Round up....

Well, since the decision to shut down my blog for a few weeks was made for me, I have been doing so many blogworthy things (after all, it's not worth doing, if it's not worth blogging about, right Rich?) that I don't know where to start! Here are a few snippets...

Lisa and Sophie came to visit! - and what a good time was had by all! Here we are celebrating the safe arrival of them, their luggage AND some funds (take note - Tonks!), and BGD is also seen getting into the spirit of it all and living up to his nickname..... We rounded off the evening with a mere 5 hours of KTV (post to follow).

Brunch - SO good. Champagne, seafood, live jazz, magicians, calligraphy, the best smoked salmon you can imagine and an enormous dessert station with delectable chocolate pots - the Hilton Wangfujing is our new Sunday brunch venue of choice. Here I am enjoying my first Cosmo of the day (and people wonder why I love it here):
Tini taxi - these have a proper name, but I've forgotten it. They seem to be designed for c. 1-2 Chinese-sized people, yet Lisa, Soph and I took a 20 minute journey in uncomfortable-yet-hilarious conditions, at a pace just above walking.On the topic of transport, we also happened upon this little bike, which struck me as a little Inspector-Gadget-like and worthy of a mention. I especially like the patriotic touch:

Food - as winter has fallen upon Beijing, we seized the opportunity to indulge in the messy food fest that is hot pot, and took a trip to the Maizidian'r Jiaoziguan'r, which serves up amazing multi-coloured jiaozi, some of which have crunchy rice particles in them. Delicious! I was dismayed to learn that my guests had been forewarned about the 'terrible food in China', 'not like the Chinese food you're used to' etc - it's a common misconception, fuelled largely, I imagine, by tourists who speak no Chinese, who end up at a point-and-hope restaurant eating chicken lung and the like. Chinese food in China (and particularly in Beijing - though I could be jiaozi-biased) is delicious! Anything plied with MSG can't be that bad, right? ;-) Seriously though, it's great and hugely varied - after all, China is unimaginably massive! You should come and try it... just not while I'm here though, I'm afraid - I'm booked up until March!

Ben's visit!

I have out up a couple of posts about Ben's visit, but also wanted to write a little about the rest of our week in Beijing...

Luckily for me, Ben is a sucker for teen drama, and wholeheartedly embraced my new found Gossip Girl addiction - to the extent that we finished off season one and ploughed through all of season two during his time in Beijing. We might have felt a bit guilty, were it not so cold outside!

Ben also became the third member (yes, Dave's the other....) of my "I love Xiao Wang" fan club, and we ate there, or ordered in from there, regularly.

On these two counts, it seems that Ben will be very well suited for life in Beijing, so it bodes well for his 11 week sabbatical starting in February next year! :-) Very exciting.

I took Ben to Yaxiu market, which I regularly frequent for extra layers to fight the freezing temperatures. Ben splashed the cash on a variety of items, including a jacket, a coat, 4 tshirts, loads of DVDs, a hat, 4 belts and more, all for less than GBP 140, aided by my haggling. Now - a word of warning for any future visitors to Beijing - if someone else (ie: ME) is haggling on your behalf and secures a (if I may say so myself) fantastically low price, please do NOT add an extra Y10 to it after negotiations have closed - if you want to pay a higher price, you can haggle yourself!! I'm not sure what it is that compels Ben to pay over the odds for something, but it seems to be in his genes.....

We also treated ourselves to a few fancy dinners (more on these later), manicures and massages, and visited several other markets and the 798 art district (more on this later, too). A great week, all in all. Thanks for coming, Ben, and I'm looking forward to February!

X-O-X-O!

Weekly round-up

Although there have been a few (largely food-related) posts recently, I just wanted give a round up of all the other things I've been up to and say a big THANK YOU to all my friends and family that sent birthday messages, cards and presents last week. I am very touched!

In the end I had a lovely birthday. After I welcomed Mary back from her adventure to Xi'an (yes, I was surprised as you are that she made it back in one piece!) I had a reasonably quiet day at work with a nice long lunch. When I got back in the evening, Mary had cracked open a beer and filled the flat with balloons and we had a mini present-opening session and a quick Skype with people in the UK before hitting the town.

The rest of the weekend was filled with shopping, eating (see previous posts!), manicures, pedicures, DVDs, hot tubs and reflexology - so all in all, a pretty good week!

Special thanks to Mary for coming all this way and, intentionally or not, being generally entertaining throughout!

Snapshots of a weekend

What a fabulous weekend! Not only did it herald the arrival of my first visitor, but it also saw the discovery of a huge hot tub, sauna and steam room in my apartment block. Good times ahead! I cannot believe that it took me two weeks to discover this, but better now than in March 2010.

So, where to start? Friday night saw Dave and my first visit to the inauspicious Luga's, where we had several beers and a few unnecessary tequila shots, considering my 5am start on Saturday.... Leading in nicely to Mary's arrival. It was very lucky that I had been persuaded to meet Mary at the airport at 6am, seeing as she forgot to collect her currency at Heathrow, her ATM cards were blocked and her luggage failed to land in Beijing at the same time she did. However, to Mary's credit she put this trio of bad luck behind her, and swiftly went about befriending the locals:

Our Saturday also involved an exploration of the hutongs, a *fabulous* massage and drinks with May, after which we encountered this acquarium-effect ceiling in an outdoor shopping mall, which has to be seen to be believed!

Week in Review

Well, I have been in Beijing over a week now so am going to give the low-down on what I've been up.

On Friday, I felt a bit blue when I got that Friday feeling and realised I had no-one to hang out with! So I dragged myself across the street from my apartment to the China World Mall, where the Vogue Fashion's Night Out was being held. I had seen the website and was hankering after the Jason Wu canvas bag, and so was buoyed by my success when I stumbled across the stand selling them! Unfortunately, my carrot-topped self caused quite a stir with the photographers and I cursed the fact I had not applied any make-up before leaving the flat. Ouchie! Here's hoping those negatives get destroyed...

On Sunday I ramped up the friend-o-meter by brunching with some of my good friend Lauren's friends. It was nice to socialise! Big Gay Dave arrived on Sunday too, so all in all it was a good day - topped off by the opening party of Capital M, where Dave, David and I enjoyed cocktails, oysters and canapes with "views over Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City."* Courtesy of David, we had somehow managed to weasel our way onto the guest list, and so found ourselves surrounded by the Beijing elite, and felt instantly at home. Ha! Since I was last in town (February 2008), the whole of the Qianmen area has been revamped and developed into a pretty pricey and stylish reinvention of "traditional China", providing ample photo opportunities for the hoards of tourists. A fabulously picturesque backdrop for a drinks reception, but at what cost? The local hutongs and their inhabitants have disappeared, and the increasing disparity between the lifestyles of Beijingers is unnerving.

On a lighter note, today I had a chicken ceasar wrap from Starbucks (of all places!) - my first Western lunch since I arrived. I was quite excited, until it arrived toasted and full of limp lettuce and processed chicken slices! Lesson learnt.

*NB: this is very much a marketing ploy - although the views were good, especially with all the buildings around Tiananmen Square lit up, you had to crane your neck and stand on tip toes to catch a glimpse of the Square or the City!