*MIGRATED FROM ANDY VS CHINA ARCHIVES*
Hey hey,
This time last year there was much confusion as to what was going to happen in the holidays. Plans were made and crushed, in the end nothing was done. This time I was determined to go somewhere. Yet, due to very small funds, small for the travelling needs anyway similar plans were made again. In the past month of holiday no less then 5 different plans were made out to try and get some extra money and once again all have failed. Not letting that dampen my spirits again, I'm going to travel nevertheless. After a few days of scrounging and debt-inducing I have in my possession a one way plane ticket that will take me up north to Harbin this Monday. So I will be making my way back to Wuhan today for one evening and journey-ing the next day. Even now I'm not entirely sure what will be happening, which is a great premise for a holiday.
How long will I be gone? Who knows... Will I also make it to Beijing and Xi'an? Only time will tell... How will I get back? Wait and see... Will I have fun? After all this trouble, I'd BETTER...
Usually things always work out in the last moment, so I will rely on that. The fact that I'm staying with good friends up there will strengthen that philosophy. Either way it's bound to make a good story. I should be returning within 2-3 weeks. At which time I will recount what has happened and after this dramatic build up it hopefully won't be disapointing.
So I hope everyone is enjoying themselves and I'll get back to you soon on this one.
Happy adventures,
Andy Scott
Sunday, July 17, 2005
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
AVC: Further Misadventures.
*MIGRATED FROM ANDY VS CHINA ARCHIVES*
So anyway, as I said in the last post I am now on holidays. Which is great for a few days or so and then you start to get the normal 'need to do something' urges. Nothing worse than sitting around on your arse for a week at home watching films and surfing the net. Being as this is a small, conservative town when I take my teaching jacket off there is little to do that would constitute as fun. That's to say if my interests were different I could probably manage it, but 'I am what I am' as Descartes and more recently Popeye would say.
So when I got a call from the next town asking if I would like to go to Wuhan for the weekend for some merry mayhem I was not about to turn it down.
I haven't been to Wuhan since I got back to China this year as with the opening of the new Western restaurant and nearly no cravings from dishes of Australian past there was not much need to go there anymore. But, one thing that Wuhan does have is a lot of drunken foreigners, which needless to say is precisely my cup of tea. So after hitting the bus and sub-sequentially the Wuhan University dormitory we went out for a night on the town. I am not the type who tends to like bar hopping and that night was no different. I figure, no matter the bar it will tend to be the same and it is hard to pick up conversation with strangers if you are planning to abort any kind of casual friendship with them within the hour. So we chose one bar and I planned to stick to it, longer than I planned if you would care to continue onwards.
A popular bar in Wuhan is called the 'Blue Sky'. I may have mentioned it in one of last years posts. Well in the months I'd been away they had opened a second 'Blue Sky' close to the University. So it was the obvious place to go. We arrived around eight in the evening and it was kind of empty inside. Apparently happy hour had finished earlier on and wouldn't show it's face again until midnight. But, as fate would have it we bumped into a familiar face. There was man there who had been teaching in a near by town from last year who had moved to Wuhan this year to pick up some different business. He was actually one of the people I had hoped to bump into, because he can easily arrange private work and I need some extra cash for the upcoming trip in August. So, with that all arranged the four of us sat together and started drinking. The hours didn't exactly fly by to say the least.
One of the friends I came to Wuhan with was actually celebrating her birthday that day and we mentioned it to one of the managers there. Shortly after I noticed one of the waiters smuggling in a birthday cake. I don't know what it is about my eyes, but they always seem to want to spoil surprises for me as no one else at the table caught it. It was lucky I did though and I was able to convince the girls to stay until the 'surprise' came. Around the same time it was getting close to midnight and all the cheap bastards started pouring in for happy hour #2. So all the patience began to pay off. The dance floor started emitting the familiar 'beeps' and other computer related noises that spawned a generation of improvisational dance. Yet, by this stage I had drunk enough that my shoes no longer felt like they were encased in concrete and I got up for a dance.
