened to!
But yeah, essentially, boy tends cattle. Sees lots of girls running about being coquettish and bathing and the like. Meets especially pretty girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Love is forbidden. Immortal goddess separates them. Boy commits suicide. (Oh, tear!) Goddess feels guilty (or sorry for them, perhaps. Whatever, I’m telling this story now). Allows them to meet once a year, when crows (or some other bird) build a bridge between where he is and where she is. This is either about this time of year, or in the eleventh month. Dan doesn’t remember. All Chinese people pray it doesn’t rain that day so the bridge stays whole and lovers can meet.
Cute, huh?

We exhausted the rooms and even the courtyard. We became frustrated as the term “Armilla” was unsatisfyingly defined in print and example. We decided to make the climb through the sun, or whatever it is that Beijing claims to be sun, to the top of the building with all the inviting pointy things we’d seen from the street. We took photos. There are further frustrating literary and visual mentions of armilla (armillae? Armillas? Armillam? Armillorum? Armillis? I don’t know). There’s a globe, a huge sextant and some other dragon-clad astronomical doohickeys. It’s hot. We take more photos, wonder where the people flying the kites we can see are standing, and how they’d wind in that much string when the novelty wore off. Then we went back to the shady courtyard where it was cooler to rest. All in all a very peaceful place. Surprisingly so, being in the middle of Beijing with huge buildings all around.

We then partook of the next part of my little Beijing trip, as is so often the case when on holiday – you do something next. Beijing train Adventure No. 2.
We got on a train for one stop. There was a station right outside the Observatory and the next station was right outside the Silk Markets. There I spent all but 36 kuai on various bits and pieces. I obviously didn’t bring enough money though. I bought a pair of sunglasses for 80 kuai (far too much, but since the woman started at something nearer to 300 I guess I was stupid to think she wouldn’t go lower. Hey, I was too tired to divide by 6 in my head by then.
I also bought two watches for 275 kuai which was pretty cheap actually. It was frightening though, as the woman kept trying to show how the one that was for me was such good quality by attacking the face with a sharp screwdriver to show how scratch resistant it was. I’m thinking, shit, I’m about to buy that thing!
As it turns out the clasp which worked ok when I bought the watch soon started popping out, so we’ll have to go back at some point (looking like Tuesday at this point) to yell at her and get a replacement and try to get some money back.
I can’t think of anything else I bought.

We came back home for a bit. Apparently everyone was going to somewhere called Salsa Carribe (sp?) which sounded heaps cool because of the salsa bit, but apparently was more along the lines of sitting around drinking while watching Chinese people dance funnily.
Dan didn’t want to have to go back to the city at midnight for a few hours for the not-so-surprise birthday party of someone she didn’t really like, so we stayed in Wudaokou instead and listened to live music at Lush. Rich, some 29 year old dude from Australia somewhere, opened with a weird version of Wonderwall. It made me sad and not a little homesick. I prefer the Happy Hippies. While we were there, I re-met Andrew of Mona Vale (and Trinity *sniggers*) fame. He heard where we were going on Saturday, and decided to accompany us. That was very nice of him actually. Ang was also with us for a bit. Oh! I forgot to mention we went for dinner to this rather nice restaurant with Ang, Adrian and Liz to eat spicy food. Well I didn’t eat the spicy food, just some rice, for the sake of my stomach. But then I don’t like spicy food much anyway. Ang kept extolling the virtues of this Chinese herbal crap he takes whenever he gets “lao qu” (sp? I’ll ask Dan later), literally “spicy stomach” I’m told. But it essentially means the runs.
Oh did I mention, here in Beijing pretty much everyone talks about crap all the time. You’ll always hear people going on about their “da bian” habits. It’s weird, but a bit… no, it’s weird that people are so open.

We came back home and went to sleep.

Saturday: The Summer Palace

We awoke reasonably early to meet Andrew at Ximer at 10:30 am. I was going to get up earlier to have a shower, but I was afraid that I’d be accosted by one of the cleaning women if I was still in there when she turned up. I didn’t feel up to it, frankly. Anyway, it turns out they don’t come on the weekends, so my excuse for laziness was ill-founded.

We met Andrew and headed towards Wudaokou and Beijing Bus Adventure No. 1. We had breakfast at Tous les Jours, I may have mentioned it before, this Chinese idea of a bakery. I may have also said before that I don’t know how they manage to pull of the bakery concept so well in other countries, but manage to fuck it up so badly in their own. Everything is ridiculously sweet! Almost to the point of unpalatability. I also found they had an Iced Chocolate on the menu. This was like water mixed with chocolate and topped with cream. The best part was the cream.

