So I'm gonna go backwards. Last night was awesome. Colin is attempting to redeem himself after being a total asshole loser last weekend, ditching me AND the skaters to hang out with his dumb girlfriend in the middle of a stellar evening. So, anyway, the redemption...he's doing a really good job. We had the BEST time last night. Started out by heading downstairs to Timemart (the charming 24 hour store that at no point has less than 8 people working in it) where they sell us beer and open it for us. Next to time mart is the internet cafe - my second home....come to think of it, they really could make internet cafes more atmospherey - I have to pay extra to sit at the nice computers with the nice chairs. ANYWAY...sorry, I should have warned you, this is gonna be so RANDOM - and you will soon see why. So Timemart, outside the internet cafe - they host a ping pong table, and you can play for free, and they especially let us play for free cause we're white and everything and that's good publicity. I brought my discman and speakers and we were blasting The Darkness while playing drinking ping pong which means you put your beer on the table and your opponent tries to hit it and if they do, than you have to drink. Colin and I couldn't stop thinking about what honkies we looked like, being white, drinking beer and listening to cock rock. It didn't particularly help that these African dudes we know kept walking by us on the way to the bathroom.
Colin: Ummm, maybe we could change the music?
Chloe: Why? Do you want to listen to some hip hop?
Colin: Uhhhhh....I feel like a loser
Chloe: Yeah...okay after this song
Colin: Ummm, maybe we could change the music?
Chloe: Why? Do you want to listen to some hip hop?
Colin: Uhhhhh....I feel like a loser
Chloe: Yeah...okay after this song
So....then everyone came down from the apartment and we eventually headed out to downtown. We went to this bar called Kelala Bar, which I've always admired from the outside, and then it turns out that they have 10 kuai beers (like $1.75). Nice place, my Chinese sidekick, Helen, came - she's the best, I love her. She's like 17 and is my hairdresser and is half North korean half Chinese - and is so cool. She goes to the Chinese Disco every night - and dances. And here the word for e is Head shake - because they just shake their heads. Helen shakes her head like crazy when she dances, but she doesn't take head shake. I don't think anyway. She dances the best, I love going dancing with her. It's so retro the way she moves, like an eighties movie. She's awesome. I'll try and post a picture of her.
So we hung out at Kelala bar for a bit, and then me and Eryn took off to Corner Jazz - Helen went home to her salon. (she's my hairdresser and many people live at their work here, or just sleep there). Oh, by the way, i straight permed my hair and it's awesome - you don't have to do anything to it when you get out of the shower....it's just straight! It only cost me 80$ canadian. At my aunt's hair salon in Florida, the same treatment costs $900 US DOLLARS. Can you believe that? That's so ridiculous. I have a friend in San Francisco who paid like 600 us. So You can see why I couldn't turn it down here. Anyway - so Corner Jazz Bar - the shittiest bar, that everyone goes to, and that's the only reason it's good. Generally it sucks and is lame. So everyone was there, got hammered didn't dance cause the music was totally crap. Colin and the other boys finally showed up. We went to Hot Bliss - the Chinese disco. OKAY...let me tell you. There was no dancing, because there was a performance. Yes, a giant dancefloor with 'crazy' light and a little middle aged chinese man dancing and singing in the middle. SINGING - with that echo feature they can turn on and running around, STANDING ON HIS HEAD SINGING WITH THE MIC ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF HIS MOUTH. OMIGOD. YOu have to realise the dance floor is REALLY huge and so he looked even smaller - and it didn't so much resemble a stage as it did a ring. Anyway, there was this wasted Canadian girl there who really seemed to want to dance with him, but there were security guards surrounding the parameter to prevent this sort of thing. But that did not stop me, I mean her, from constantly attempting to get into the giant dance ring with the strange singin and dancin man. Finally, the security (and I'm talking full out camo gear and walkietalkies) guards had to call the manager, because the foreign girl refused to cease her attempts at dancing with the little man. THe manager came down and was yelling and she was yelling, but she stopped him from being mad anymore by rubbing his head and giving him a big hug. This got a smile out of him. and then we left.
There's a costume party tonight and the theme is things that start with P - so me and Colin are going as punks. Should be good. I just want to put make up on him.
Xi'an was okay. It was really interesting seeing CHina outside of Qingdao, but I definitely wouldn't want to live there. It was especially bad cause all of China was on vacation and most haven't seen whitey before, so it's kinda lame having 1.3 billion people pointing and laughing and staring at you.