As the night went on I made it my mission to try and friendly up the other people in the bar. 'Friendly up' being the antonym of 'rough up', basically being violently pleasant. This included the owner of the establishment who was with a few people at the bar with a few bottles of whiskey. I got a free drink from them and somehow I got the idea in my head that they wouldn't mind if I continued helping them finish it off. This was not the case as it turned out when I reached to open the second bottle and it was removed from my grasp. So, I went on to introduce myself to other people. Now for the life of me I can't remember the names of anyone I met. I remember a German guy whom I greeted with a 'Guten Tag Maaaaate', an American who was trying to forget he was American that I tried cheering up with a 'Well someone's got to be the scapegoat.' a group of Palestinains that I regailed with my personal methods of drinking and a French girl that I apparently kept referring to as 'Frenchy'. So all in all I think I made quite the impression with everyone, for better or for worse time will tell.
Later on the evening after returning from the bathroom I was pulled into a booth by a Chinese girl who pulled out a Polaroid camera and asked me to pose as she took my picture. I can vaguely remember the photo, but I don't currently have it since she asked me to pay for it. So I quietly removed myself from the table. After this is where I have absolutely no memory whatsoever. But, the story doesn't end here. Several hours later I woke up as someone was shaking me, I told them to go away and to let me sleep. They shook me again, which was starting to irriate me. So I looked up to see what they wanted. A crowd of people had gathered around to see the drunken Australian who had fallen asleep outside of a popular western bar. Including five police officers, one of whom had been the shaker. A waiter from the bar brought me a cup of water, which I drank and then proceeded to let back out again. After a few minutes the police got me up and I said to them in slurred Chinese 'I'm sorry, I think I drank a bit too much last night.' They asked a few questions for the paperwork and shoved me in a taxi.
I can remember last year seeing a foreigner getting drunk and being taken outside of the bar into the street. I will assume that is what happened to me. I also remember thinking that must have been hell for that guy, drinking so much and sleeping on the streets of a foreign country. Well as it turns out it's not that big of a deal. I checked my pocket and found that my wallet was still there with all my money, that I had not paid for a single drink all night and had a bloody good time all together. Only problem was that I had gotten so drunk that I somehow caught the flu. So the rest of the weekend was pretty limited entertainment wise.
The next night we went out for a buffet, but even if I had felt like putting anything in my stomach it wouldn't have been anything from that smorgasboard. And finally on Sunday we made a stop to a large supermarket with imported foods. I don't know why I hadn't found this place last year, because it had everything! I picked up some real bread, that didn't taste like cake, pasta, sauces, frozen burger patties and the creme de la creme a 5kg block of cheese. So for the past few days it's been a form of a very mild torture with having no appetite from the flu and all this food sitting in my fridge. Though today I feel I could stomach it. Anyway that's my weekend.
Reading back over some old posts I could see that from another person's point of view it might be misconstrued with regards to my drinking habits. Just so that certain mothers know, I never drink alone and never get cravings for alcohol, two of the big signs that you have a problem. I am however a social drinker and a rampant one at that. And if it wasn't for that, there wouldn't be much to report about.
All right, well that's enough from me.
See you next time,
Andy Scott
So anyway, as I said in the last post I am now on holidays. Which is great for a few days or so and then you start to get the normal 'need to do something' urges. Nothing worse than sitting around on your arse for a week at home watching films and surfing the net. Being as this is a small, conservative town when I take my teaching jacket off there is little to do that would constitute as fun. That's to say if my interests were different I could probably manage it, but 'I am what I am' as Descartes and more recently Popeye would say.
So when I got a call from the next town asking if I would like to go to Wuhan for the weekend for some merry mayhem I was not about to turn it down.
I haven't been to Wuhan since I got back to China this year as with the opening of the new Western restaurant and nearly no cravings from dishes of Australian past there was not much need to go there anymore. But, one thing that Wuhan does have is a lot of drunken foreigners, which needless to say is precisely my cup of tea. So after hitting the bus and sub-sequentially the Wuhan University dormitory we went out for a night on the town. I am not the type who tends to like bar hopping and that night was no different. I figure, no matter the bar it will tend to be the same and it is hard to pick up conversation with strangers if you are planning to abort any kind of casual friendship with them within the hour. So we chose one bar and I planned to stick to it, longer than I planned if you would care to continue onwards.