We got to the bus stop, caught the appropriate bus, which didn’t have windows you could open, and sat in relative air-conditioned comfort as reigning backseat bandits all the way to the Summer Palace. All for an exorbitant 2 quai. It’s about at this point that I realize it’s Saturday, not Friday, and I meant to message Noa. But my mobile, and her mobile number is back in Dan’s room somewhere. So, my deepest apologies Noa, I fucked up.

The Summer Palace

I’d say all in all we spent about three hours here. And it was hot for all of them. I, being a non-student bought a ticket that got me into everything. Dan and Andrew, being students, showed their Chinese student cards, got in half price, and then found out their tickets let them basically in the main gate and nowhere else.

I guess that meant I got to look through a few more grubby windows at the wonders locked up in the dark inside than they did. And see a few minutes of a music performance (have video, will show).
I paid an extra 10 kuai to climb up a lot of stairs in the sun to try to get a view from up high in some part of the Palace. I forget the name, I guess I’ll find a map and work out where exactly it was one day soon. While I was there, apparently some mother had held her kid over a sheet of newspaper and he had happy da bian’d a sloppy yellow mess into it. To crown it all a man passing stubbed out his cigarette in the pile. Dan keeps saying, “I wish I’d gotten a photo of it!”

We walked right around the I-don’t-know-which-direction shore of the lake, until we got to the marble boat. Then we hopped on a ferry boat and went back across the lake in the direction of where we had come from. We crossed the 17-arch Bridge to Pleasure Island. Jokes ensued. We enjoyed the calm, breezy atmosphere out on the island. It was nicest there (and in the bit I had to pay extra to get into), because there were so few people there. It was free to get to the island, but I guess the 200m walk in direct sunlight discouraged some of the less determined tourists.

We had another rest, and decided it was about time to head in the direction of home. We raced out the nearest exit, asked a rickshaw driver which way to get back to the busstop. He told us the direction we thought was right anyway, so we headed off down the road in high hopes. Enter Beijing Walking Adventure No. 2.
We walked for ages, but mostly it was shady. Then there was a sort of driveway that followed the Palace wall on the left, and the main road forking to the right. We followed the main road. We walked about another 200 metres in the sun before someone spoke up about the fact that they thought we might be heading in the wrong direction. As it happened, we were. The bus stop and the main entrance we had arrived at were in the direction we were heading, but also near the palace wall. We should have followed it at that driveway-ish thing. We had walked along another wall that enclosed that area as well.

But not to worry, as we arrived we saw our bus back to Wudaokou, hopped on and headed home. In deference to our plans to visit the Great Wall on Monday, Dan and I decided to leave Andrew at BLCU and wander down to Wudoakou Markets so Dan could purchase for herself a pair of shorts. She did so, I bought a hat, and we cabbed it back to Dan’s dorm, because by then we were truly buggered.

I failed to find the bit of paper Noa’s Chinese mobile number was written on. Again, my fault. Deepest apologies, Noa. We finally finished watching Stage Beauty, which was really good, then we went out for dinner with Tenisha, whose not-so-surprise-birthday we had evaded earlier. With us were Ang, Adrian, Liz, Dara, and some other people I hadn’t met before. Someone had given Tenisha a ridiculous number of red roses for some reason or other, possibly her birthday, or because she was leaving, or both, and she distributed them amongst us accordingly. I put them in an empty coke bottle with some water and they have recovered their ordeal of being brought through Wudaokou Streets rather nicely.

On the way back, Dan and I started a conversation that went on for ages. But I shan’t mention it here, except to say a lot of giggling was involved. And a bit of frustration on my part.

And in other good news, through Ang’s contacts, we have a free lift to Simatai and back. And all we have to do is talk English to our driver, the son of a friend of one of Ang’s teachers.

Michael, I miss you. And yeah… I miss you.

Sunday: Placatory Visit to Dashanzi

Skip this paragraph if you just don’t want to know:
This morning, I thought, I hoped, I dreamed, I even prayed, that I might have my own little da bian to look after. I waited and waited, and thought I may have gone right through the lao qu crap to the other side of the deal. Then I thought I’d help the process along a bit by eating some breakfast. I had some cookies. And now I can safely say that lao qu is still with me, Not *quite* so bad as in previous days, but annoying nevertheless.

