The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Hey guys, sorry for the infrequent posts of late. We have been exceptionally busy and I’ve been putting off writing because I didn’t have any blog worthy pictures for you all. But that’s not the case anymore, so lets get straight into it!

Beijing is without a doubt an amazing place. From the awe inspiring Forbidden City to the crumbled ruins of the Great Wall, you can really lose yourself in the atmosphere of these impressive sites (unless you get too bogged down by the sheer number of other tourists that are ruining your experience!). While it may take you three hours to get to the Great Wall, you don’t have to look far to spot some of China’s cruel ways of life.

Poor turtles in the middle :(

Pets in Beijing are a mystery. Apart from the caged variety (birds, fish, etc) I don’t see the how you can raise a dog with such little public areas available. It’s a rare sight when you see someone walking their tiny dog though the massive hoards of people. There are various pet carts around our area which house various cute animals for sale. Despite their inherent cuteness nothing can hide the fact that the are housed in incredibly tiny cages. Our friend nearly bought a little white rabbit with hopes of saving it but was convinced at the last minute that there was nothing much she could do to rescue it. You also see homeless people with really cute little puppies. I don’t know how they manage to feed them but I can only assume their lives are short lived. Although the homeless people that live at the entrance to our subway station have managed to raise their dogs for as long as I’ve been here.

Pet stores are not at all cute

We went to a Hallowen party last week. For a first timer (we don’t celebrate Halloween from where we’re from) I was pretty impressed at what I saw. The party was located in 798, the art district of Beijing, in a converted warehouse. The theme was “fetish” so it was pretty much open to anything. Some of the costumes were insanely good. Some excellent male zombie brides – can’t believe they pulled this off, the makeup was amazing; the Invisible Man, Harry Potter, Tron and this awesome pack of stealthy ninjas. Oh yea, and we were the ninjas. It was a lot of fun and I think my friend put it best: “I now understand why ninjas are so stealthy. If anyone sees one they immediately want to take their photo.” Every time we got drinks at the other end of the warehouse we would be constantly interrupted for photos.

But it wasn’t all easy going. The actual lead up to the party was a nightmare. We didn’t settle on a costume until the second to last day and that was after some much needed prodding from DJ. I think he had been doing some investigating and found out how hard out this party actually was. So once we finally settled on ninjas there was the lengthy process of finding the costumes. For a city that sells pretty much anything, costumes stores are non-existent! We tried numerous shopping malls and asked countless people but we always received the same response: a look of bewilderment when DJ showed them the ninja picture on his phone, smiling and laughing, and then a something along the lines of “I don’t know.” Luckily DJ had done some serious homework and located the Hong Qiao markets. A place where they sell fake watches, bags, scarves, electronics, toys, material, etc. We ended up with what we wanted but boy did we have to work for a decent price. Some of these ladies are incredibly sneaky. When we tried to bargain for these plastic swords we ended up paying a price that we would pay get back home. Total ripoff (relatively). DJ described her bargaining approach as using “cute tactics”. I was just annoyed by the fact that she swindled us when we had the perfect game plan. It was nearing closing time, we tell her we have to go soon, don’t have much money and since we are buying 5 give us what we want. That should count for something, right? Instead she used the closing time tactic on us and before you know it we are walking away feeling like we just got played like a couple of fools. I blame DJ for falling for the cute tactics…... We all did a good job putting the pieces together and a special shout out to DJ for cutting most of the fabric and assembling the various components when the rest of us had other commitments.

So I heard winter in Beijing can get pretty cold…..well, I heard correctly! Within the span of 2 weeks the number of layers I am wearing has tripled. At the start of the month I was wearing just a t-shirt and I would still sweat profusely. Now it’s nearing November and I’m busting out the puffer jacket (down jacket) and hat. The scary part is that it hasn’t even snowed yet and the weather forecasters are predicting 2-4 heavy periods of snow this winter. A classmate who has lived in Beijing for a couple of years warned me of the wind. Apparently it gets so icy, you can actually snap you own hair in two (This sounds kind of cool but really bad if it’s true – I’ll update you guys if it is so). So please spare a thought for us if you are enjoying warm sunshine as you read this :(

So apart from class, studying, meeting up with language partners and tutoring English me and DJ are hanging with our friends. One thing that we have all been enjoying together is rekindling our childish love of video game arcades. One game in particular always keeps us coming back for more – Taiko no Tatsujin. It’s the Japanese drumming game that lets you take out all your frustrations to the beat of your favourite J-Pop songs. It’s especially rewarding if you are an anime fan like me and find music from Cowboy Bebop, Naruto, Bleach etc. I also enjoy the fighting games over here. In Beijing they have Tekken 6, Super Street Fighter IV, King of Fighters all lined up in a row. Each player has their own screen and fighting pad and they play opposite their opponents who have the exact same set up. I didn’t get a photo of this but I’ll try my best to describe this funny memory with the help of my wonderful illustration below.

