Peoplerebluik. Of China Part 25 - Day 18 Continued... NYE in BeijingAfter we survived our flight from China (snow next to runway and all) – we were greeted by our friends from Canberra – Kip and Dan – whom we were staying at their place whilst in Beijing. Dan is working for three years with a Chinese lawfirm – and Kip – Dan’s wife – was a fashion designer back in Ozland – but she is only on a “Housewife” visa (her name for it) and can’t work in China.
After a short taxi ride to their place (only costing 70 Yuan – cheap) we arrived at Kip and Dan’s place. Their apartment is near the 3rd Ring Road – so it is pretty central, and is right next door to the Liufang metro stop – so it was convenient for us as well…!
The apartment was pretty huge (2 beddie, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a big living area) complete with a Toy Poodle puppy by the name of Louie. Louie, a boy, was only 6 months old and was really cute and really loved to “play fightie” all the time. Kip and Dan need to pretty much smug$le him out of the country in order to bring Louie to Australia. The problem isn’t bringing Louie into Australia (as he’ll be in quarantine for 6-8 weeks or something) – the problem is getting Louie out of China. Although you can apparently take dogs through Hong Kong then to Australia.
Dan’s work is very convenient for him – right across the road and seems to have an interesting time doing contracting work (including translating contracts from engrish to Chinese and vice versa). He speaks fluent Mandarin but gets completely sick of locals asking him how he picked up the language (happens on a very regular basis).
Our room was the “sweat shop room” (as we like to call it). It was full of Kip’s hardcore sewing machines and clothes making stuff – and we joked that we had to start making clothes – sweat shop style – in order to stay at their place…
After a quick coffee made by Kip and her espresso machine (best coffee in China) – we headed out to a nearby Antique (or should that be “antique”) and Furniture Market. For us – it gave us an opportunity to buy some souvenirs and gifts – and for Kip and Dan – it gave them an opportunity to buy some knick-knacks and Chinese furniture.
The markets were huge and full of anything Chinese you could think off. There were a huge range of propaganda posters – most of which looked like the stuff that was at the market back in Xi’an – which makes you wonder if there is a factory producing “old” propaganda posters – I’d put $$ on it.
We haggled and picked up a few “Waving Mao Clocks” as presents (communist kitsch) and I had one thing that I wanted to buy - a “Heavenly God dancing on a Midget” statue. I had seen a few old statues at some of the museums – so I thought that I might be able to pick one up here. Although there were a few “Heavenly God dancing on Midget” statues – they weren’t really what I was looking for as the market versions of the statue were a bit “meaner” than the version in my head…
Kip was buying heaps of paper chinese lanterns and some replacement cushion covers to replace the ones that Louie had destroyed. Ant and I used Dan’s excellent Mandarin skills in order to haggle for an old Mah-jong Box and set. We ended up getting a classy old Mah-jong Box (a sort of cube box deal) which looked really old (Kip said it was “gorgeous”) and the Mah-jong tile set for 150 yuan – which hwe were happy with.
Something klassy with a “K” that caught all of our attention was an “antique” ceramic cabbage ornament – which would look great at anyone’s entrance place to their house…
We headed for lunch to a “Peking Duck” restaurant recommended by Kip and Dan – although when we arrived – we found out that we would have to wait 1 hour for the duck to be ready… We ordered from the menu instead – and Dan picked out some interesting pork, eggplant, more pork and candied-yam dishes. The “Candied-Yam” dish was really interesting – they serve it to you straight away and you need to dip the bits of yam into a bowl of water otherwise everything crystallises together and it becomes really hard to break apart using chopsticks. Although there was no duck – we all agreed that we had a great lunch.
After lunch – we headed for all of the furniture shops – where Dan and Kip seemed to be on a mission to get a Chinese Day Bed (probably the best invention on the planet). There was one bed where the price was about 12,000 yuan less than any other day bed – but you need to have decent bargaining skills at the furniture shops otherwise you could get ripped.
