memory loss

walmart beijing
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

too much drinking made me forget whatever i did this past week. here's what i remember anyways though.

started off the week same-old, same-old. monday/tuesday was the hectic work/school days so not much happened. tuesday night though, me and two friends decided to try out a bar near our school that served absinth. turns out the absinth they serve is the real thing, with the highest wormwood content available. bad thing about it is that it's 120rmb a shot. so me and the american both tried a shot for fun. perhaps in the future when i'm rich i'll go and try multiple shots to see what the hallucinating is like. anyways, we were getting ready to relax and leave when the owner comes out with a round of shots and has a drink with us. young korean lady that had really good english. made the whole experience better, since now when we go again we can chat with her.

wednesday started off as a normal day (i think). woke up, went to school, and for lunch we tried the italian restaurant with buffet by my apartment for 34rmb. not bad if you're a pasta fan, but there's really not much else. anyways, i ate so much pasta and bread that atkins was probably crying like a little bitch in his grave. i could hardly eat dinner that night, but decided to eat something anyways. it was a good thing i did, as it probably saved my life. so at night we decided to go to propoganda for the all-you-can-drinkness. it wasn't so packed this week as last time, and there seemed to be more local people which is always good. i got pretty drunk as we met an overseas chinese from japan and i kept drinking with him when i was already 'good'. anyways, when we were leaving the bar, i decided i'd cross the street with my friend so that i could get something to eat. so he left, and i was waiting for something to eat at the small shop, while this arab guy starts talking to me in japanese. wtf? so i respond and have a small chat with him and it turns out he was in the already closed japanese restaurant next door drinking. so he invites me in and there is another middleaged chinese guy, and a really young guy whos apparently the cook there. so alot of drinking and talking went on until about 5am. me being smart on the way home decide to stop at the salon by my house and give them a chat. in the end i wasn't able to wake up the next day for school. forgot to set my alarm altogether, and woke up to a mess in the washroom. my facial wash was in the sink with the water still running, plus there was shampoo all over the bathroom walls. gg me. anyways, i woke up at 10 the next day and threw up excess beer that hadn't been absorbed yet to save my life. went back to bed, and woke up at 1pm in time for work. completely dehydrated going to work, i forgot to buy a water so i spent 70 minutes yelling at kids and drying myself out like a prune. yay me.

anyways, thursday night was pretty typical as well. went to taku for another round of all-you-can-drinkness and if i remember correctly, nothing really interesting happened. oh wait, i remember meeting someone from edmonton. what a strange coincidence. there was this columbian girl who was ordering sprite, but the bartender didn't understand since sprite in chinese is 'xuebi'. she was next to me repeating 'sprite' over and over again until i just said the chinese word for it and the bartender understood. she thanked me then i asked her where she was from, etc and she asked me where i was from too. turns out she knew another canadian guy who she introduced a couple hours later when she ran into me again. HE EVEN WENT TO THE SAME JUNIOR HIGH AS ME. but he is 6 years older than me, so it's not like we went together. anyways after that we left early since my friend was hungry, and went over to yonghedawang to grab a bite. shitty menu late-night left us quite unsatisfied.

friday school was normal as usual, and i was supposed to meet the edmontonian for lunch at 12. when i met him though, he said he had to rush home to make a phonecall to edmonton so it's tentatively on for tomorrow still. after lunch at the cafeteria i went home and passed out for the bulk of the afternoon in preparation for another all-you-can-drinkness. we went with one of my russian friends from my old school which was amusing as usual since he goes up to everyone and talks to them. ended up dancing with a cute korean girl who i lost after we decided to leave promptly. anyways, we went to eat across the street and watch korean people pushing each other on the street which was fun.

saturday didn't really do much. woke up late, and went out with my friend to buy some paintings he needs as gifts. i went out with my classmates for dinner together for hotpot which was actually pretty good. afterwards we all went to some korean bar to drink soju and play drinking games. i realize now though, that their drinking level is way under which kind of sucks. all in all it was fun though, and somehow i got put in charge or making our class webpage.... great.

today woke up early since we stopped drinking last night at around 1230. woke up and walked around and found my way down to walmart. bought some walmart-only things which is always nice. afterwards came home and rested a bit then ate the peking duck i bought at walmart for dinner. honestly the peking duck was probably better than alot of the restaurants here in beijing. cheap too, as it's 18rmb for a half duck including the bones. i'll have to eat it again one day when i'm craving it i guess. anyways, time for sleep as i have to wake up in 5 hours for the gross work/school day.

very much tired

handicapped tree
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

so these past few days were quite adventurous. teaching, school, drinking, and randomness kept me busy.

