- Sep 21, 2005
- 2,238
Hey all,
As some of you may not know I´m currently in China for two months just to have a good time and practice my Chinese while preparing for my class back home in Denmark. Anyways I'd thought I´d made a post here to let you all know how I´m doing especially since I'll be returning to Beijing for a year come fall.
I landed in Beijing wednesday the 12th and the first thing that struck me was the familiar smell of the cold smoggy air (last time I lived here we went home again in january, so the winter smoggy air is one of the last thing I remembered). Took a cabride to one of my classmate´s place where I'd be sleeping for a few days. Had a nice chat with the cabdriver and told him all the usual jabber with being from Denmark and if he knew Hans Christian Andersen, which he indeed did. Then afterwards he kept asking me how things were back in Sweden.... guess it didn´t matter much to him anyways.
Thursday night me and my classmate, Nina, hooked up with another of our classmates, Jakob, and went to a place to play beerpong (why the yanks wants to waste their time throwing little balls in beercups instead of just drinking it is beyond me....). One of Jakobs friends, a french guy named Bart, ended up winning the damn contest and a bottle of Vodka. The place is usually dominated by loads of Americans and Bart said he'd never heard so many utterances of "fucking europeans...." in one night.
Friday I checked into a youth hostel (near the drumtower for those of you who've ever been to Beijing) in a six-person room with some other Chinese (one of them looked spot on like Hiro from Heroes). The same evening we went out to listen to some Chinese reggae and it turned out to be quite the nice concert with a bass player looking just like Bob Marley, big dreadlocks and the whole shabang.
Another interesting story; My and Nina are going to Mongolia for a few weeks so we went to buy some train tickets starting out at the main railway st. in Beijing thinking that would be the place, but when we got there we were directed to the other railway st. which is a bit far away. When we got there we of course couldn't buy the tickets there neither, but were told we could buy them at the white building nearby. So then we went to the nearest white building being unable to find anything just remotely resembling a ticket office, so we asked at a postoffice in said white building who directed us back to the railway station. Then at the railway station we asked at one stall who then pointed to the stall right next to her's and then at that stall they directed us to a big white building 1-2 kilometers away! Turned out it was a big international hotel and on the 2nd floor there was a small ticket office that sells traintickets to Mongolia.... If you´ve seen the Asterix movie with the trials of Hercules you'll have an idea of what we went through.... Chinese logic at its best.
The day time I spent sitting on a café drinking tea and preparing for my class of classical Chinese in Denmark or going out to eat very nice and cheap Chinese food and just going around talking Chinese not worrying about a single thing and loving it all the way. I've really missed Beijing not having been here for over a year - It's hard to explain to anyone not having lived here, but you really live life differently and more to the fullest than at home, at least for the part of us Danish students.
On the evening of Monday 17th I went home to Jakob's place and we ended up having a really crazy night; I'd not eating anything since lunch time and to make a long story short we ended up sharing a bottle of vodka, quarter bottle of gin and I had 3-4 beers before that.... The result was that I have no clue of how I got home, but I woke up in my bed (if you can call it that since the mattress is like 2 inches thick) at the hostel with all my clothes and shoes on.... I can imagine that I've much raised all sorts of hell coming home that night and the room requires a keycard to open and how I´ve manage to do that in my state is beyond me. The experience was a bit of an icebreaker with my Chinese roommates whom I started talking a lot with afterwards. Having told them I was from Denmark seemed to explain everything and Hiro exclaimed that the danish people could drink a lot!
The following day was naturaly spent with some ugly hangovers so I went back to our old neighbourhood and had a burger and some fries and spent some time talking to the bartender at the place who´s an old friend of mine.
This friday we went to a massive party at a club and upon ariving there at midnight I did nothing, but dance dressed in a white pimp suit, white sunglasses and white hat and danced till around 6.30. The following days all the other's asked what the fuck I'd been on, but wasn't on drugs and wasn't even drunk.... The music just did something to you.
Saturday we went to a small club for a rockconcert with some Chinese bands and during happy hour at the place you could get 1 liter of beer for 2 euros.... not bad at all, but highly risky and the results of said happy hour were obvious.
To make a long story short I've spent all evenings since friday going out drinking and today I find myself having my first quiet (and much overdue) night in a while.
