out and about

Quick note, before leaving super duper early for a plane to Changsha tomorrow morning.

1. Last couple weeks, i've been assigned to visit towns outside of BJ downtown area. I visited 7 spots, some of which were stellariffic, some of which were pretty goodish. Took some rather nice pix, if i do say so myself, which are all showcased on a page the editor made, basically all about the places i wrote up.

Once in a while i got to squeeze in a joke or 2.

In addition, the magnificence of nature is interspersed with genuine manmade entertainment. If you tire of staring at the waterfalls, then why not hop into a floating inflatable wheel where you can tumble and roll in your own padded cell? Has all the climbing made you pine for your Toyota? Then maybe you'll be refreshed by a few minutes in a bumper car. Disappointed you can't ride a horse up the canyon? Why not take a ride on the mechanical bull?

Anyhow, i do get opportunities to hike or sit on chairlifts, gawk at the view and think Best Job Ever once in a while.

You can see the page HERE. Best pix from the Lingshan Mountain article. Which i hiked up w/ Yoyo. Super fun. Tallest peak in BJ.

Geez, can you believe i still have the nerve to complain about my job sometimes?

Oh, come on, click on the link. I was flattered they they gave me my own page.


2. It's now Golden Week. National holiday for like all of China. Going to Changsha w/ Derrick and Yoyo for our good friends' wedding. Super cool American guy and his awesome CN gf, both super active in the music scene in BJ. After the wedding stuffs, me and Yoyo will go to Zhangjiajie for 4 days, which should be super fun. Super getting on w/ Yoyo, yay. She's rad.

New Pad

Yup, got a new spot, after spending countless hours looking at countless places that were deemed (by Derrick, who's much pickier than me) unsatisfactory.

The new place is 1 minute walk from the old place, in one of the best spots in town.

It's also smaller, not as good, and more expensive.

Which is all totally unsurprising, considering the BJ real estate market.

Everyone loves a bubble.

The House Cooling Party

That's the poster made by Yoyo, my gf!

A while ago, me and D had our House Cooling Party. 'Cause we were getting kicked out. Lease up, landlord's daughter moving bk to BJ, us booted out to make space.

So we threw a party to say gbye to our swanky pad. Themed it Dispossessed Peoples of the World, bought a bunch of booze, invited lots of people, plus their friends and relatives. Anyhow, interesting mix of people came out. A few people from work, from my running group, from around. Good balance of possibly 40% Chinese folk (mostly Yoyo's friends). Lots of whom i just met that night.

Also the winning crew who barely beat my team in the world's shortest triathlon that very afternoon, also came out which was pretty hilarious. Pretty damn fun party, it turned out. Just lots of fun interesting people. Semi-professional musicians jamming in the bedroom. Smokers on the balcony when the rain let up. Skater-style art give-aways donated by Yoyo's friend. (He suggested doing a lottery, but i knew that trying to organize it would be impossible at that point).

Neighbours had been warned of the party, and knew my phone # in case we became a headache. But the cops arrived anyways. Not that i saw them. Derrick didn't either. But someone turned the music down and they went away. A few days later, i learned that it was a woman in a house across the street who called them in. Fuck, it wasn't that loud!

But there was a lot of people. Maybe 40? A bit tight to navigate through the lounge. Even the crappy dip i made got consumed. It really was a great spot for parties, but when i was w/ Q, she was like, "i hate parties," so like, we never had anything more than a few people over for din.

Lots of people who couldn't make it out told me they were sorry to miss it. "Yeah, well, no problem. i didn't actually talk to anybody the whole night somehow." Or at least i don't particularly recall doing so. But i was also tipsy enough that my memory of the whole night's a bit on the hazy side anyway.