A popular bar in Wuhan is called the 'Blue Sky'. I may have mentioned it in one of last years posts. Well in the months I'd been away they had opened a second 'Blue Sky' close to the University. So it was the obvious place to go. We arrived around eight in the evening and it was kind of empty inside. Apparently happy hour had finished earlier on and wouldn't show it's face again until midnight. But, as fate would have it we bumped into a familiar face. There was man there who had been teaching in a near by town from last year who had moved to Wuhan this year to pick up some different business. He was actually one of the people I had hoped to bump into, because he can easily arrange private work and I need some extra cash for the upcoming trip in August. So, with that all arranged the four of us sat together and started drinking. The hours didn't exactly fly by to say the least.
One of the friends I came to Wuhan with was actually celebrating her birthday that day and we mentioned it to one of the managers there. Shortly after I noticed one of the waiters smuggling in a birthday cake. I don't know what it is about my eyes, but they always seem to want to spoil surprises for me as no one else at the table caught it. It was lucky I did though and I was able to convince the girls to stay until the 'surprise' came. Around the same time it was getting close to midnight and all the cheap bastards started pouring in for happy hour #2. So all the patience began to pay off. The dance floor started emitting the familiar 'beeps' and other computer related noises that spawned a generation of improvisational dance. Yet, by this stage I had drunk enough that my shoes no longer felt like they were encased in concrete and I got up for a dance.
As the night went on I made it my mission to try and friendly up the other people in the bar. 'Friendly up' being the antonym of 'rough up', basically being violently pleasant. This included the owner of the establishment who was with a few people at the bar with a few bottles of whiskey. I got a free drink from them and somehow I got the idea in my head that they wouldn't mind if I continued helping them finish it off. This was not the case as it turned out when I reached to open the second bottle and it was removed from my grasp. So, I went on to introduce myself to other people. Now for the life of me I can't remember the names of anyone I met. I remember a German guy whom I greeted with a 'Guten Tag Maaaaate', an American who was trying to forget he was American that I tried cheering up with a 'Well someone's got to be the scapegoat.' a group of Palestinains that I regailed with my personal methods of drinking and a French girl that I apparently kept referring to as 'Frenchy'. So all in all I think I made quite the impression with everyone, for better or for worse time will tell.
Later on the evening after returning from the bathroom I was pulled into a booth by a Chinese girl who pulled out a Polaroid camera and asked me to pose as she took my picture. I can vaguely remember the photo, but I don't currently have it since she asked me to pay for it. So I quietly removed myself from the table. After this is where I have absolutely no memory whatsoever. But, the story doesn't end here. Several hours later I woke up as someone was shaking me, I told them to go away and to let me sleep. They shook me again, which was starting to irriate me. So I looked up to see what they wanted. A crowd of people had gathered around to see the drunken Australian who had fallen asleep outside of a popular western bar. Including five police officers, one of whom had been the shaker. A waiter from the bar brought me a cup of water, which I drank and then proceeded to let back out again. After a few minutes the police got me up and I said to them in slurred Chinese 'I'm sorry, I think I drank a bit too much last night.' They asked a few questions for the paperwork and shoved me in a taxi.
I can remember last year seeing a foreigner getting drunk and being taken outside of the bar into the street. I will assume that is what happened to me. I also remember thinking that must have been hell for that guy, drinking so much and sleeping on the streets of a foreign country. Well as it turns out it's not that big of a deal. I checked my pocket and found that my wallet was still there with all my money, that I had not paid for a single drink all night and had a bloody good time all together. Only problem was that I had gotten so drunk that I somehow caught the flu. So the rest of the weekend was pretty limited entertainment wise.
The next night we went out for a buffet, but even if I had felt like putting anything in my stomach it wouldn't have been anything from that smorgasboard. And finally on Sunday we made a stop to a large supermarket with imported foods. I don't know why I hadn't found this place last year, because it had everything! I picked up some real bread, that didn't taste like cake, pasta, sauces, frozen burger patties and the creme de la creme a 5kg block of cheese. So for the past few days it's been a form of a very mild torture with having no appetite from the flu and all this food sitting in my fridge. Though today I feel I could stomach it. Anyway that's my weekend.
Reading back over some old posts I could see that from another person's point of view it might be misconstrued with regards to my drinking habits. Just so that certain mothers know, I never drink alone and never get cravings for alcohol, two of the big signs that you have a problem. I am however a social drinker and a rampant one at that. And if it wasn't for that, there wouldn't be much to report about.
All right, well that's enough from me.
See you next time,
Andy Scott
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