We slept in until about 12, or maybe even 1pm.
Dashanzi is this sort of art gallery district somewhere to the north east of Beijing. Dan’s father has been telling Dan to visit it for ages, and of course, because a parent suggested it, she refused for a very long time. Since I am here now, I too got the make-Dan-go-to-Dashanzi speech on the phone. So in order to prevent future Dashanzi based diatribes, we decided to go.

We hopped in a taxi, and I guess because of the lateness of the hour, it only cost a bit more than 30 kuai to get there. Awesome, huh?

The place turns out to be this little pseudo-industrial area off a main road with about thirty little galleries, studios and cafes everywhere. We spent a pleasant few hours burrowing around these little galleries wishing we could afford the artworks.
Me, I had sudden huge urges to buy plates. There were these gorgeous dishes being sold in one of the galleries. It took me a while of gushing over them to remember that I didn’t have a home in which to put plates. Nor did I have spare luggage weight. Such is life.
At one of the places, I wanted to buy a t-shirt. It was cool, but it was 200 kuai, so I’m like, “Hah, no thanks.” *cries*

We saw architecture, weird birdcages, prints, paintings, pretty much every form of art you can imagine. Tres cool.
We stopped for lunch at this trendy looking restaurant/café thing in one of the bigger galleries, and had some DELICIOUS pasta. Wow, I mean seriously, I was surprised how good it was.

There were also a few fashion shops and flea market-ish things. We completed our tour of the galleries.
OMG before I forget, there was this Italian exhibition, and one of the pieces was a video with all these cartoons like Peanuts, the Simpsons, Beavis and Butthead, Popeye, miscellaneous Disney characters. They were all spliced together and did very strange and creepy things. But it was SO funny!

We got back pretty early, and decided to have a bike adventure to the Muslim Restaurant. That was pretty good actually. I couldn’t eat much though. But I’ll go into that more later.
We went to the Friendship Store and bought some snacks for the trip to Simatai. They sold Kraft products there, AND had Uncle Toby’s Muesli Bars. Yummo! We also got sandwiches from one of the cafes in the uni.

I woke up in the night, and my ear hurt, and my eye hurt. My ear felt like some sort of infection. I took out my contacts and hoped like hell my eye wasn’t in the same condition.

Monday: Simatai

So, we got up REALLY early. And I ate a bagel for breakfast. And Dan had an Iced Mocha from some crappy coffee shop on campus as we waited for Ang to make the trek down from Wudaokou to Nanmen. We were meeting our lift for the first time. Ang told us to call him Bo.
My eye still hurt, and was a bit like the insane male teacher from Daria, so I went to sleep for most of the 2 and a half hour drive to Simatai.

Once we got there, the air was beautiful. I started to feel better. It was pretty hazy, but not too hot, which facilitated the walking we were going to be doing. Dan looked up and was not impressed by the amount of walking we’d have to do.
We meandered up the side of the mountains around some artificial lakes up to where the wall came down from he mountain to cross the river and continue off into the distance. Once there we turned left and went upwards and onwards.

Look, it’s difficult to describe all this, so if you really want to know, come talk to me and I’ll show you the photos.

At some point this woman joined us, a guide. Now we never asked her to, and she didn’t do much except say that this part of the wall was 25 years old, and that part was 400 years old. She mostly harried Bo, the only native speaker, to buy stuff.
We walked as far as we were allowed, to Tower 12, I think it was, and stopped for lunch. It was here she started in on us in earnest. Books, postcards, t-shirts, you name it – she had it and wanted to sell it to us. Eventually much to Ang’s, Dan’s and my dismay, Bo fobbed her off by buying three t-shirts for us. Then she disappeared, and we finished lunch in peace.

We turned back and headed downwards. Now I knew this would be the hardest part, on the calves, thighs and knees. By the time we got all the way back to the… I guess the bottom of the part of the wall we had walked on, it was Jelly Town down there.
Oh I forgot to mention! They were actually reconstructing parts of the wall while we were on it. Have photos, will show.