We checked out what Kip and Dan call “Glasses City” – it is basically a prescription glasses/sunglasses district with heaps of little shops that can do up your prescription in about 20 minutes all at a cheap cheap price (about 200 yuan per pair or $35AUD). Ant and I got some glasses and sunglasses made up whilst Kip got a new pair of sunnies. Kip then dissed Dan for having 20-20 vision… We also wandered up into a big indoor centre where you can see them making up glasses – although there wasn’t all that much to see on a NYE. We loved all of the coloured contact lenses you could buy from the centre – including the standard bloodshot set, the cat eyes set and the nuke sign set (a great one for going into America by plane whilst sporting a beard). Dan mentioned that he spots heaps of Chinese girls with “blue eyes” – no doubt from all of the coloured contact lenses.
We headed back to the apartment for a quick brandy and then a 90 minute sleep (Ant and I were completely desperate for sleep given the lack of it in Xi’an).
Kip and Dan have this huge “home theatre” set up with a projector and surround sound stereo. Santa was especially good to Dan this year when he got a Xbox 360 imported from Australia. I had a few goes at their car racing game but I was totally shi#e at it. Ant also displayed our shopping triumphs from elsewhere in China. We grabbed out the Mao DVD – only to discover that it is a Mao song Karaoke DVD – all in Chinese. And most of the backgrounds used in the songs aren’t very communistic (just random shots of the country side or sometimes – Government buildings)…! There was an amusing song where you could see a mini-bus driver speeding through a hairpin corner on the wrong side of the road – we have now video proof of bad Chinese drivers!
Ant wasn’t feeling the best tonight – he has been sort of coming down with a cold (no thanks to the one I’ve got from Xi’an) – and when Dan made some “Jelly Donut” shooters for us – I took one for the team and had Ant’s for him.
We didn’t really have any super big plans for NYE – Kip was very apologetic – but we didn’t mind because Ant wasn’t feeling 100% (neither was I) and we were both pretty tired. We took a taxi out to the “Bar Road”. It is a series of bars packed full of ex-pats. No wonder – as most embassies are located near the Bar Road. We went to a place called “The Tree” which was a Belgium Beer Bar in Beijing (the irony didn’t escape us!).
We met up with a few Beijing friends of Kip and Dan’s – a mixture of expats and Chinese guys. One person – who was a journalist working for the state controlled Xin Huh – said she was watching “An Inconvenient Truth” one day and almost had a fit seeing herself in the documentary (aii! A celebrity!)… She had said she was talking about Hurricane Katrina – but was taking out of context in the documentary and it had made her sound like she was talking about global warming… She also said that she had to sign a “Legal Waiver” – so that they could use her footage in the movie – but she never had expected to appear in it… She has a Aussie fiancé and they are going to be moving to Canberra soon. She is really gunning for a job in SBS – I could so see her reading the SBS World News – she has way better pronunciation than Lee Li Chin and she sort of has the look and persona that would attract a cult following on SBS.
I had finally learned some rude words in Chinese (so I can fire it off against the locals if they pi$$ me off) – I had semi-learned Sh#t and Fu## but the one I do remember is “Your Mother’s C###!”. All the Chinese at our table were laughing when I was sort of vaguely pronouncing it – but they said if I said it out on the street – you could get bashed up…
The NYE countdown was a little strange – no one seemed to be keeping track of what the time was. The bar owner was handing out dubious free bottles of beer (complete with a sexy Mrs Clause photo on the bottle – very NYE!) before midnight – and was handing out dodgy streamers, whistlers and party-poppers after midnight. I had heard a table were cheering at the other side of the bar – so I started my own midnight countdown – which everyone else followed.
After midnight – the bar brought out this really bad “Chinese version of the Eagles but with a female signer” band. They were about a 14 but we really needed them to be about a zero in terms of volume. I was half tempted to try using my new found Chinese sware skills on them – but (probably wisely) chose not to.
