Spring Festival 2012

Having left the teaching profession, i now get one week off for spring fest, as opposed to 4. That's fine, but it forces you into the train and plane ticket rush as millions of people try to get home in time for Chinese new year's day, the Chinese equivalent of Xmas. So... i opted not to visit Q's parents and stay in BJ for the big day. Yes, that may very well have repercussions, but i think it was the right call.

At first, i was rather unsure how i'd kill 8 days of holiday, but it somehow disappeared in a flash, and not once did i work on my painting or guitar song. It was pretty packed with dinners, bars, hiking, fireworks and temples. And recovery time.

i also went to visit a good friend from Acadia, the only edu student who i kept contact with. She's in Shanghai now, so i went there on the shiny new 300km/hr+ train. And amazingly, post-NYD tix were a breeze to nab.

i enjoyed my friend's use of colourful language, but was disappointed that she was uninterested in going to see SH's coolest bar, built into an old bomb shelter. So i went solo. Knocked on the unlabelled door. No answer, so i left.

Then i found a bar that had a pretty bike in the window. And 5 pretty girls sitting inside smiling and beckoning me to enter. So i did. They were well-inebriated, and offered me a baijiu shot within 20 seconds of conversation, but i sneakily managed to escape into the interior, where i struck up a conversation with the bartender about bikes, since the bar was called Bikes and Friends and had bicycle paraphernalia scattered throughout. Oh, and i just bought a fixie bike myself last week.

He was from Toronto. Nice guy. Introduced me to some guy from New York. Who invited me bk to their table. Introduced me to a couple Taiwanese women and a NYC ABC dude. i tentatively ordered a glass of white, since at the Buddhist temple that afternoon, i thought i might take a break from alcohol that night.

But then as the night carried on, rounds of tequila shots were ordered until the bar ran out, resulting in Shoju shots and other bad mixers etc, a couple boys pulled down their pants to wave their bums around, i failed to elicit interesting commentary about Taiwan's election from the pretty woman, one guy confessed to me how "bad" he was because he had a wife and a mistress, and a good time was had by all. Suddenly it was after 5am.

To sum up:
I tripped and smashed my head into a stool, and got a cut over my lip.
The taxi pulled over to let me puke over the side of the express-way.
And i slept through my alarm and missed the train home.

Well, i know Q doesn't exactly approve of this sort of behaviour, but i think it's good to get it out of my system when she's not around, ha.