So I left off at the terracotta warriors. Of course, when we got out of our bus into mudslide of a parking lot, did the fearless aussie leaders go in the direction of the ENTRANCE? NOooooooooooo! Why? Because the logical method of entering the second most visited site in China is by hanging a left in the directions of umm mud and nothing! Why did I follow? I do not know. No desire to rock boat I guess. So after half an hour we arrived at some gate where Chinese were yelling at a guard to let them in. They let us in, but only by opening the gate a crack and I had my backpack on backwards to protects its contents from the rain and pickpocketers and couldn't fit really but everyone was treating me like I was pregnant although it was just a bag. So ridiculous. Next we went to ummm the hot springs, but we didn't go in. Instead we took a cable car to the top of a mountain which was hella scary because the wind was blowing hard and I don't trust anything in China except that people are often dishonest. We arrived at the top and the lonely planet said there was a cool museum but we realized once we got there that we'd have to pay another 30 kuai to get in which is only like 5 bux but we didn't want pay on top of everything else so we just hungout and checked out the fog which did an amazing job at blocking the view and then headed back down.
Back to the hostel - where our host, Kane, was waiting for us. Or just waiting for any travellers. Yeah, anytime you walk into the compound, he comes bouncing out of his restaurant and tells you to go inside. "no thanks kane, i'm gonna take a shower"
Kane: That's okay! that's okay! you come later.
you: umm okay.
He was hilarious. Refused to play anything except U2 the strokes and the beatles. But really only the U2. Every morning, on schedule you would hear the intro to Beautiful Day as your breakfast was served. And then everynight when the beers were arriving ...duh duh duh (hear Beautiful Day intro) no fail my friends.
So we missed our train back to Qingdao - thought we'd "conveniently" fly back, but could only get flights to Jinan - which is the capital of Shandong province - where I live. Thought - ahh, we'll just catch a bus to Qingdao. YEah. So off we went to the Xi'an airport, which is beautiful. Happily playing asshole, drinking beers. I guess there's a lot of beer drinking, but it's now the only carb i'm consuming. yeah i said it. fucking annoying, i don't want to hear anything about it.
Got on the plane, flew to Jinan (1 hour) and arrived in the crap airport there. Fought with a hundred taxis who didn't want to take us to the bus station because it was "closed" and they could drive us for a simple 1400 kuai, even though the bus is only 100 each.
The bus didn't leave until 7 the next am, and it was 11pm, so we had to find somewhere to stay. I called this dude Munna, a pakistani med student I met in Qingdao who lives in Jinan, to ask him if he knew what we should do. He sent us to a bar called the Pyramid - which is WAY cooler than Corner Jazz, plays better music, has great food and is just better. The problem is, it's in Jinan WHICH IS FUCKING LAME. Total industry town, even dirtier than Xi'an, which gave me a cough that I still haven't gotten rid of.
So we found a hotel at 1 am, talked her into giving us a room for fifty each - which is expensive and we were only there for 5 hours or something. China should not be carpeted in any way. With all the spitting and disgustingness that goes on, carpets are NOT cool. But this hotel was carpeted and featured long, unlit hallways in tune with The Shining. I couldn't sleep cause I kept thinking bad guys were going to jump through our window and rape and steal from us.
Anyway the bus ride the next day was totally high class - there was a flight attendant and a movie - Shaolin Soccer - you should check it out. It's HILARIOUS. The flight attendant did a whole speech thing at the beginning on a mic that fully had that echo effect happening even though she could speak normally and everyone on the bus would be able to hear her.
I was so happy to be back in Qingdao. It seemed strange 'coming home' to Qingdao. Although, I really do love this city. It's great, and anyone who accidentally ends up here is lucky.
My current fave song is Arrested in Shanghai by Rancid - check out their album Indestrucible. and I'm loving the darkenss.
Okay, that was really long...gotta go
peace in the middle east. (really)
So we hung out at Kelala bar for a bit, and then me and Eryn took off to Corner Jazz - Helen went home to her salon. (she's my hairdresser and many people live at their work here, or just sleep there). Oh, by the way, i straight permed my hair and it's awesome - you don't have to do anything to it when you get out of the shower....it's just straight! It only cost me 80$ canadian. At my aunt's hair salon in Florida, the same treatment costs $900 US DOLLARS. Can you believe that? That's so ridiculous. I have a friend in San Francisco who paid like 600 us. So You can see why I couldn't turn it down here. Anyway - so Corner Jazz Bar - the shittiest bar, that everyone goes to, and that's the only reason it's good. Generally it sucks and is lame. So everyone was there, got hammered didn't dance cause the music was totally crap. Colin and the other boys finally showed up. We went to Hot Bliss - the Chinese disco. OKAY...let me tell you. There was no dancing, because there was a performance. Yes, a giant dancefloor with 'crazy' light and a little middle aged chinese man dancing and singing in the middle. SINGING - with that echo feature they can turn on and running around, STANDING ON HIS HEAD SINGING WITH THE MIC ON THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF HIS MOUTH. OMIGOD. YOu have to realise the dance floor is REALLY huge and so he looked even smaller - and it didn't so much resemble a stage as it did a ring. Anyway, there was this wasted Canadian girl there who really seemed to want to dance with him, but there were security guards surrounding the parameter to prevent this sort of thing. But that did not stop me, I mean her, from constantly attempting to get into the giant dance ring with the strange singin and dancin man. Finally, the security (and I'm talking full out camo gear and walkietalkies) guards had to call the manager, because the foreign girl refused to cease her attempts at dancing with the little man. THe manager came down and was yelling and she was yelling, but she stopped him from being mad anymore by rubbing his head and giving him a big hug. This got a smile out of him. and then we left.
