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| Alright, so the weekend was much more fun than I had originally
planned. Before I had planned extra time in the office and gym,
and lots of sleeping. But, things got interesting on Friday...
Friday night, things got kicked off at bar in my building, (I love
saying that) called beer mania. Its a Belgium beer bar where
there are more than 75 types fo Belgium beer by the bottle, all going
fro less than 5 bucks US. not bad right, especially when I was in
NYC, my friends bought 26 USD Belgium beer at a bar. and whats
more impressive, is that they match your beer to your glass, so
whatever beer out of the 75 that you pick, you get the logoed glass as
well. This is amazing, as you have to remember that I am living
in BEIJING, CHINA. So, i had two beers, one was called Defendu,
which was awesome, and I had a Red Satan, which almost as good.
OK, then the night moved to Suzie Wongs, where the older crowd mingles
(the most exciting part of this portion, is I finally get to buy
grilled lamb skewers off the street vendors, where the special
ingredient is the pollution of the BJ air). So mingle mingle, then
we were off to Mix, where all the twenty somethings and hip hop junkies
hang out. Mix was fun, but very packed. And I dont know if
it was the long hours that i have been pulling at the office, or just
the general getting older kinda thing, by 1am, i was tired, drunk, and
headed home, because there was stewed beef and thousand year old egg
porridge waiting for me. haha.
On Saturday, when I woke up to headache and cotton mouth, I remember
that my buddy at work promised me 10 corporate box tickets to the China
Open where Sharapova, the William Sisters and a host of Chinese stars
(Sun Tiantian, Peng Shuai, etc) were playing. So off to the China
Open we were in the late afternoon. After a disgusting traffic
ridden ride (50 min for a normal 20 min ride) we get to the stadium
only to find that the organizers of the match decided to put a camera
where our seats used to be, without telling us. So there we were,
sitting in the aisle watching Sharapova stink it up against
Kirlenko. and then in the 2nd set, she throws in the towel
because of an injury. So, the major stars in th China Open,
Sharapova and Venus both pull out because of injury, and Serena loses
in the early rounds... too bad for Chinese fans, such a rare treat, at
least in the past. and the night is topped with Taiwanese food
and strawberry bing sha!
Sunday rolls around and finds me fighting the crowds in Ikea, really
needing to but stuff for the apt, so got a ton of stuff, bedding,
pillows, sheets, rugs, etc. This process of moving in, buying new
stuff, but never good quality stuff because i tell myself, "oh, i
moving out in awhile so i should but the good stuff later," only to
move somewhere else for a little while where I repeat the process again
is really starting to annoy me. I have packed up, moved out,
moved in, up packed, at least once a year for the last 7 years. I
AM TIRED OF MOVING.
Ok, moving on, so my buddy jeff and I are going to the finals match for
the China Open, but we are going to grab a bite to eat first. we
go to a restaurant called thousand and one nights, really good, if i
might say. we get hummous, Armenian salad, two types of lamb
kabobs, grilled chicken wing, sweet yogurt lassi, and of course, we top
it off with Baklava, the nutty desert with pastry shell and
honey. we eat all of this in about 20 min. we are
disgusting pigs. hah.
China Open Finals match was fun, it was Kirlenko of Russia and
Gronenfeld of Germany (she had a big serve, a couple of aces).
after lots of back a forth and a couple of warnings to the crowd about
not yelling "out" or "fault" when play was going on, (ok, China has a
daunting task of teaching one billion people manners, and its going to
take time), Kirlenko wins and everyone is happy, with the exception, of
course, Gronenfeld. After the match, Jeff and I manage to sneak
in the players tunnel and was going to stand there waiting for Kirlenko
to pass by, so we could high five her, but some jackass started to talk
to the event people and got kicked out, and of course, we got kicked
out too. sorry...
ok, so that was my weekend, lots of eating, and lots of tennis...
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| a quick thought.
Because the way how my apartment is setup, and the the glass walls of
my shower, i can watch TV from the shower. now, what more can a
man ask for?
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| Ok, a couple of random thoughts today.
I eat too fast. When I looked up at the clock at the gym when I
got done, it said 840pm. So went up and got changed, packed up my
stuff, and went downstairs, ordered myself a tuna sandwich, waited
forever, finally got it, ate it, with my salad, drank my water and then
left. as I was leaving the gym, I looked down at my watch, it
said 8:54.
Hot water is great. I woke up this morning and I didnt have hot
water, just freeze your blood in your veins cold water. so I did
the once over with cold water and went to work. When I got back
from work, I turned on the water heater (yeah i know, SMRT).
Waited an hour, then jumped into the hot shower. DAMN, you know how
good it feels when youget something you've been wanting the whole and
finally you get it, and its better than you thought it was going to
be. That was a glorious shower.
Bags of groceries are great. Its great because not only do you
get food and all sorts of goodies, its a great ward against pestering
pimp in the streets of BJ. Where I live in BJ its near its famous
bar street, Sanlitun. And where there is a bar street, there are
pimps offering girls from the North to the South and the new one,
Ladies from Russia! Usually, I am prime target for they to
pester. But today, i was invicible with my bags of groceries.
thats all for now...
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| So, David Tao was cool. 4 costume changes, classical Chinese
instruments, 3 skits, 1 Beijing opera performance, and a full sized
helicopter on stage with spinning rotors, i'd say it was a pretty cool
concert, (especially since my last concert was Nora Jones, great voice,
but terrible jokes).
So it all started when my buddy jeff and i got out of the cab and
started trying to scalp tix, this dude with a wad of cash in his hand
(usually to but tix form people to resell) started to talk to us about
buying tickets (face value 680 RMB about $85 USD) about how awesome the
ticket were, and they will escort us inside to make sure the tix are
real, how one of us can go in first, and then other one can stay
outside with the money and pay after everything was cool, you know,
just general shadiness. So, I started bargaining, and the price,
for the pair, went from 1320 to 1000 to 900 to 800 in a matter of 5
min, and i think i could of gone lower if i waited for the concert to
begin (like the other 500 people waiting outside were doing) so i tried
one time at 700, didnt get it, and told him to take jeff inside, while
i waited outside with the money to pay the shady man and his friend.
everything was fine, and we got in just in time for the first song,
which goes wah lalala, tian zai xia yu (sky is raining)... Tao was
wearing a white sequence suit with a leotard inside (hmm....
fruity...?) the set was in this red wood forest thing, (Tao
actually "disappears" in a tree with a guy in green hiding his escape),
a bald indian guy that played percussion (he was cool), classical
chinese instruments (er hu, pipa, bamboo flute).... most of the songs
were the old ones, which seemed more popular with the crowd, but some
of his new stuff is fun too. He attempted to sing bj opera, and
played the mini gong and everything.
all in all, had a great time, and why does chinese music always about
love, its like the only thing they talk about. Tao must of been a
dork in high school, and got rejected by tons of girls, like "i cant
just be your friend" (its the friend-zone song and the high school
dorkness, something i identify with A LOT). What do you guys
think? just listen to his songs, about the girls and everything...
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| Today, I am trying to get David Tao concert tonight at the BJ Capital
Stadium, I dont have tix, so my buddy Jeff and I are going to scalp the
tix. So wish me luck!
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