lets start with wednesday. school was same old and what not, so we went to our usual wednesday night 50rmb all-you-can-drinkness. way more crowded than usual though; i guess all the foreigners finally discovered the place. my friend's back hurt from previously so after the bar i took him for a massage. apparently they had a guy walk on his back which actually made it worse. so there we are at 6am, outside the massage place and i'm laughing my ass off as he can't walk right since i'm still drunk. me being the usual ass i am say 'bye' and went home. got home way too late to sleep so i showered and went to school early. my friend also comes to school early and takes me out of classes and yells at me for a minute or so because i didn't help him home. i'm still drunk so i think it's pretty funny, and besides that i hardly ever get mad. anyways hes pissed off so much that we decide to talk it over later on in the day. eventually things worked out fine as we talked it over dinner. before that though, since it was thursday, i had to teach english. after english class i bussed over to the world trade center to pick up my dictionary which canon decided to replace for free. so i ended up staying up for 40 hours straight then came home and passed out at 2230 and slept for 8 hours.

besides that adventure not much happened. on friday we went to our usual taku, but brought along one of our australian schoolmates. the aussie decided it was a competition so he kept trying to drink faster than me. puked in the washroom for a very long time, then came out and puked on the floor. we decided that it was time for him to go home so i took him down and hailed a cab to take him back to the dorm. meanwhile, me and my friend keep on drinking, but due to his 'light supper' he ends up being more drunk than the aussie. puked outside once, so i brought him back in the bar and forced him to keep drinking water. i eventually had to haul his ass back to the dorm up 4 flights of stairs, including a stop on the 3rd floor to puke in the garbage can.

i'd have to say that alcohol and drinking are the most interesting things here in china. the concept of all-you-can-drinkness makes people do dumb things which are funny half of the time.

which reminds me of some guy i met yesterday at the bar who works for tsinghua tongfang - a spinoff company from tsinghua university that deals with technology and patents and computers and whatever. so this guy is talking to me and gives me his number and where he works and tells me anytime i have a problem i can call. now wait, who the hell is going to take someone they met at the bar seriously? this has happened to me on more than one occassion where i meet someone 'important' here and they tell me to call them if i need anything. is this customary? i would sure feel awkward calling these guys up one day and asking for help. maybe if i bumped into him on more than one occassion, but i still find it too weird.

anyways, i should get ready and go out for some food so that i can be energized to come home and clean my apartment.

new class

studybug
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

today started the next level class. went way better than i thought it would, but it was still pretty nuts. we have 6 textbooks that look pretty brutal. the teachers we had today though were way better than our main teacher in the other class. i hope our conversation teacher is as good as the last one though, because i really liked her.

after class i waited around for crazy korean girl but she didn't show so my friend and i went to the cafeteria and met up with our australian counterpart. after i sent crazy girl an sms, she called back from her phone saying she had to run home to do something for her roommate. gay.

rushed home to get changed then left to teach engrish. something pissed me off today though. last week i had 2 really good classes, but the positioning of the classrooms were the first 2 rooms you see when you enter the school. i, being of chinese descent, don't look like the typical foreign english teacher so i'm not allowed to teach there anymore. either parents will see me or other kids will tell their parents that a chinese person is teaching them english and it's bad for the school, etc. so today i got the other two classes which pretty much sucked compared to last weeks. these are my permanent classes too. gg racist china.

after i got home i passed out for 3 hours or so and then woke up and realized i had to buy groceries before the stores closed. rushed over there with 25 minutes before closing, picked up the essentials, then came home and made dinner. ate dinner and read a little of the textbooks and dicked around enough that it's time for bed.

fatigued

华清嘉园 number 16
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

it's sunday which means i just completed the 4 days in a row of all-you-can-drinkness. i just feel like sleeping all day and hoping tomorrow will not come as i have school and work.

i can't remember if i said so earlier, but i am now an engrish teacher part-time. i teach at 71 primary school which is about a 40-minute subway ride away. it gives me something to do a few days a week, and gives me enough money to drink my liver dry.

on that note, i've had bloody mucus for the past couple days. i'm hoping it's just a symptom of the flu i currently have, and not something serious like cheap china cigarettes and bad liquor making my insides cry blood. please no.

i have to say that walmart in china is the best place ever. their food floor is probably the best supermarket in china just due to the variety. i went yesterday and bought some grape juice and fried chicken and later when i was eating it i thought, 'wtf i'm in china not in detroit.' anyways i realized why i love walmart here but absolutely hate it in canada. in canada walmart is full of low income families who are rude and make the whole experience of going to walmart shitty. the thing though in china, everywhere you go is like that. so basically you go to the place which has the best things as the people are going to piss you off anyways.