I mistakenly challenged DJ to Tekken 6 (should have done SSFIV because I’m much better at that) because he destroyed me multiple times and took all my coins. Afterwards this 50 year old man motioned to me to get out of the chair so that he could challenge DJ. He picked Law (the Bruce Lee char) and started to tear DJ a new a-hole. I’m exaggerating a little, DJ did manage to win a few rounds, but he lost all the games. Back home arcades are hangouts for little kids (tweeners) and emo kids. But over here it’s full of all sorts. You could walk in at 3pm at find 50 year olds going at it at SSFIV – and they’re really good too.

Ok, that seems to be all I can think of for now. We’ll try to update this sooner than last time so come back soon!

willynilly aka Twiggy Ninja DJ checking fb before he gets his groove on

Bourbon and flu don't mix

Beijing 101

1. Public urination brings bad karma.
2. Soju and Bourbon don't mix.
3. Flu and Bourbon don't mix.
4. Don't drink and sprint if you don't want to make a mess.
 
All hypothetical.

That is all.  

In Piri I Trust

The above picture of Piri Weepu has been circling Facebook for the past two days. It pretty much sums up the first half of the All Blacks vs. Argentina quarterfinal that was played on Sunday. Piri was essentially a one man team with his accurate kicking, single-handedly (or single-footedly?) keeping us on the scoreboard for most of the game. He's a HALFBACK, to boot. See what I did there? For the uniformed, the 2011 Rugby World Cup is currently being held in New Zealand, my home country. Rugby is a contact sport played with an oval shaped ball and is considered a national religion of sorts. Kind of like what Star Craft 2 is to South Korea, but more extreme. In fact, it is so important to our country that whether we win or not will affect the next government election, the level of domestic violence (no jokes, as the 2007 World Cup exit revealed), whether our economy is totally fucked or just a little fucked, etc, etc. We are a small country, but we are very passionate about this sport, but evident by the strength of our national team, the All Blacks. Unfortunately, despite traditionally being the best team in the world year in and year out, it doesn't translate into World Cup championships. In fact, the last time we won the cup was back in 1987, during the inaugural competition.

The Argentinians certainly played a physical game, but there's no denying our boys in Black were pretty average in comparison to their usual high standards. The final scoreline of 33-10 is not wholly representative of how close the game was. It took us approximately three quarters of the game to cross the tryline for the first of our two tries (a try is the equivalent of a touchdown), having relied on Piri's penalty kicking prior to that. The Australians, whom won their respective game against South Africa, will be a different type of ballgame, but we will have to step up a notch, nevertheless. 

In other results; As I mentioned, Australia won against a tough South African side. Some say that the South Africans deserved the win, but the number of tackles Australia made to stop their opposition was amazing. They will no doubt be sore during the course of the week in the buildup to the semifinal with the All Blacks. Wales beat a a favoured Irish team and France pulled some more playoff magic against the English. The fans whom we watched the France England game with at The Den in Sunlitun were a passionate bunch. Plenty of friendly jabbing, chanting and singing. I decided to support the French, as I tend to like the underdog. "Allez les bleus! Allez les bleus!" Good times.

Lao Wais, a bar in Wudaokao, down the road from BLCU blatantly advertised on a blackboard outside the bar that all RWC games will be shown live. Since it's in Wudaokao, we thought it would be better than making several trips to Sunlitun, especially for less important games. Turns out you can't trust American bar owners who know shit about rugby and only wanted to attract more patrons...they couldn't even find the fucking channel. Ended up missing the whole Wales Ireland game. I would say that I will never go back there again, but our friend has a birthday party there this weekend.   

This blog post is my achievement for the day. Coughed all night and feel like shit, so i skipped my classes for the day.... Going to a different section of the Great Wall tomorrow with my fellow tongxue, so hopefully I feel a bit better.... damn you Yanjing beer.

i swear i saw a UFO on the Great Wall..

