Friends and me went to the Japanese bar on 35th floor with the great view over Beijing. It was nice to be there the day before New Years Eve. We could already see some fireworks in various places. That bar not only has a huge selection of mangas but also has a small room you can rent by the hour to play Wii (Nintendo game). We talked about it, but as a juggling friend of mine invited us over for a party, we went there. Sure once in a while somebody would pick up some balls and juggle at the party. But guess what: He had a Wii system because his room mate has a friend that lent it to him for the Chinese New Year week long holiday. So we were actually playing Wii the whole evening while Oli was DJ-ing us some drum and base tunes. First there were the various cute rabit games, then we finally turned to Wii sports. The guys played boxing, then we started tennis. It is really physical and a lot of fun. You start sweating a lot. I understand why people like Wii.
Author Archive
„Biggin‘ it up Beijing-Style“ Party
Samstag, Januar 24th, 2009Chinese Toilets and Niche Markets
Samstag, Januar 24th, 2009There are many cultural differences between Chinese and Germans. Today I had to laugh when I went for the toilets at the Western furniture store IKEA. There was a queue in the lady’s washroom. But when a looked ahead I saw all the toilet doors on the right side and half of them on the left side were all open. Guess what? They did not use them because they were toilets with toilet bowls with seats. The 2 toilets they were waiting for were the squatting toilets. The toilet seat I wanted to use had footprints of dirty shoes on it. Somebody must have squatted on the seat. And that is not unusual in China. Normal toilets in China are the squatting ones having just a hole in the ground. Often in modern places they put up signs saying „no squatting on toilet seat“.
Another interesting thing was that when you walk through the aisles of the IKEA furniture pickup floor with some long packages on your cart that people would come up to you telling you that that will not fit into a taxi. For the very long packages I believe that is true. So these people were offering to drive us home and carry our stuff and they could even help build up some of the furniture. IKEA has a delivery service, but you have to pay for that. These people were all very friendly, not pushy or annoying, just offering their services in a nice way. So for us it was much more convenient (and cheaper) to discuss a good price with one of these drivers. These things just make life easy in China. You do not have to think about „oh if this does not fit into the taxi what do we do?“ as there will be somebody coming to you presenting a solution before you can think about it. The Chinese are very good at finding niche markets and doing good business.
Broken Bike Lock
Freitag, Januar 23rd, 2009Hmm…, it is because it is just before Chinese New Year? Or is it just due to the icy cold weather with these Siberian winds? Or is it just due to the the lock being old? I went for dinner. I locked my fixed gear bike with 2 Kryptonite locks to a fence and my friend locked his bike (that actually belongs to my German friend) to my frame. After dinner we were not able to open the lock of my friend. The key just refused to go into the hole. It could be because of these freezing temperatures. Or did somebody actually mess with the lock trying to open it? It is common in China that there is theft just before Chinese New Year as everybody needs some nice gifts for their families. Even the cab drivers in Beijing put up a metal cage around them inside the car to protect them from desperate theives before Chinese New Year. Oh, well I will check that lock tomorrow. Maybe it just needs some lubricant.
Suprise Birthday Party
Donnerstag, Januar 22nd, 2009Today is Shaopeng’s 30th birthday. A friend of Shaopeng’s girlfriend had a housewarming party. So Shaopeng’s girlfriend invited all of Shaopeng’s friends to come to the housewarming and turn it into a surprise birthday party for Shaopeng. So we all went there.Here are two pictures a friend of mine took. Maybe she was already quite drunk…
For those of you who do not live in Beijing: An address in Beijing usually just consists of „residential complex name or hutong name“, „building number“ and „apartment number“. So for this house warming it was said that it is the „building 3 of the new part“ of the residential complex. Me and some friends arrived coincidentally at the same time at the same place just to find out that we were not in the newest part of the complex. By now (after Olympics) there was a complete new residential complex across the big airport express with the same name. You ask yourself why they could not have found a nice slightly different name. Oh well.
The past few days it had been bitter cold in Beijing especially with the arctic winds. Wind is great in Beijing as it blows away any clouds or smog and just gives us cristal clear blue skies. But it makes it much colder. After riding home on my bike after the surprise birthday party I did want to see the current temperature: It is only -12 degrees Celcius. But I am sure with the wind chill factor it is around -20 degrees Celcius. At least it felt like that.
Bimbo Donuts and Chinglish Product
Mittwoch, Januar 21st, 2009Finally back in China! I noticed that when I heard a guy behind me pull up all the stuff from his nose with a disgusting sound and then loudly spit it on the ground behind me.Yes, I must be home.
