Current Raves: The CCTV building, fancy hotels in Beijing, my kids, Shabu Shabu, my awesome new Beijing friends
ZhongGuanCun-kind of like the electronics capital of China. (Silicon Valley?) A couple of my kids took me here because I wanted an ipod dock.
She made my necklace! Very nice woman, but she was speaking to me in like....Tibetan or something. I just smiled and nodded.
Shoes anyone? Actually, shoe anyone?
Open air market. Gosh, you must be getting a lot of dust in your food.
Cups? Almost like BoxCar Children for some reason....
This is my inbox....AFTER I asked the kids to confirm their email addresses....I don't know if you can count it up...I have at least 20 error emails....STILL. Serves them right for picking emails like 4531q32qw42@qq.com. Sucks to be me to have to do this again time after time.
Friday was a whirlwind. I started out the day with a pretty damn challenging assignment, and literally, by 2pm, I was about to slump over a desk dead. The night was much needed; Dan (London, England) and Daniel (my UWS, NYC neighbor) and I met Sunnia, Mark (Newcastle, UK), Caroline (Mark's adorable fiancee), Carol, and Erik (Carol's husband who writes features for the China Daily) at this Shanghai dumplings place. Doug (Philadelphia) and his friend (original location unknown) joined us halfway through....I don't know how we did it, but we squeezed 10 people around a table into a room the size of my walk-in closet at home. Highlights of the night provided by Carol who showed me a texting service here in China called Guanxi, which will txt you the address/phone number (106695882929) of anything you send it. ALSO, it will send you dirty pick up lines in case you're at a lack for words...so dirty that I truly think you'd be arrested in Texas for using these.
On the way out of the restaurant and on our way to The Beijinger March '09 Launch Party, Carol stomped a Tsingtao beer bottle on the side of the street. Pieces of glass went flying everywhere; with the Chinese traffic cop watching, it was like the beginning of a race riot. We ended up taking a taxi to the wrong Renaissance Hotel (very nice hotel) and we all raced to the next one (very very very nice hotel.) 12RMB Guinesses were sold out by the time we were there, so option? $7 Budweisers. Pay attention to the $, they were literally $7. Haha, this price isn't too surprising in Manhattan, but for China...some man must have personally carried my bottle of beer in his knapsack all the way from the rocky mtns of Colorado or wherever they bottle it to this hotel bar in China! :)
Dan mentioned in the taxi that they were turning the Bird's Nest into a shopping mall. That broke my heart; if I had enough money, I would buy the rights and just keep it open for the people....but I guess it's so darn big that its very hard to hold any events in it. But a shopping mall in my Olympic stadium? *tear* :(
In the taxi home that night, I finally saw the new CCTV tower. Here is a picture of it from googleimages right after the building was completed. Its one of the most awe-inspiring buildings ever.
Today was a pretty awesome day. Definitely not a boring Saturday...I was running around Beijing all day. Despite my best efforts to sleep in, I woke up at the crack of dawn. I was laying in bed trying to force myself to go to sleep, but it wasn't working. Plus, it was like 6pm in the States or something and I started getting calls. I love you guys for calling, but for the love of god...its 6am over here. :) Jk, please call. I'll continue to mumble incoherently.
I ended up going for a run on the track outside of the apartment building, and then meeting a cpl of my English kids for a trip to ZGC to buy an ipod dock. On the way there, we stopped at Shabu Shabu and had some of the best hotpot I've had in a while. My students heard I was in the market for an ipod dock, and they wouldn't let me go by myself because they were afraid: A) I'd get lost B) I'd get robbed. C) I'd buy a fake/non-working one D) I'd die. Answer: all of the above.
Cute. :) I ended up with a very cool silver tube thing...with speakers on either side of the tube, and the ipod goes in the middle. I paid very little for it because my kids went to town bargaining with the lady for me. She ended up throwing in a free ipod cover-thing because she was so confused by the fast-one they were pulling on her. After ZGC, I headed to WuDaoKou and met Lina for the first time! (Yay Facebook!) Lina works at IBM here, and she is the sweetest person ever. She's deciding b/w different top American business schools right now, but I'm pulling for Duke & Fuqua on this one! We went to a cute coffee place and talked for over 3 hours about everything. Lina told me about this service in China where you email someone a picture of clothing you admire (could be something straight out of a fashion magazine like marc jacobs or cavalli) and your measurements, and they'll hand-make it for you and mail it to you for super cheap. I heart China. Lina also introduced me to Jia ZhangKe, who makes movies based on contemporary Chinese life. I'm definitely going to check out his works; apparently, they are very truthful and to the point about life in developing China. AWESOME. :)
From there, I wanted to go home and just crash, but I ended up going with Dan and Ethan (Perth, Australia), a couple colleagues of mine, to a girl's birthday party in Houhai. I seriously didn't know I was crashing a bday party bc I was invited last second...I felt bad! And then, being Chinese, the girl insisted on paying for her birthday dinner herself. When asked if I spoke Chinese by the two girls, for the first time in my life, I said "no" because I was in kind of a funky mood. I guess I should do it more often because it was actually quite hilarious listening to their side-comments. Maybe that's a horrible thing to do, lol, but it was kinda amusing.