So we got back to the flying fox place. I may not have mentioned it yet here, but it was on all our minds because we had to walk past it to get to the wall, and we had planned to catch it back down. Now I was pretty much pissing myself at the thought of it, but I knew I would regret not doing it. It didn’t drop that fast, nor did it actually move that fast. I think there was a lot of friction happening somewhere to make sure you didn’t really zip right the way down.
There was even a plaque saying it had passed safety inspections. But it worried me when I realized that the harnesses you used were normal rock-climbing harnesses (which was fine) but the straps were twisted and they didn’t seem very interested in making them at all tight. But I survived and that’s the main thing.
Then we went across the lake on this boat which meant we had less to walk to get back to the car.

The trip back to Beijing was uneventful, except when we got to Xueyuan Road, all of us expected Bo to turn right, and when he turned left, we were shocked, appalled and confused, until we remembered that we’d tentatively agreed to go back to his place for dinner with his mother. Oh the annoyance – we were so looking forward to going home, showering and sleeping.
Dinner was uneventful, I mostly watched TV and ate while everyone else spoke a mixture of English and Chinese. I’m still of the pseudo-convinced-opinion that I can’t speak to anyone here, so even if I can, I don’t.
Bo’s mum was really nice, and so was the food she cooked. I should mention that the reason Bo drove us at all was because his dad knows Ang and wanted us to speak English with him so he could practice.

Once we’d made our graceful retirement from Bo’s home, and he’d dropped us back at uni, Dan and I wandered back to the hairdressers/massage place and got, you guessed it, 10 kuai massages and hair washes. Mmmm. We’re going back Friday too, so we don’t have to wash our hair again ourselves this trip.
We watched Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, then went to bed.

Tuesday: Hospital Adventure

My ear still hurt and I didn’t want to go on the plane with an ear infection, or risk it getting worse or something, so Dan took me to Beijing Something Something Hospital. I don’t like going to hospitals when I know what the problem with me is. I think I may have complained a bit too much. There doesn’t seem to be anything like a GP around here, at least for foreigners. Of course, this all means that later I’m going to have an Insurance Adventure. Oh frabjous day!

The hospital was very depressing. We didn’t have to wait that long comparatively, but I think we’d dropped in right about the time lunch was, so we had to wait a bit. The doctor was very nice and spoke pretty good English, which was handy. I had/have other medical problems at the moment, but I’m going to trust they’ll last until Sydney/Sunday morning. I planned to go to the doctor’s on the way home from the airport anyway, but yeah I’ve got a huge list of things to ask about now.

Anyway, we bailed from the hospital pretty quickly, and ended up cabbing it down to the Temple of Heaven. We could have gone ot the silk markets which was indoors, but I forgot the watch I need to go yell at them about, so we had to go out in the drizzle instead.
Temple of Heaven was beautiful. A lovely park, though it seemed like you couldn’t get onto the grass anywhere. Despite the rain and it being a weekday, there were thousands of people there. Scary huh?
We were walking down one of those circle-y temple step thingies (I’m so eloquent, huh?) when I slipped on the wet marble and my thong plug came out. Now these Roxy thongs I own, they have an extra layer on the bottom, so you cant see the plugs underneath. Let me tell you it was a BITCH to push that one back through. I ended up using Dan’s keys to force it back. There’s another reason to go to Bondi Junction, to see the doctor and to get new thongs.

We ate lunch at some greasy spoon place just south (?) of the Temple of Heaven. I was actually pretty damn good. Then we cabbed it back to BLCU and watched Broken Flowers while we waited for Ang and dinner. I am SO sick of watching Bill Murray stare blankly at things.

Ang turned up and we wandered down through Nanmer on to the other end of Wudaokou to this restaurant to get Beijing Duck. We ordered way too much food, and as usual if cost a little over $6 per person. Damn it was good.
We came back and watched Saving Face. Michael is forbidden to watch it on account of it having Chinese lesbians in it.

I still can’t find my hair brush.

Wednesday: Silk Markets

Dan found my hairbrush not long after I wrote that ^^.

Hiya, ya’ll.
Dan got to sleep really late last night, so I let her sleep in until about 11ish. Then we got ready for going out and headed to Grandma’s Kitchen again. Mmmm those milkshakes are like NOTHING else! The taxi dropped us on the other side of the street, and we were accosted by little kids trying to get under our feet so they could beg for money. It was like, OMG get out of the way!

Walking out of Grandma’s towards the Friendship Store, we were accosted by another child beggar. This kid, I swear to god, was no more than about 10, dressed all in pink, had weird vacant eyes and, to top it all off, a full moustache!
This was creepy on untold levels

Went to the Friendship Store and wandered upstairs until we found the official Beijing 2008 souvenir place. I bought a cute doll and five keyrings, all for less than $25. Only in China, eh?