There are still signs in China with funny English printed on them. Even in Beijing. And there are a lot of products sold with not quite correct English translations on them. Just as a random example, this is a picture of the product that I bought today. They had the English version of the operating instructions printed on the product packaging. They are probably targeting the US market. Somehow I have problems understanding what each part is, e.g. the allc diality flex, the inching switch and the in house lock flex stalk and what they do by circumgyrate.
One of my favorite products with funny names are the „Bimbo“ donuts. And even as a German I find it funny that the logo of company called Bimbo (= German word for Nigger) is a white cute bear. I did just find out though that the brand is not Chinese but actually Mexican. They claim that they „always bake every product with love“. But it still makes me smile each time I see these donuts.
Performing Arts
Sonntag, Januar 18th, 2009My last day in Germany I went to meet two friends from the times we used to get together (artists from the Nuernberg-Erlangen region) every month and put on a variety show called „Vorsicht Variete“. I stopped performing in that group in 1999 or 2000, so I must have not seen them for such a long time. Fritz Mack used to work as an engineer in a big company. He chose to quit his job and become a full time professional artist about 2 years ago. He changed his appearance and enjoys his work as a performing artist. he is multi talented with juggling, unicycling, acrobatics, fire show and clown. It was very nice to see him and talk to him after such a long time. Tatjana Bilenko still is as fit as always and she still is devoted to circus sport doing a lot of trapeze and vertical trapeze. They run the open „Zirkus Labor“ with regular juggling get togethers (Sunday afternoons) and acro balance get togethers (Friday mornings) as well as workshops. On this picture we all look a bit wierd, especially me with my tanned face (but white neck) from the 15 days skiing.
My mother loves art and design. She holds a lot of painting workshops and also attends many art workshops herself. She is a very creative person. I have some of her work in my apartment. I think a lot of her pictures are really beautiful.
Last Skiing Day
Samstag, Januar 17th, 2009Wow, again the clouds stayed at the 1300 meter altitude! What a great last day!
We went off piste again but there had been many people by now so it was not that much powder left. All in all we had loads of fun.
Roman is master of getting his skis on in an impressive way. he jumps and lands in the binding. I tried it a few times but still cannot land with both bindings closed.
These and more pictures of this great week of skiing are in this picasa webalbum.
Now I can return to China satisfied. Even though I would like to do back country skiing somewhere in China this year.
Powder and Great Food
Freitag, Januar 16th, 2009How beautiful it was with the fresh snow everywhere and the sun shining the whole day! We went off piste in the morning and made our marks in the powder.
It was extraordinarily beautiful as the clouds stayed below an altitude of 1300 meter and we stayed above 1300 meters the whole day. So while the people in the valley were under gray clouds we had pure sunshine!
Those clouds made it look like an ocean or huge lakes between the mountains.
At the end of the skiing day we look the long slope all the way from the highest peak of the ski resort all the way down to the valley. It was a magnificent feeling like flying in a plane above the clouds and then dunking in.
In the evening Roman came to visit again. Hartmut cooked a 4 course meal with a salad with duck, an orange and carrot soup, pork cutlets with coconut basmati rice and a raspberry orange cake. We had some nice Austrian white burgundy wine as well as German Riesling Auslese with the dinner.
The End of the Snow
Donnerstag, Januar 15th, 2009The morning started still snowy with bad visibility but in the afternoon the snow ended. The slopes were again very empty as most people chose not to ski on that day. Better for us! In the late afternoon we could sometimes get a sneak preview through the clouds and see the sun lit mountain range north of our skiing resort.
Old School Skiing Style
Mittwoch, Januar 14th, 2009I am so happy! The shop did have my vintage skis ready for me this morning. So today I could again do my old school style of skiing with the legs tight together making fast small turns with hip movement. This was especially great as it has been snowing heavily since early morning hours. They slopes were not prepared so we had great powder on all slopes. I have the impression that it did not bother me as much as it did the other skiers that for most of the day the visibility was quite low. I just used my old school technique to ski through the patches of snow and the bumps that started emerging on the slopes. It was huge fun!
This first picture is me prepared for the day, the second one after 2 hours of skiing:
Hartmut was collecting snow and ice on his sunglasses to be able to ski in complete darkness. Even his eye brows were icy:
Talking about old school style: In France I had seen quite many people on Telemark skis this year. It is even older than my style skiing as it is what the first people who skied did. I had rented Telemark skis in France 2 years ago. It is challenging. I asked the ski shops in Austria if they have Telemark skis for rent, but unfortunately they did not.