Just a few things.

CHANGE OF PLANS

Previoulsy I posted that when I left here I was headed to Chengdu then Li Jiang, China by train and then I was going to Laos. Well a change in plan has taken place. Laos is out and Cambodia is in. Why? 1. the train ride from Beijing to Chengdu is 30 hours. I was under the impression that it was something like 12 or 13 hours. Not bad considering you can go to sleep and wake up next morning at your destination. Thirty hours, however, is a completely different story. I spent a long time on an Amtrak train last summer going to Cary and Savannah and while I didnt have a sleeper it was fairly comfortable but long and that trip was only something like 15 hours. We were even delayed because of something going on on the track which made it trip even longer. If I'm being honest with myself seeing the Chinese countryside from a trip while it does have its appeal is not worth 30 hours of a train in any country for me. 2. I thought that me going to Chengdu was going to small city. A sleepy little village even. Yeah right. This is China you idiot where that sleepy little city has a population of 15 million! And more likely 15.2 milliion after that 30 hour train ride! Right now I need to get away from so many people and big metropolitan cities. So I go to Cambodia where the population of the entire country is 15 million and Siem Reap, the first city I'm going to, 158,000. I'll spend a week in Siem Reap then head to the south coast and the city of Sihanoukville pop. 77,000!!! Yeah baby. Will spend a week in Sihanoukville soaking up the sun and water on the beaches. (That big roar you heard was me shouting for joy at finally getting sun and surf this summer.) I will take tons of pictures.

The only downside to this trip to Cambodia is that my flight on Malaysia Airlines is taking me past Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur where is land at 11pm and have an 11 hour layover in KL. Anyone know anything good to do in KL other than seeing the Patronus towers. If so please let me know. Not sure if I'll stay at the airport and camp out a la Amazing Race contestants or if I'll seek out a hotel for a good night's sleep.

Where to after that? Hmm, good question. Might be Thailand.

NAME CHANGE

One of the activity classes that I attend when I first got here was a chinese name class where the instructor looked at your name and consulted some book of ancient chinese names and characters (yeah right) and came up with your name. Good, fine and lovely. The only thing with that is that this instructor didn't know me and I didn't know her. After getting to know my Chinese teacher these last 9 weeks she finally told me that my chinese name Kong Wan Liang was bu hao (not good.) She said that it didn't represent me because the person who gave it to me didn't know me. I wrote my name down for her and she came back the next day with my new chinese name that takes into consideration my personality and in my case the Chinese zodiac animal and that name is Chang (second tone for you chinese out there) Wei (first tone). Chang being the family name and Wei meaning powerful like my chinese zodiac animal the tiger. The name actually works for me. I like it as soon as I heard it. Goodbye Kong Wan Liang and heddo Chang Wei. LOL.

SLICE OFTHE BIG APPLE IN THE RICE BOWL (IS THAT OFFENSIVE?)

I mentioned in an earlier post that my friends Jennifer and Anindya are in town from NYC. Well I met them at Q-Bar on Tuesday night. Q-Bar is a bar that I've been to before and talked about in this blog. It's full of ex-pat from around the world and could easily be accomodated on the upper east or west sides. Mostly non-asians 30 somethings who probably don't speak a lick of chinese. So I meet Jenn and Anindya there because some guidebook told them it's the place to be. Blah blah blah, the drinks are too expensive for the measure ounce they give you and the place gets too smokey for my almost 3 years non smoking ass. So I get there and there they are sitting at the bar the image of a very respectable marriage couple sipping their expertly mixed blah blah munching on some provided peanuts. Fashionable NYC clothing, bags, electronic equipment; they had just come from Tian an men and Forbidden City and dinner I think. A full day for them. Hugs and kisses all around and Absolute and orange for me. The really like the bar. What's not to like it's a very nice place for sipping drinks and chatting and smoking but not a lot going on in terms of activity. I want to take them to a place where they are guaranteed to have a great time and I tell them as much. We leave Q-bar a short time later and hop in a cab and head out to Sanlitun. Yeah. I take them off the main drag of Sanlitun to Kai bar where the drinks are 10 yuan, 20 for my absolute and orange. The music is pumping, the drinks are flowing we are dancing and having a great time. We bump into Angie and Cher from Canada who I had met on Friday night and proceed to have a really good time. The tequilla shots are flowing and a great time is being had by all. At one point this really hot song comes on and Jenn and I hit the dance floor where she proceeds to drop it like it is HOT. I'm mean she is dropping it down to the ground and shaking it like I never knew Jenn could. She was gritty personified. I never knew she had it in her. I'm mean yeah she's a sista and all, but never seen her git real like dat. She got all old school and was like "owwww" as she was dropping it. So we dropped it together to the looks of amazement and awe from the patrons looking on. SO MUCH FUN! Anindya doesn't dance but at one point he was out there as well on the dance floor.

Fast forward to Thursday night. We met up again in Sanlitun this time we went to Butterfly right next door to Kai. Music was pumping. Jenn and Aninyda already had their drink on from being at The Smallest Bar in Beijing (all of 12 square meter) where they were drinking Manhattans. So they were a little tipsy when they met up with me. Music was pumping at Butterfly as well. We were drinking beer and having a good time. I had introduced them to my Spanish friends and were all having a blast dancing and carrying on. No one was expecting it when Jenn started to do the Robot on the dance floor and I followed suit. I mean we already stand out being tall and Jenn has bazzooms that has been making the folks in China break there necks to get a look at, and now here we were doing the ROBOT. The ROBOT of all possible dances. It was a sight. People came up to me after saying how cool it was. I promise you we did not plan it.