Then we wandered down to the Silk Markets. First stop was the top floor where I got my watch exchanged. In hindsight, the new one has a dodgy looking band and some metal fatigue. But I SO don’t care any more.
Then we went down... to buy robes. I ended up paying almost as much as I would in Sydney for considerably shittier merchandise, but sui bian, whatever. Then I had to take out more money :( Then we went further down, and bought me a big duffle bag. Dan made me try to bargain for it. And I almost fucked it up, she saved the day memorably!

We stopped for a coffee, then wandered back inside to get some scrolls and those red things that Chinese people like to hang everywhere. Apparently, there was this hilarious conversation between Dan and the woman shopkeeper.

      Dan: They’re all different.
      Woman: They’re done by students, not by anyone famous...
      Man: interrupting Oh yes, they’re done by masters, that’s why they’re more expensive.
      Woman: I just said they were done by students.

Bahahaha! Anyway, then we went back to the top floor to see if I could get anything for people. I got some Gameboy Games for Chris, some funny cards, a seal and a Mao hat for Dad. Suddenly, it appeared we were done. So we cabbed it back to Wudaokou and had barely a few minutes to delight in our purchases before it was time for dinner and meeting everyone at Wudaokou station to go out for Shanghainese food.

Joining us this pleasant night were Ang, Liz and Owen. Now Owen had been repeatedly calling Dan in the middle of the night to see where people were out, when in reality, she was asleep in bed with me (asleep, until he called anyway). Funny dude, Owen.
Anyway. We got to the restaurant, almost decided it was a bit too swish for us but stopped because apparently we did want Shanghainese food. We ordered and ate. A nice, but you know, fairly ordinary meal. I don’t care, it cost me like $A6, so it’s all good, yeah?
What was more interesting was the conversation. Somehow we started going on about abortions and then threesomes, and then bi-threesomes, and then whether a straight guy would prefer to have a more or less attractive guy in a threesome with another girl. Hilarity ensued.

Xizhimen, being an interchange station, well... we almost went to the wrong platform (considering the two lines come in at completely different places, like they’re not even connected or anything, this is quite a feat), and almost missed one of the last trains back to Wudaokou.

We made it though, and got icecream at the station. I got a Vienetta on a stick. It looked SO good on the package, but the real deal didn’t have nearly as much chocolate in it as I should have. I’m buying one (a big one) on Sunday arvo, yeah baby!
We made it back to the dorms and buggerized around a bit, then went to bed.

Thursday: Zoo Crazy

I spent most of the morning organizing my photos to be printed. Excitement! So when I got Dan out of bed, we went to the photo store to put them in to be printed. And they didn’t come up on the computer there. All corrupted or someshit. Boohoo. We went for lunch at this little Korean place, which rewarded Dan with a sore stomach and myself with a rather satisfying bowel movement some time later, near the Gibbon house.

You may have guessed we ended up going to Beijing Zoo. Dan didn’t like it. The enclosures weren’t nearly as bad as I was expecting. It was more the state of some of the animals and the behaviour of the Chinese visitors that appalled me. Basically all we saw was the Pandas, some water birds, flamingos, some other exotic horn-billed birds and lots of parrots (and one very sick looking sulphur crested cockatoo), and the giraffes. Around the end of the birds and near the giraffes I was overcome by my bowels and ran off in the direction of the toilets (the closest of which WERE NOT by the Gibbon House, but that’s what it said on the first map I saw). I didn’t actually see any gibbons, because I went back to visit Dan, who was suffering her sore stomach on a bench somewhere.

After a few minutes, we agreed that seeing as it was nearly 3pm, and the Planetarium across the street was about to shut at 4pm, we should bail and go there instead. It was very strange there. Very super cool, and no WAY did it shut at 4, but that’s what it said in the guide book, so that’s what we went by. We bought tickets to Dino Island II: Escape from Dino Island. It was in the “Space Simulator” so Dan thought we’d get some sort of journey through space, as it turned out we got a badly dubbed American 3D movie thing about a journo escaping from a highly volcanic and dino-infested island. The hilarious!
The best bit was when you let yourself overreact to the huge 3D creatures flying at you from the screen. Although maybe the screaming over the huge mozzies fluttering in our faces was slightly realistic.