Hey peeps

Sorry about the delay. Been pretty busy doing various things. When I do get some free time, it's usually filled in by lengthy Star Craft 2 sessions. Need to get out of Bronze League one day. I've had this game for over a year now and I still can't crack into Silver, let alone Gold, Platinum, Diamond or Masters. I'd say Grandmasters is a little out of my reach. I'm a fairly realistic person. 

But yes, BLCU has been quite eventful during the past couple of weeks. I am definitely enjoying my time here so far. No classes in the afternoon, meeting people from around the world, seeing interesting places, playing pickup basketball whenever I want. Bloody brilliant.

Steve and I have been very good lately in regards to the toilet. No blockages recently. Edit: Scrap that. He has literally just informed me that the toilet is blocked again. It's probably a bit too late to knock on our neighbour's door to borrow their plunger....I swear we've used that thing at least 5 times... (Update: I'm forbidden from checking out the damage. I suppose I'll just have to hold it in until the morning..). Also, despite a few bites here and there, our mosquito problem seems to be easing up. Bombing the place with Raid tends to have that effect. Since I've been here, I've been bitten no less than thirteen times, with a good half being on my face >.<. Apparently they come up the drains at night, which makes me wonder what kind of nice diseases they potentially carry. I'm usually one of those nice people who prefers to gently pick up insects and toss them out the window so they can live out their minuscule lives, but mosquitoes aren't exactly a beautiful sight to behold..

Finally paid my accommodation fee a few days ago. They have a really shit payment system here. Half the time they don't know where the documents are. I swear the dude who took my money quoted a different price than the one written on my invoice, hoping I wouldn't read the invoice because he only returned the difference when i questioned him about the discrepancy. You really can't trust some people here. Steve had even more trouble. Despite our deposits having been done through the same agency at the same time, the people over here just couldn't locate his receipt. Took him an extra 2 to 3 weeks to GIVE THEM money because apparently they don't have a record of us making a deposit. What a load of shit.

Speaking of not trusting people, what would you do if you got your bike stolen outside your dormitory? Report it to the staff? Report it to the local security/police? In all honesty, you would probably accomplish jack shit and would probably have to buy a new bike. But wait, why buy a new bike when you can just take one? I mean, there's sooooo many. Surely no one would miss just one little shitty bike? In fact, how about I leave this "borrowed" bike somewhere random after I've finished with it at a location where the original owner will never find it and just take someone else's bike the next time i need to go somewhere? They're pieces of crap anyway! >_<. Sounds pretty absurd, right? Well our friend decided to do just that. Yes, the bike is a piece of shit, but I don't think that our friend grasps the concept that some less fortunate people may be dependenton this piece of shit and buying one is a lot harder for them than for more fortunate people like us. We were under the assumption that the bikes had been returned, so we initially thought it was a tad bit funny, until we walked past the place and realised that the bike was still sitting there. We would return it, but getting caught red handed with a stolen bike doesn't really appeal to me.  

Currently teaching a six year old kid how to speak English. His name's Michael. Cool little dude. He understands most of what I say, but getting him to reply back to me with more than one word responses is a bit difficult. I thought I was very clever by downloading some interactive Dr Seuss books onto my phone for him to read. Unfortunately, he seemed more interested in playing poker on his father's IPhone and listening to Chinese audio stories about cute little deer... I know he's a kid, but a cat in a hat smashes a Chinese Bambi clone any day.

Nice view from the Wall.

We're currently on the tail end of the "Golden Week" holidays. Although we haven't exactly made the most of it by going on a week-long trip to some exotic or isolated region of China (or Mongolia, as some of my fellow students have done), we did embark on a two day tramp/camping trip to an isolated area of the Great Wall. The specific area that we went to is called 箭扣(Jiankou). According to Wiki "This section is a photographic hotspot due to its unique style, steep mountains and beautiful scenery". From my two days of climbing and hiking, I would say that this is a very good description, but only being there can one fully appreciate how freaking cool the place is. Being able to see stars at night after a month of smog and bright lights is orgasmic in itself. Wiki also describes "This section of the Great Wall of China has fallen into disrepair and this, along with its location along a mountain ridge bordered by jagged cliffs and steep drop-offs, makes the Jiankou segment of the Great Wall of China potentially dangerous to climb". Lets just say I was wetting my pants at times. Not quite literally, but I probably came close, but man, what a thrill it was. I'd like to think that the gym membership investment helped with all the climbing, because some sections were downright difficult.  .