Friday night we went to Li's Family Restaurant. The Li family, so the story goes, has the distinction of cooking for the Emperors of China. The family recipes have been handed down and a restaurant opening in the Huotong area of Houhai lake. Don't know if the story is true but this is where we went to dinner on Friday. The menu consist of make a choice of a complete menu ranging in prices from 230 rmbs to 3100 rmbs. We chose the menu that was 300 rmb or around $45 dollars and had 15 small dishes and 6 or 7 large dishes. The food was ridiculously incredibly delicious. No partying this night, we just went back to their hotel room and had some wine and beer and talked since they were leaving the next day. It's been a really good visit. I'm glad they were able to make it over to see Dorothy (Jenn's mom) and me. It was really good having a slice of the big apple in the rice bowl. (I hope that doesn't sound offensive.)

Take it easy folks. - Wil

Panjiayuan and the closing ceremonies

Panjiayuan is an outdoor flea market where local and tourist go to pick up most anything under the sun that the Chinese sell. No food though. Beads, jade, rocks, wood carvings, artwork, shadown puppets, paper cut pictures, tibetan quilt thingies, ink, paper, brushes, cups, bowls, saucers, broken pieces of pottery (who would buy this I'm not sure), musical instruments, table clothes, chopsticks, boxes, fans, robes deng deng (etc, etc). The list could go on forever. It's a fairly big place with vendors upon vendors selling their wares. If you are not careful you can get ripped off like crazy so it's best to bargin like there is no tomorrow. My rule of thumb is if you are not getting the price you want just walk away. More then likely the seller will come after you and want to negotiate further.

The worse thing about Panjiayuan for me is that it seems like everytime I go it is extremely hot or hot and humid which makes me sweat like a whore sitting in church...with no a/c...wearing a leather pant suit...which ripped when she sat down...and was now just asked to come up to the front of the church to be welcomed by the congregation. I'm talking sweating like crazy. It's ridiculous. It's like the weather gods know I'm coming and they decide to make it unbearable for me. Sunday was no exception. The only difference is that this Sunday was the last time Panjiayuan will see my hot sweatly self! No more I'm done.

I walked in Panjiayuan with my roommate Eduardo from Spain. He's in the second picture below. His saying of the day was "and we are not paying more than (insert extremely ridiculously low price here)__________ for this." Or "We are Beijingers, we are not tourists we were here long before the Olympics started. So give us the Chinese price!" All said in Chinese of course. And then we'd get lower. I'm good at bargaining, really good, but I take a back seat to Eduardo and his tenacity and command of Chinese to get us the better price. We both wanted to pick up some things since we are leaving Beijing soon. Me this coming Sunday and Edu the Wednesday after me. We are the only two left out of the major group of us there were hear. Hugo left for Chengdu China on Sunday morning. And all the others left weeks ago. This being our last week together and knowing the amount of hanging out that would be done this week the flea market was a good idea. We met up with Arenia, Alex both from Spain as well and Julie from the good ole US of A after shopping a while and just walked around, taking pictures (see below) and watching the U.S. beat Spain in basketball on the huge TV screens that were hung up for the Olympics. And YES I taunted my Spanish friends telling them that the U.S. was going to kick their asses in basketball. What! It's true.

Great dinner at my favorite place to eat Luogu Drum & Gong Fusion Restaurant. It's a hole in the wall almost literally but the food will kick your ass it's so good. I write this on Monday night after having had dinner there again tonight with my friends Jennifer and Anidiya from the New York (See Jenn and her mom's picture below. )

No tickets to the closing ceremony so went to welcome Jenn and Anidiya to Beijing in her mom's hotel room and we watch the ceremonies from there. I'm not sure how London or any other city for the matter will ever match the opening and closing ceremonies of 2008. All these superlatives come to mind to describe 2008 ceremonies, the least of which is spectacular. Truth be told if the London portion of the closing ceremonies is any indication of what the ceremonies of 2012 will be like I for one am prepared to be underwhelmed. Can you say blah? If the Chinese were to do that little intro that London did on Sunday night the Chinese would have made the doubledecker bus out of 2012 people and then had the people morph into a stage carrying the aged rocker, london pop star and the over the hill footballer. I mean come on London, umbrellas with lights on them!! Are you for real! Anyway it was good seeing my friend from the New York. They even smelled like the New York or maybe that was the long flight. Hanging out with them this week that they are here and Edu and the Spainards will be a great way to end a great nine 9 1/2 weeks (couldn't resist) in Beijing.

Here are some pictures from Panjiayuan. Anidiya sorry that I didn't get one of you on Sunday night.

Shizi, Laohu and Xiong Mao, Oh My

You can't come to China without seeing them. So I give you the Panda Bear (Xiong Mao)...and other wild creatures.

Pictures where taken in early August as part of a class trip to the zoo.


-Wil

Big news of the day...

So there was something that I was holding back in the blog that I wrote on the 14th. The big news of that day was the fact that I had just come back from Opening Day of Track & Field at the Bird's Nest Stadium. I couldn't tell you about it then because I didn't have my pictures loaded on my computer and I wanted you to see the pictures from the day.

Pictures are on my computer so you get to see them below. The event was really incredible. I'd never been to a Track & Field event before so it was all new to me. Exciting and new and throw in the fact that it is the Olympics and I couldn't stop saying "I can't believe that I'm here." One thing that I will say is that TV doesn't do the stadium any justice at all. Blown away! The entire complex is WOW. Just hope I can get tickets to the closing ceremonies.

Here are the pictures. Say cheese. - Wil