My Rambling

May 17th is an important day for all Norwegians: It is our independence day. Most Norwegians will struggle to remember whether we won our independence from Sweden or Denmark (or both), but that does not stop us from having one Hell of a party on their account. Last year I celebrated it in the rain home in Norway, but this year I joined forces with all the Norwegians in Beijing.

The festivities started with a nice formal cocktail party at the embassy. I went there with Edvard and Markus and it didn't take us long to find and entrench ourselves next to the open bar. It was great to drink on all the Norwegian tax-payers account, thanks everyone!

In the evening we headed over to the Radisson SAS hotel, where the festivities would take place. We grabbed a seat together with some other young people: Helle, Hedvig and a guy I never remember the name of, so let's call him Gunnar. They were backpackers on the last leg of their respective Asian trips. I was so envious of their travels and really longed to be on the road again.
We secured ourselves some glasses of beer and were just about to kick back and relax, when it was parade time. All Norwegians walk in parades on the 17th of May and it was to be no different down here. I'm sure the Chinese thought we were crazy as we paraded around in the parking lot. The following youtube clip illustrates the atmosphere:

Luckily no one was arrested and we were able to return to our drinks.

Shortly thereafter they opened the buffet line  and we could indulge in Norwegian food. It had been a while since I'd enjoyed goat cheese, vafler, rømmegrøt and a bunch of other things that made me miss home. We stuffed our faces and kept the bar staff busy refilling our drinks. The temperature dropped, so by the time the entertainment started we were all shivering.

Luckily the entertainers were none other than Knuden and Ludvigsen (they have been on top of the ball for 30 years now, specializing in Children's songs). Since everyone knows their songs, the atmosphere was good.
Kanskje kommer Kongen

Grevling i taket

Juba Juba

When they were finished we naturally hurried over to get a picture with our childhood celebrities. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the front of the line, but it was worth it ;-)

After the exhaustive queuing we found an opening at the bar and dove into the beer and wine again. We were so busy drinking and talking that by the time we looked up, everyone else had left and 7 of us were the only ones left.

We headed over to Zuq and later Nanjie to celebrate the day like all Norwegians do: with plenty of drinks. It was a memorable night, even if all of us were hurting the next day.

This Tuesday was a sad day. Christian was leaving. He's been one of the long-timers here, so I was very sad to see him go. The only correct thing to do, was to send him off in style. We started the evening at the fantastic Russian restaurant White Nights. Delicious food was devoured together with ample amounts of beer and round after round of vodka (Hey, it's a Russian restaurant! When in Rome...)

After a filling and enjoyable dinner we did the classic bar round to make sure that Christian would have a Hellish time packing the next day. By all accounts I think we succeeded. I was sad to see him go, hopefully he'll be back again soon.

As everyone probably knows, May Day is a big thing in all communist and socialist countries. China is naturally no different. They do the boring military parades as well, but since that's more for the old die-hards, they also put on a big music festival to keep the kids busy and out of trouble. Much like last year there was a Norwegian band playing. I had already seen them ina  club 2 nights prior, but I was eager to see them again in front of a proper crowd. It was very cool.

I got in to it and even went crowd surfing. It felt a bit strange to be crowdsurfing on a bunch of tiny Chinese, but they put up a good fight and let me float around for a while, enjoying the view. Most excellent!

I stayed there pretty much all day hanging out with Edvard, Jamie and various other friends, listening to music and drinking beer. The last concert was quite a crowd pleaser and the mood reminded me of Roskilde in Denmark:

When all the concerts were over Edvard and I decided to make a proper evening of it and tore up wudaokou, gulou (where we hung out with Imogen Heap until Bed Bar closed ... she was very cool to talk to) and sanlitun. It was long day and an early morning by the time I got home, but it had been a great one.

It had been two months since our last show at Yugong Yishan, so we were happy to enter the stage again. It's nice to take our rehearsals and put them in to practical use in front of people. For our first show we had close to 200 people watching and this evening was no different. I was still scared shitless, but then I guess that's normal. I was also emceeing the evening, so I was running on and off the stage all evening. Since we were in charge of the show, we made sure that we had the last 40 minute block set aside for our part and the first hour and 20 minutes was taken up by The Actors Workshop and the Driftwords. Like last time their quality was a bit mixed, but all in all it was enjoyable. When I finally introduced us, the crowd was ready for action. The scary thing about improv is that we rehearse games and activities, but when it comes to a show we walk up on stage with a clean slate and start from nothing. It's quite intimidating to step up on stage knowing that you have no clue what will happen next. You definitely learn to roll with things. I think our 40 minutes flew by and I was really surprised when we had to step forward to do our bows ... it seemed like we'd just entered the stage. The evening was declared a success and we could relax and kick back a few cold ones.