Apparently hiking in the Jiankou area is illegal. Good for us, because that means we can have the Wall to ourselves :). In reality, there were a few crazy locals who looked like they were going for a Sunday morning stroll in the local park. There was even a whole extended family group up there at one point. Maybe it's just me, but my idea of a family outing does not include premature death or debilitating injury after a slight misstep or after grabbing onto a supposedly stable rock. As for staying the night on the wall, not many were as crazy as us though, with the acception of a few other foreigners, evident by their annoying screams and calls into the valley in search of an elusive echo.

We hiked that (plus more). Just sayin'.

After determining that bunking up inside the watchtower would probably be unadviseable due to falling debris and spiders (not that we could sleep in there anyway, considering we smoked the place out with our fire..), we decided to sleep under the stars. Man...that was awesome. In the span of about ten minutes, I saw more shooting stars and satellites then I have in my whole life altogether. We also spotted a strange object that was brighter than anything else and seemed to move in different directions in a jerky movement every so often. Kind of freaked me out. I'd place a pretty big wager that it was more than just a star. One of our friends, Nick, had recently bought a laser pointer and someone suggested that he point it at the object. I couldn't help but think that we'd also get a laser shot at us, except that this laser would make a "PEOW!" noise and incinerate us to dust. 

Our home.

Our amazing fire.

Sometime during the night, we started hearing a lot of shouting. Nick thought it would be a good idea to shine his laser at the nearby mountain. As soon as he did so, several flashlights beamed on the same area. At first, we thought it was just some trampers messing around. However, as the night went on, we started to suspect something more serious. They knew where we were, so we couldn't just keep quiet and hope for the best. If this large group of men were police, we could possibly bribe them and avoid getting arrested. However, what the fuck do we do if they were thieves or hooligans? If you bribe them, they'd happily take that and everything else you have. Maybe worse. We decided to stay quiet and hope that they would walk in a different direction, but the voices were getting louder and they were without a doubt heading our way. We may have pissed our pants climbing things, but we were shitting our pants now. This was a whole new level. Do we run? What weapons besides our shoes did we have? The thought of sacrificing Steve assuming that they could be cannibals did cross my mind (albeit not much meat on him). "We fooooooooouuunnnd yooooooooooooooooooouuu!" shouted someone inside the now dimly-lit watchtower. If my heart ever skipped a beat, it probably would have been at that instance. Damn shitty reception on the Great Wall! Can't even tell anyone that I'm going to get violated by dirty Chinamen......As the men came upon us, Nick manages a "ah..Ni Hao...?" We adjusted to the bright flashlights and made out several men clad in either camo green or orange uniforms. These guys didn't look like thieves or paedophiles. In fact, they looked pretty cool and friendly. Some even spoke English. They explained that they were on their way to the other side of the mountain to rescue a girl who had injured herself. They didn't even care that we were sleeping on the wall. We had a friendly exchange with these men and they proceeded to climb on in the dark. They made easy work of any obstacle. Holy moly they were machines. One humourously shouted back "I LOVE YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUU, WE ARE CHINESE FIREMEN!!!". I couldn't help but profess my love back, because these guys were just so awesome. In the end, we didn't get robbed, arrested, killed or molested, but instead, we got to witness real heroes going about their duties. Now that shit is cool. Pity we didn't get a photo, but at that point, we were jsut happy to be alive.

The morning after. My hood looks like a headscarf/turbin

The rest of the night went fairly smoothly. I was sleeping on a slant though, so I woke up no less than ten times to readjust myself, and I'm pretty sure I kicked Nick in the head. There were some f-ed up noises coming from the bush around dawn. Those were some strange sounding beasts....I was pretty freaked out about the bats, but these new animals sounded like something from a horror movie. However, despite all the scary shit that happened, I wouldn't change it in anyway. The whole experience was amazing, and although it's technically illegal, I'd recommend hiking around this area to anyone, assuming you can walk and climb in difficult terrain. My last visit to the Great Wall was in a much more commercialised and developed area which just didn't have the same spirit to it. I've done alot of travelling in China, especailly during my last visit, and I can honestly say this is one of the best things I've done.

One more plank for the road.

DJ 

RIP Steve Jobs