i met this crazy korean girl in the office when i was arguing to switch classes this past week. at first i thought she was overseas chinese from.... america? uk? australia? wasn't sure because she has the weirdest accent i'd ever heard. turns out she's genuine korean from korea. i befriended her by sticking around while she asked the school for her money back, then laughed at her as we walked home. aside from being a jesus freak, i think she's pretty cool. i asked her why she didn't hang around with the other koreans in the school and she told me that they drink too much. ORLY? i guess she didn't notice that my drinking level is equivalent to theirs.

anyways i got the class change done after a retest. i start tomorrow in the higher level and i hope it doesn't rape me too hard. hopefully my classmates are better too. the last class i met a few people, but the rest of the koreans seem pretty hostile. which reminds me of the death stare i got from a korean girl at the bar last night after laughing at her for pushing around her boyfriend.

i think i'll get dressed and go out for a bit to buy some groceries and dick around. it's a nice day today and maybe it'll wake me up a little.

first day of school

humper cafe
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

today was my first day of school.

due to being drunk during the placement tests, i was put into the remedial class full of handicaps and retards. haha just kidding, but i was put in a level that i find too easy. the proof? one of our textbooks is the exact same one i finished last term. go me.

my class is alright. too many goddamn koreans, and not enough variety of people. cute indonesian girl with a HUGE mole under her eye. the irony if she loves to cry.

anyways after class i went with my american friend to the cafeteria to try things out. it immediately scared one of his classmates from the states who left promptly, but i thought it looked alright. settled on the 2nd floor of the main dining hall which didn't require cafeteria cards. bought a plate of fried beef noodles which tasted not half bad and only cost me 65 cents canadian. my friend agreed that it wasn't bad so i think we'll frequent there more often since it's so cheap anyways.

after eating i came home intending to sleep but decided to check recent ads for english jobs. phoned one up that said '20 english teachers needed,' as i figured they were desperate enough to even hire a chinese-looking foreigner. the lady on the phone just told me to come quickly for an interview and even forgot to tell me what the school name was. i eventually figured it out as i thought she said 'C E school' but it turned out to be '71 school' which is pronounced 'qi yi.' anyways i got there, got lost for a while, then finally found the office. she then goes on to ask me to teach a class right then and there and she'll see how i do. wow i was not prepared for that at all. i just made the kids (who were grade 1) keep repeating and repeating what they already learned. i wonder if they were bored or not.

anyways, finally got home around 6 and decided to take a nap. died for about 90 minutes and woke up to phone my friend and see if he had eaten yet. turns out he didn't so i met him at school for dinner before returning home after groceries. decided to study a bit while watching the grammys which i downloaded so that tomorrow when the teacher quizzes me because i want to change classes, i'll be fine.

i sure hope she lets me switch classes or it looks like it's going to be a boring, redundant term. either that or all hell is going to break loose in the office.

next station tin hau

train station 6am
Originally uploaded by galaygobi.

past few days have been pretty busy. 2 days ago i went drinking again with my friend but this time we took it easy(er). went to taku for all-you-can-drink and ended off with a nice buzz.

this picture is from yesterday morning when i was waiting for the train to get home. went to see my friend who lives on the other side of town (2 hours on the bus) and ended up missing the bus/subway back. i figured since i was already there we might as well go to ktv which is just the next block down. the girl i got was okay, from sichuan and spoke some cantonese which made me feel nostargic about home. hung around till 530 when the trains started running again and then trained it home.

i was pretty dead all day yesterday as i ended up sleeping for about 10 hours during the day, and then another 9 hours at night. my body was probably angry at me for not sleeping and drinking too much while still being sick. i guess i'll take it easy today before school starts tomorrow.

limp limp limp

bruise on the top of my head.
bruise on the back of my head.
bruise on my chin.
bruises on my fingers.
bruises on my elbows.
bruises on my knees.
bruise on my tailbone.
bruises up and down my arm.

interesting night to say the least.

started off with me meeting a new friend from chicago for dinner. we ended up going to some chinese restaurant that seemed popular for salad (wtf, salad?). while we were eating a creepy guy with acne face and snot hanging from his nose came to talk to us in english. found out we were from us and canada respectively then began to talk about music he liked. said his favourite band was nirvana and asked my friend, who's black, if he liked nirvana. my friend replied that it was 'a little too white for him.' creepy guy obviously didn't understand. after he left us alone for a bit, he came back and SAT at our goddamn table. of course we were eating, not looking at him, and pretending to ignore him but he pursued. asked my friend if he liked hiphop and rap, and then said his favourite rap artist was MC Hammer. obviously by then i was laughing like a schoolgirl. well to get him to go away, we quickly paid the bill and were saved by the waitress who brought his food to another table.