We had a great night – met lots of interesting people and dissed the government in a public forum. We must have left the place about 4am - where outside it was hella cold… only to return to the apartment where Louie had spread some NY’s joy around the house (when I said “joy” I meant “urinating all over the place”!).
After a short taxi ride to their place (only costing 70 Yuan – cheap) we arrived at Kip and Dan’s place. Their apartment is near the 3rd Ring Road – so it is pretty central, and is right next door to the Liufang metro stop – so it was convenient for us as well…!
The apartment was pretty huge (2 beddie, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen and a big living area) complete with a Toy Poodle puppy by the name of Louie. Louie, a boy, was only 6 months old and was really cute and really loved to “play fightie” all the time. Kip and Dan need to pretty much smug$le him out of the country in order to bring Louie to Australia. The problem isn’t bringing Louie into Australia (as he’ll be in quarantine for 6-8 weeks or something) – the problem is getting Louie out of China. Although you can apparently take dogs through Hong Kong then to Australia.
Dan’s work is very convenient for him – right across the road and seems to have an interesting time doing contracting work (including translating contracts from engrish to Chinese and vice versa). He speaks fluent Mandarin but gets completely sick of locals asking him how he picked up the language (happens on a very regular basis).
Our room was the “sweat shop room” (as we like to call it). It was full of Kip’s hardcore sewing machines and clothes making stuff – and we joked that we had to start making clothes – sweat shop style – in order to stay at their place…
After a quick coffee made by Kip and her espresso machine (best coffee in China) – we headed out to a nearby Antique (or should that be “antique”) and Furniture Market. For us – it gave us an opportunity to buy some souvenirs and gifts – and for Kip and Dan – it gave them an opportunity to buy some knick-knacks and Chinese furniture.
The markets were huge and full of anything Chinese you could think off. There were a huge range of propaganda posters – most of which looked like the stuff that was at the market back in Xi’an – which makes you wonder if there is a factory producing “old” propaganda posters – I’d put $$ on it.
We haggled and picked up a few “Waving Mao Clocks” as presents (communist kitsch) and I had one thing that I wanted to buy - a “Heavenly God dancing on a Midget” statue. I had seen a few old statues at some of the museums – so I thought that I might be able to pick one up here. Although there were a few “Heavenly God dancing on Midget” statues – they weren’t really what I was looking for as the market versions of the statue were a bit “meaner” than the version in my head…Kip was buying heaps of paper chinese lanterns and some replacement cushion covers to replace the ones that Louie had destroyed. Ant and I used Dan’s excellent Mandarin skills in order to haggle for an old Mah-jong Box and set. We ended up getting a classy old Mah-jong Box (a sort of cube box deal) which looked really old (Kip said it was “gorgeous”) and the Mah-jong tile set for 150 yuan – which hwe were happy with.
Something klassy with a “K” that caught all of our attention was an “antique” ceramic cabbage ornament – which would look great at anyone’s entrance place to their house…
We headed for lunch to a “Peking Duck” restaurant recommended by Kip and Dan – although when we arrived – we found out that we would have to wait 1 hour for the duck to be ready… We ordered from the menu instead – and Dan picked out some interesting pork, eggplant, more pork and candied-yam dishes. The “Candied-Yam” dish was really interesting – they serve it to you straight away and you need to dip the bits of yam into a bowl of water otherwise everything crystallises together and it becomes really hard to break apart using chopsticks. Although there was no duck – we all agreed that we had a great lunch.
After lunch – we headed for all of the furniture shops – where Dan and Kip seemed to be on a mission to get a Chinese Day Bed (probably the best invention on the planet). There was one bed where the price was about 12,000 yuan less than any other day bed – but you need to have decent bargaining skills at the furniture shops otherwise you could get ripped.