Anyways that all I can come up with to tell you this time. Hope you're all doing ok
Love and bearhugs,
Gombur
As some of you may not know I´m currently in China for two months just to have a good time and practice my Chinese while preparing for my class back home in Denmark. Anyways I'd thought I´d made a post here to let you all know how I´m doing especially since I'll be returning to Beijing for a year come fall.
I landed in Beijing wednesday the 12th and the first thing that struck me was the familiar smell of the cold smoggy air (last time I lived here we went home again in january, so the winter smoggy air is one of the last thing I remembered). Took a cabride to one of my classmate´s place where I'd be sleeping for a few days. Had a nice chat with the cabdriver and told him all the usual jabber with being from Denmark and if he knew Hans Christian Andersen, which he indeed did. Then afterwards he kept asking me how things were back in Sweden.... guess it didn´t matter much to him anyways.
Thursday night me and my classmate, Nina, hooked up with another of our classmates, Jakob, and went to a place to play beerpong (why the yanks wants to waste their time throwing little balls in beercups instead of just drinking it is beyond me....). One of Jakobs friends, a french guy named Bart, ended up winning the damn contest and a bottle of Vodka. The place is usually dominated by loads of Americans and Bart said he'd never heard so many utterances of "fucking europeans...." in one night.
Friday I checked into a youth hostel (near the drumtower for those of you who've ever been to Beijing) in a six-person room with some other Chinese (one of them looked spot on like Hiro from Heroes). The same evening we went out to listen to some Chinese reggae and it turned out to be quite the nice concert with a bass player looking just like Bob Marley, big dreadlocks and the whole shabang.
Another interesting story; My and Nina are going to Mongolia for a few weeks so we went to buy some train tickets starting out at the main railway st. in Beijing thinking that would be the place, but when we got there we were directed to the other railway st. which is a bit far away. When we got there we of course couldn't buy the tickets there neither, but were told we could buy them at the white building nearby. So then we went to the nearest white building being unable to find anything just remotely resembling a ticket office, so we asked at a postoffice in said white building who directed us back to the railway station. Then at the railway station we asked at one stall who then pointed to the stall right next to her's and then at that stall they directed us to a big white building 1-2 kilometers away! Turned out it was a big international hotel and on the 2nd floor there was a small ticket office that sells traintickets to Mongolia.... If you´ve seen the Asterix movie with the trials of Hercules you'll have an idea of what we went through.... Chinese logic at its best.
The day time I spent sitting on a café drinking tea and preparing for my class of classical Chinese in Denmark or going out to eat very nice and cheap Chinese food and just going around talking Chinese not worrying about a single thing and loving it all the way. I've really missed Beijing not having been here for over a year - It's hard to explain to anyone not having lived here, but you really live life differently and more to the fullest than at home, at least for the part of us Danish students.
On the evening of Monday 17th I went home to Jakob's place and we ended up having a really crazy night; I'd not eating anything since lunch time and to make a long story short we ended up sharing a bottle of vodka, quarter bottle of gin and I had 3-4 beers before that.... The result was that I have no clue of how I got home, but I woke up in my bed (if you can call it that since the mattress is like 2 inches thick) at the hostel with all my clothes and shoes on.... I can imagine that I've much raised all sorts of hell coming home that night and the room requires a keycard to open and how I´ve manage to do that in my state is beyond me. The experience was a bit of an icebreaker with my Chinese roommates whom I started talking a lot with afterwards. Having told them I was from Denmark seemed to explain everything and Hiro exclaimed that the danish people could drink a lot!
The following day was naturaly spent with some ugly hangovers so I went back to our old neighbourhood and had a burger and some fries and spent some time talking to the bartender at the place who´s an old friend of mine.
This friday we went to a massive party at a club and upon ariving there at midnight I did nothing, but dance dressed in a white pimp suit, white sunglasses and white hat and danced till around 6.30. The following days all the other's asked what the fuck I'd been on, but wasn't on drugs and wasn't even drunk.... The music just did something to you.
Saturday we went to a small club for a rockconcert with some Chinese bands and during happy hour at the place you could get 1 liter of beer for 2 euros.... not bad at all, but highly risky and the results of said happy hour were obvious.
To make a long story short I've spent all evenings since friday going out drinking and today I find myself having my first quiet (and much overdue) night in a while.
Anyways that all I can come up with to tell you this time. Hope you're all doing ok
Love and bearhugs,
Gombur