There's a costume party tonight and the theme is things that start with P - so me and Colin are going as punks. Should be good. I just want to put make up on him.
Xi'an was okay. It was really interesting seeing CHina outside of Qingdao, but I definitely wouldn't want to live there. It was especially bad cause all of China was on vacation and most haven't seen whitey before, so it's kinda lame having 1.3 billion people pointing and laughing and staring at you.
So I left off at the terracotta warriors. Of course, when we got out of our bus into mudslide of a parking lot, did the fearless aussie leaders go in the direction of the ENTRANCE? NOooooooooooo! Why? Because the logical method of entering the second most visited site in China is by hanging a left in the directions of umm mud and nothing! Why did I follow? I do not know. No desire to rock boat I guess. So after half an hour we arrived at some gate where Chinese were yelling at a guard to let them in. They let us in, but only by opening the gate a crack and I had my backpack on backwards to protects its contents from the rain and pickpocketers and couldn't fit really but everyone was treating me like I was pregnant although it was just a bag. So ridiculous. Next we went to ummm the hot springs, but we didn't go in. Instead we took a cable car to the top of a mountain which was hella scary because the wind was blowing hard and I don't trust anything in China except that people are often dishonest. We arrived at the top and the lonely planet said there was a cool museum but we realized once we got there that we'd have to pay another 30 kuai to get in which is only like 5 bux but we didn't want pay on top of everything else so we just hungout and checked out the fog which did an amazing job at blocking the view and then headed back down.
Back to the hostel - where our host, Kane, was waiting for us. Or just waiting for any travellers. Yeah, anytime you walk into the compound, he comes bouncing out of his restaurant and tells you to go inside. "no thanks kane, i'm gonna take a shower"
Kane: That's okay! that's okay! you come later.
you: umm okay.
He was hilarious. Refused to play anything except U2 the strokes and the beatles. But really only the U2. Every morning, on schedule you would hear the intro to Beautiful Day as your breakfast was served. And then everynight when the beers were arriving ...duh duh duh (hear Beautiful Day intro) no fail my friends.
So we missed our train back to Qingdao - thought we'd "conveniently" fly back, but could only get flights to Jinan - which is the capital of Shandong province - where I live. Thought - ahh, we'll just catch a bus to Qingdao. YEah. So off we went to the Xi'an airport, which is beautiful. Happily playing asshole, drinking beers. I guess there's a lot of beer drinking, but it's now the only carb i'm consuming. yeah i said it. fucking annoying, i don't want to hear anything about it.
Got on the plane, flew to Jinan (1 hour) and arrived in the crap airport there. Fought with a hundred taxis who didn't want to take us to the bus station because it was "closed" and they could drive us for a simple 1400 kuai, even though the bus is only 100 each.
The bus didn't leave until 7 the next am, and it was 11pm, so we had to find somewhere to stay. I called this dude Munna, a pakistani med student I met in Qingdao who lives in Jinan, to ask him if he knew what we should do. He sent us to a bar called the Pyramid - which is WAY cooler than Corner Jazz, plays better music, has great food and is just better. The problem is, it's in Jinan WHICH IS FUCKING LAME. Total industry town, even dirtier than Xi'an, which gave me a cough that I still haven't gotten rid of.
So we found a hotel at 1 am, talked her into giving us a room for fifty each - which is expensive and we were only there for 5 hours or something. China should not be carpeted in any way. With all the spitting and disgustingness that goes on, carpets are NOT cool. But this hotel was carpeted and featured long, unlit hallways in tune with The Shining. I couldn't sleep cause I kept thinking bad guys were going to jump through our window and rape and steal from us.
Anyway the bus ride the next day was totally high class - there was a flight attendant and a movie - Shaolin Soccer - you should check it out. It's HILARIOUS. The flight attendant did a whole speech thing at the beginning on a mic that fully had that echo effect happening even though she could speak normally and everyone on the bus would be able to hear her.
I was so happy to be back in Qingdao. It seemed strange 'coming home' to Qingdao. Although, I really do love this city. It's great, and anyone who accidentally ends up here is lucky.
My current fave song is Arrested in Shanghai by Rancid - check out their album Indestrucible. and I'm loving the darkenss.
Okay, that was really long...gotta go
peace in the middle east. (really)