I swear to god, this building was the coolest I’ve seen in a while, and in terms of exhibitions, parts of it put such places as Questacon and the Powerhouse to shame. Dan said that if it wasn’t for the obnoxious Chinese kids running around, she could almost believe she wasn’t in China.
I swear to god, when they’re not being unbearably cute and shouting “Hallo!” at you, they’re little shits!
Oh yeah, and some guy asked to take a photo with me. I said yes, the loser :P Then Dan and I had a long discussion about how we wouldn’t run up to the first Eskimo or native American we saw and say, “OMG, can I take a photo with you, ethnic friend?”

We cabbed it back to Wudaokou Markets. We were going to get our nails done, and do a bit more shopping for the folks back home. We ended up not staying long, but I bought a pair of earrings for one of my cousins, and ordering some keyrings for the others. They’re funny keyrings. I got extra. Maybe you’ll be lucky enough for me to bestow one graciously upon you.
We’re going back Friday so I can get my nails done and have a proper look for something for my aunts and grandmother. And mother. I always forget about the women in my family for some reason. Could it be, perhaps that I don’t get emails from them informing me exactly how many more days of duty-free shopping I have before their immanent birthdays? Possibly, possibly...

We recopied the photos, and went back to the photo shop. They’ll be done by about 6pm Friday. Yay!

Suddenly we were headed back to Wudaokou Station to meet Ang. And Liz and her Jap roommate, and the roommate’s friend. No one thought it proper to introduce us, and I’m a wimp. We had a pretty good dinner. I think the Jap girls wanted to go to a Japanese restaurant, but we ended up going to a Chinese restaurant where the women out the front were in little black velvet dresses. Good god.
Nevertheless, it cost less than $A7 for dinner. The waitress got pissed off because Liz ordered too many “snacks” instead of meals. LAWL!

Did I mention I’m a wimp? I could have tried to include the Jap girls in the conversation by talking to them in Japanese. (Aimei, Ang and Liz and everyone else spoke English). But I couldn’t think of ANYTHING to say to them.
They didn’t look like they were enjoying the meal much, and all I could think of was to say, “Ryouri no chyuugoku ga suki desuka?” while grinning. I ended up only saying, “Oishii desune?” But what we were eating was ribs, and WAS goddamn tasty.

After the meal, Dan and I decided to go to the Starbucks downstairs to coffee-fy or chocolate-ify (in my case) and get to packing all the stuff Dan is leaving here while she goes back to Sydney. We played a round of Spit, and I was the disputed winner, though she’ll tell you different.

Back at the dorm, fevered packing, we begin to worry about how much all the bags weigh, and how much we can in good conscience give to some random (a friend’s bf) to look after. We lugged both our bags downstairs to weigh them on scales that weren’t there. Broken apparently. *cries*
Then I thought up the idea that we could send some stuff to Dan’s father’s work in Hong Kong. Not to send back to Australia, as was the general idea, but to be sent back at the appropriate time when Dan gets back. Minimal cost oh yeah. And hey, if by some fucked up chance I’m overweight too, I can send stuff back the same route! Yay!

It’s about 3am now. Sleepy-time! Bu-byes!

Friday: Bum Bum

We (I) woke up to Dan’s 9:00, 9:05 and 9:10am alarms. At about 9:30, the cleaner came in, so I felt it was safe to get up. Then at about 9:45, someone came in wanting to check the smoke detector. Fair enough, I say.

Dan got up a few minutes before 10. And we left the room at about 10:30 to go to the hairdressers for massages. Mmmm, massages. I ate three-quarters of a packet of 5 kuai Oreos and felt sick. Dan had street breakfast. It looked good, but I reckon it would have been better with bacon than pork. Mmmm bacon.
I lucked out on the hair wash – they forgot to condition, but oh well. I paid less than two bucks for it, what can I expect?
We came back and bought a box from the post office. Dan’s sending some stuff to her Dad’s work to be sent back in a month. Oh, I forgot to mention that today was ABSOLUTELY gorgeous! Stunning blue skies, no pollution haze, and a nice (but hot) breeze. My hair was almost dry from the walk back to the dorm.

Then we waited and researched our various transitive airports for things to alleviate boredom. Not much in all, really, but we will survive.
I carried Dan’s DVD player and this wooden and material sort of foldaway basket thing. Dan carried her enormous fob bag to Ximen. Soon after that Michael and this random friend of his came and did the manly carrying of the gear to Michael’s flat, which was a little bit closer than the hairdresser, in fact.