After two and a half months I was finally meeting Steffi again. Instead of a rendezvous in Europe, she was coming to visit me here in Beijing. Time had flown since we said good bye in Munich in January. To celebrate her return to China, we went to one of my favorite Chinese restaurants and enjoyed some excellent Yunan food.

You have to love China ... Beijing is a city of remote heating. They pipe the heat in and keep you and your apartment nice and toasty all winter. Granted they start a bit late ... In fact they wait until it's positively freezing outside. Only then do they turn it on. They actually don't wait until it is cold out of malicious intent, but they wait for the government set date: November 15th. That's when it's turned on, regardless of Beijing having 5 meters of snow or 20 degrees outside. That is THE date it is turned on. If it's turned on before, they loose money. If it's accidentally turned on after the 15th, they go to jail.
Once it's on, life in the apartment is beautiful. You can walk around in comfy clothing and enjoy life. You are lulled in to a sense of complacency that lasts till March 15th, when they turn it off again, no matter the outside temperature.
I was caught off guard this year (much like last year), but it didn't stop me from enjoying an evening in front of the TV.

What sounds more complete than an evening filled with beer, pizza, Machine Head (heavy metal), Playstation 2 and Absinth?
Answer: An evening fillled with beer, pizza, Machine Head, PS2, Absinth and Bowling!

Dave and me kicked off the evening by almost drinking the entire bottle of absinth before Tine came around. I must emphasize that this was real absinth, not the fake stuff you can buy, but the genuine illegal-in-almost-every-country stuff.

It tasted great! ... We not only got drunk, we also got very happy. Unfortunately it didn't increase my already lousy bowling abilities, but I was so happy that I didn't care :-)

It also needs to be mentioned that we went to the largest bowling alley in the World ... they have 100 lanes or whatever you call it. Though at that time I was so "alive" that I neglected to get a picture of it. It was a  fun night, even if it didn't last till the early hours ... we just got too drunk and called quits at around 3. I even made time for a mediocre local kebab before I hit the sack, something my hang-over the next day appreciated.

I've been making a lot of shakes lately. It's directly linked to me exercising 6 times a week and changing the number of meals I eat. I now try to eat 6 meals per day. So far it's going quite well. In order to get enough proteins in me, I make protein shakes. They are super tasty, but in order to make them even better and make a full meal out of them, I've started making them with fruits and nuts.

I have two specials: Bananas, fresh strawberries, vanilla shake powder, 200 ml of water: blended to perfection and bananas, almonds, chocolate  shake powder, 200 ml of water: blended to perfection.

They taste nothing short of fantastic and are very healthy. It's a win-win situation!

I might have neglected to inform people at home that the apartment directly underneath mine is a thriving brothel. Nothing obscene or vulgar, but a few girls making good coin catering to those that have more $$$. About 10 minutes ago I was sitting in front of my laptop, when my doorbell  rang. Outside my door I found none other than two of the girls I've seen entering and leaving downstairs. They appeared to be freezing and from the sounds of it, there had been a misunderstanding (I interpreted it as the girl with the key being busy with a client and unable to open the door), so they couldn't get in. They were freezing and since none of the other neighbors would ever open their doors to strangers, they knocked on my door. It was obvious that they just wanted a place to stand while they waited for the other girl to open the door, so I let them in. So when I started writing this entry I had two relatively high class prostitutes sitting on my couch behind me. I wanted to take a picture, but since that would have been bad form, I didn't. It was a good laugh though. I wonder if I can go down there if I ever forget my key and feel cold ...

Dinner and drinks! It sounds simple and mundane, but in Beijing it can quickly become exotic.

Christian discovered just how exotic it can be when he got a snake dumped on him while he was enjoying his dinner. Steve's comment: "Dude, there's a snake on your shoulder".

The fact that Christian is terrified of snakes didn't stop the girl from dragging him up on stage to be a part of the entertainment. We naturally felt for the poor guy, but figured that since he was on stage he wouldn't mind if we ate some of his kebabs. We were right ... when he came back he was no longer hungry.

The rest of the dinner happened without incident, though we frequently joked that the snake was coming back for a repeat.

After a great dinner, we headed over to Nanjie and enjoyed "a few" drinks.