after that we walked back to our area and killed time as propaganda opened. propaganda is primarily a club that plays hiphop music. the catch is, on wednesdays it's 50kuai (7 canadian) all-you-can-drink. bad news.

after drinking probably the equivalent of over a litre of 40% alcohol, i completely forgot what happened. my friend managed to drag me home after i got kicked out of the bar and was put in an armbar by the bouncer. he said i fell down outside numerous times which accounts for all the bruises on my body. one time i fell backwards and my head was saved by an indent in the ground. apparently when we got back to my apartment, i kept telling him we had the right room (he didn't know as this was his first time over). so there we were trying to open other people's doors at 2 in the morning. needless to say there are some angry neighbours inside my apartment. he said we went to 5 different places before we got the right apartment. i'm funny.

he then woke me up at 745 this morning by bashing my head as we both had a test at 8. i was still so drunk that i couldn't find my classroom for a good 30 minutes. i realized that they changed buildings on me as i went to reread the sign outside. however, they just crossed off the old building and didn't write in the new one so i was even more lost. my test went okay i guess for me being still so drunk and hopefully won't get put back to the beginner level hahaha.

anyways, after the test i came home and showered and had a nice nap before i met my friend again to help him buy a phone while he told me all the hilarious stories of last night.

funny thing is he wanted to go drinking again tonight with me again to the other all-you-can-drink. i think i'll pass for today. maybe tomorrow.

lazing around

quite an unproductive day. woke up around 2 and basically sat around all day watching japanese tv series that i brought with me from canada.

got home this morning around 730am from karaoke. for some reason it was busy so none of the usual girls i know were free so i got stuck with a girl that nobody wanted. she was telling me how her life is and i sort of felt sorry for her but found it funny at the same time. for some reason she wants me to come on her birthday which is next week and then she'll take me out.

no thanks.

seems like an age-old trick they use. - 'next time you come i'll take you out.' actually she seemed serious after she poured out her life story and kept telling me to come.

but still, no thanks.

and besides that she made my neck look like i dove into a swamp full of leeches which is another reason i just sat around today. on top of that tomorrow i have to go get visa pictures and go to the public security bureau to renew my visa.

collared shirt - check!

i honestly can't wait until school starts so i can meet some new people. i think the best combination would be a local guy with lots of money. that way when we go out he can get the local deals and we won't get cheated by chinamen, but he'll have enough money to go to places that normal people can't go to. not going to happen for sure, but i can always dream.

i think i'll go to sleep as i've been sitting around all day watching tv and it actually made me pretty tired.

salty sunflower seeds

2am.
i've been eating sunflower seeds for the past 2 hours.
i slept through dinner.

so i'm back in china again. going to a different school in a different district, so i'm at a different apartment. half the price of my old place, but way less than half as comfortable. not used to it so far as for one, the washroom doesn't have a separate shower but just a drain on the ground and a shower mounted on the wall. also, i don't get any english channels here so there's really nothing to do at night but sleep or go out.

when i arrived, coincidentally my uncle was also scheduled to arrive in beijing for a meeting. so the first few days he helped me get settled in, and my aunt and i thoroughly cleaned the dirty apartment. since he's not a cheapass like me when it comes to eating out here, i had good food for the time he was around. he also bought me a hi-fi system since he said i'd be bored and i could just listen to music. yay! so now i have a cute hi-fi system with green speakers that i have yet to setup right. that involves moving furniture around, buying things necessary to rewire, etc. so i figure i'll do it another day. still need to buy a couple things, and run some errands. need to renew my visa, fix my dictionary, look for a new phone, etc.

saw one friend so far. went to eat a couple times, and went to karaoke once. he's still the same i guess. i really wish i had other friends here, especially like those back home. my best friend here, i wouldn't even put up with for a day in canada. he's too arrogant when talking to people and wonders why no one else in the class is his friend. whenever he talks to me about other korean people he says they're not good and how he thinks he's better than them. whenever you tell him something that you discovered or some trivial fact he says he already knew that. fun. wow, i'm an asshole for talking behind his back haha, but honestly i couldn't care less.

but anyways, tomorrow i have to get more documents for my visa, get some shopping done, and random things. the good thing about this area is there are so many places to eat within a couple blocks radius, unlike my old place. the bad thing though, is the center of the city is so far away. i miss my old place where when i was bored, i could idle at the beauty salon a block away and just chat with people. i guess i have to make new friends and find a new place to hang out here.

gross i just ate a rotten sunflower seed.

time to wash it down with water and try to sleep again.