We convinced them to come to lunch with us, Ang and Liz, seeing as Liz is leaving tonight. They ended up staying only long enough to say goodbye to Liz, and then buggered off to do something more productive.
We went to this Chinese restaurant near the Xijiao Hotel. And we were joined by three Japanese people, one who was VERY nice and actually talkative, and who I have a very flattering photo of, called Meyumi. She was so nice, and talked to me about some time she’d spent in Sydney and how wonderful the Fish Markets were. I think I spoke terrible Japanese, but nevertheless, I did say some things, of which I was very proud of. I guess it helped that she spoke a bit of English. Helped me, that is, not her. She was getting a bit flustered keeping up in Chinese, English and Japanese at the same time. Still, a really enjoyable meal.
We got these apple things that were covered in a sugar syrup, and when you picked them up, they left cotton candy-ish yellow trails across the table. They went rock solid in a few minutes, but while they weren’t completely stuck to the plate, they were delish!

Dan and I made our farewells to those we wouldn’t be seeing again, and bailed to Wudaokou to pick up the stuff we’d ordered yesterday, and get some more stuff. We got our nails done. Same pattern, different colours. Dan got the thin fake nails they do here. I got little fake diamond things put in my flowers. So cute! While we were there, one of the sons of the women who worked in the nail stall (I guess) came in with a few fake nails and asked to have them glued on. So cute! And the women obliged. One of them told Dan that he saw all the ladies coming in to get them and he thought they were pretty, so he wanted ones for himself. D’awww...

I was finished before Dan, but dint of having my own nails. Actually Dan has her own nails now anyway, but chooses to still get fakes. *shrugs*
So yeah, I went off to find the woman I had ordered the keyrings off the day before, and I eventually found her, had my first solo Chinese conversation, did ok too. I was pretty polite, but rather succinct :P Anyway, I got my stuff, and found some more things to buy on my wander back to Dan who was still yet to finish her nails.
Then I made Dan come with me and at the very least start the bargaining for me. I got another t-shirt, some new sandals and a wallet. Oh and some hair bobbles. Yeah. Coolness.

We decided to walk back to uni form the markets. Oh I should mention that Dan had been ducking and hiding from this big Toga dude (“the bane of my Chinese existence”), and as we started walking back, we noticed that he was pretty much right behind us. We tried to accelerate, but he’d noticed her and was pssting and “Danyelle!”ing in his Fransch assant. Anyway, I’ve never seen Dan do such an impressive backflip: “Grumble, grumble, rude words, omg hey SEBASTIAN!” And launched into a French tirade, some of which I understood.
Then he talked to Dan for a bit, and then asked what I was doing there (most of this was in French, and I spoke a bit of French but mostly English, and mostly nothing at all). Then he asked when Dan was leaving, and whether I was leaving at the same time. And Dan, mishearing his question, said no, then said yes, then he thought she was lying and asked me, and I said I was leaving, and he was like, “I’d like to be your friend.” And I’m like, “Oh really?” and Dan’s yabbering on in French about how bad and naughty he is, and how I have a boyfriend, and he’s saying why is she saying these things to him, she’s not my mother, why is she answering for me? And why can’t a girl have a boy friend (N.B. space)? And will he see us before we leave?
Me being slightly ignorant of most of this, but guessing some, was just trying not to laugh at the idea of this “suave” French speaking black dude trying to pick up in the middle of a Beijing intersection. Dan said we had to go to a shop on the other side of the street to where he was going, and we hid in a doorway for a few minutes until he’d disappeared.

Then we got back to uni and picked up my photos. They look teh awesome. Liebe ich. Now it’s about 6:40 and we’re planning to get dressed and go out to Lush up in Wudaokou for dinner and to listen to some music before we go back to Shidonii.

Unless something particularly interesting happens tomorrow, I probably won’t write about it, so adios amoebas!

Now it’s eleven, I’ll tell you about Lush. It was nice. Rich was making eyes at Dan when we left. There was nice music, this Virginian dude Jason played a song about Jane Austen. The chorus went something like, “Jane Austen ruined my life, now I’ll never get a wife.” Teh funny.
We had Mud pie. It was good.

Some things I’d like to comment on before I leave:

Velour: everything in the shops is velour. It’s disgusting. What, is it fashionable or something?

Traffic: The traffic is insane here. Road rules are rarely observed, and seatbelts are a frigging luxury. I’ll think twice before screaming, “Way to indicate, asth-fasthe!” in future.