We checked out what Kip and Dan call “Glasses City” – it is basically a prescription glasses/sunglasses district with heaps of little shops that can do up your prescription in about 20 minutes all at a cheap cheap price (about 200 yuan per pair or $35AUD). Ant and I got some glasses and sunglasses made up whilst Kip got a new pair of sunnies. Kip then dissed Dan for having 20-20 vision… We also wandered up into a big indoor centre where you can see them making up glasses – although there wasn’t all that much to see on a NYE. We loved all of the coloured contact lenses you could buy from the centre – including the standard bloodshot set, the cat eyes set and the nuke sign set (a great one for going into America by plane whilst sporting a beard). Dan mentioned that he spots heaps of Chinese girls with “blue eyes” – no doubt from all of the coloured contact lenses.
We headed back to the apartment for a quick brandy and then a 90 minute sleep (Ant and I were completely desperate for sleep given the lack of it in Xi’an).
Kip and Dan have this huge “home theatre” set up with a projector and surround sound stereo. Santa was especially good to Dan this year when he got a Xbox 360 imported from Australia. I had a few goes at their car racing game but I was totally shi#e at it. Ant also displayed our shopping triumphs from elsewhere in China. We grabbed out the Mao DVD – only to discover that it is a Mao song Karaoke DVD – all in Chinese. And most of the backgrounds used in the songs aren’t very communistic (just random shots of the country side or sometimes – Government buildings)…! There was an amusing song where you could see a mini-bus driver speeding through a hairpin corner on the wrong side of the road – we have now video proof of bad Chinese drivers!
Ant wasn’t feeling the best tonight – he has been sort of coming down with a cold (no thanks to the one I’ve got from Xi’an) – and when Dan made some “Jelly Donut” shooters for us – I took one for the team and had Ant’s for him.
We didn’t really have any super big plans for NYE – Kip was very apologetic – but we didn’t mind because Ant wasn’t feeling 100% (neither was I) and we were both pretty tired. We took a taxi out to the “Bar Road”. It is a series of bars packed full of ex-pats. No wonder – as most embassies are located near the Bar Road. We went to a place called “The Tree” which was a Belgium Beer Bar in Beijing (the irony didn’t escape us!).
We met up with a few Beijing friends of Kip and Dan’s – a mixture of expats and Chinese guys. One person – who was a journalist working for the state controlled Xin Huh – said she was watching “An Inconvenient Truth” one day and almost had a fit seeing herself in the documentary (aii! A celebrity!)… She had said she was talking about Hurricane Katrina – but was taking out of context in the documentary and it had made her sound like she was talking about global warming… She also said that she had to sign a “Legal Waiver” – so that they could use her footage in the movie – but she never had expected to appear in it… She has a Aussie fiancé and they are going to be moving to Canberra soon. She is really gunning for a job in SBS – I could so see her reading the SBS World News – she has way better pronunciation than Lee Li Chin and she sort of has the look and persona that would attract a cult following on SBS.
I had finally learned some rude words in Chinese (so I can fire it off against the locals if they pi$$ me off) – I had semi-learned Sh#t and Fu## but the one I do remember is “Your Mother’s C###!”. All the Chinese at our table were laughing when I was sort of vaguely pronouncing it – but they said if I said it out on the street – you could get bashed up…
The NYE countdown was a little strange – no one seemed to be keeping track of what the time was. The bar owner was handing out dubious free bottles of beer (complete with a sexy Mrs Clause photo on the bottle – very NYE!) before midnight – and was handing out dodgy streamers, whistlers and party-poppers after midnight. I had heard a table were cheering at the other side of the bar – so I started my own midnight countdown – which everyone else followed.
After midnight – the bar brought out this really bad “Chinese version of the Eagles but with a female signer” band. They were about a 14 but we really needed them to be about a zero in terms of volume. I was half tempted to try using my new found Chinese sware skills on them – but (probably wisely) chose not to.
We had a great night – met lots of interesting people and dissed the government in a public forum. We must have left the place about 4am - where outside it was hella cold… only to return to the apartment where Louie had spread some NY’s joy around the house (when I said “joy” I meant “urinating all over the place”!).
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