Tomorrow morning, Dan and Daniel and I are going to go find brunch somewhere. I want to take them to the place Susan and I went...Golden Tripod near the Lama Temple. The Lama Temple is supposed to be gorgeous; they are the largest Buddhist temples in Beijing, but according to Lonely Planet, no pictures allowed. I think I'll go find out for myself bc LP has been a little out of date. Not entirely their fault, you just can't release a tour book every 2-3 years for a city that is changing overnight.
Monday, Monday, stay away, come again another day.
PS: March is here. The Ides of March are coming. 24 years old. omfg
On the way out of the restaurant and on our way to The Beijinger March '09 Launch Party, Carol stomped a Tsingtao beer bottle on the side of the street. Pieces of glass went flying everywhere; with the Chinese traffic cop watching, it was like the beginning of a race riot. We ended up taking a taxi to the wrong Renaissance Hotel (very nice hotel) and we all raced to the next one (very very very nice hotel.) 12RMB Guinesses were sold out by the time we were there, so option? $7 Budweisers. Pay attention to the $, they were literally $7. Haha, this price isn't too surprising in Manhattan, but for China...some man must have personally carried my bottle of beer in his knapsack all the way from the rocky mtns of Colorado or wherever they bottle it to this hotel bar in China! :)
Dan mentioned in the taxi that they were turning the Bird's Nest into a shopping mall. That broke my heart; if I had enough money, I would buy the rights and just keep it open for the people....but I guess it's so darn big that its very hard to hold any events in it. But a shopping mall in my Olympic stadium? *tear* :(
In the taxi home that night, I finally saw the new CCTV tower. Here is a picture of it from googleimages right after the building was completed. Its one of the most awe-inspiring buildings ever.
Today was a pretty awesome day. Definitely not a boring Saturday...I was running around Beijing all day. Despite my best efforts to sleep in, I woke up at the crack of dawn. I was laying in bed trying to force myself to go to sleep, but it wasn't working. Plus, it was like 6pm in the States or something and I started getting calls. I love you guys for calling, but for the love of god...its 6am over here. :) Jk, please call. I'll continue to mumble incoherently.
I ended up going for a run on the track outside of the apartment building, and then meeting a cpl of my English kids for a trip to ZGC to buy an ipod dock. On the way there, we stopped at Shabu Shabu and had some of the best hotpot I've had in a while. My students heard I was in the market for an ipod dock, and they wouldn't let me go by myself because they were afraid: A) I'd get lost B) I'd get robbed. C) I'd buy a fake/non-working one D) I'd die. Answer: all of the above.
Cute. :) I ended up with a very cool silver tube thing...with speakers on either side of the tube, and the ipod goes in the middle. I paid very little for it because my kids went to town bargaining with the lady for me. She ended up throwing in a free ipod cover-thing because she was so confused by the fast-one they were pulling on her. After ZGC, I headed to WuDaoKou and met Lina for the first time! (Yay Facebook!) Lina works at IBM here, and she is the sweetest person ever. She's deciding b/w different top American business schools right now, but I'm pulling for Duke & Fuqua on this one! We went to a cute coffee place and talked for over 3 hours about everything. Lina told me about this service in China where you email someone a picture of clothing you admire (could be something straight out of a fashion magazine like marc jacobs or cavalli) and your measurements, and they'll hand-make it for you and mail it to you for super cheap. I heart China. Lina also introduced me to Jia ZhangKe, who makes movies based on contemporary Chinese life. I'm definitely going to check out his works; apparently, they are very truthful and to the point about life in developing China. AWESOME. :)
From there, I wanted to go home and just crash, but I ended up going with Dan and Ethan (Perth, Australia), a couple colleagues of mine, to a girl's birthday party in Houhai. I seriously didn't know I was crashing a bday party bc I was invited last second...I felt bad! And then, being Chinese, the girl insisted on paying for her birthday dinner herself. When asked if I spoke Chinese by the two girls, for the first time in my life, I said "no" because I was in kind of a funky mood. I guess I should do it more often because it was actually quite hilarious listening to their side-comments. Maybe that's a horrible thing to do, lol, but it was kinda amusing.
Tomorrow morning, Dan and Daniel and I are going to go find brunch somewhere. I want to take them to the place Susan and I went...Golden Tripod near the Lama Temple. The Lama Temple is supposed to be gorgeous; they are the largest Buddhist temples in Beijing, but according to Lonely Planet, no pictures allowed. I think I'll go find out for myself bc LP has been a little out of date. Not entirely their fault, you just can't release a tour book every 2-3 years for a city that is changing overnight.
Monday, Monday, stay away, come again another day.
PS: March is here. The Ides of March are coming. 24 years old. omfg
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