Quickie from the Road
I'm at a Pacific Coffee (the low budget starbucks in Hong Kong that I actually prefer simply because its NOT starbucks) waiting until 3:30 when I can get my haircut from Davy, who is my surly hong kong haircut guy.
Dan's Haircut People:
New York - Hiroshi, the meticulous and super friendly flamboyant japanese hair artist who spoils me with tales of okonomiyaki and wows me with his exploits as the hairdresser of Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Naomi Campbell. His wife once cut my friend Ella's hair. I once cheated on Hiroshi and to see Heidi, who cut my friend Ishika's hair, but I felt too guilty and also the hair grew out badly, so I went back to Hiroshi.
Hong Kong - Davy, the surly motorcycle riding cantonese fella who always says terrible things about my previous haircuts every time he sees me. Last time he said "your hair is such a mess. Don't worry, I will fix it."
Sydney - Sadly I forgot her name, but she was a really cool welsh girl who kinda looked like boy george if he were a woman. She always wore a lab coat and did funky things with her makeup.
Funny asides about my two things:
1) Ishika stopped going to heidi, because she didn't cancel in time and was told that she would be charged $50 anyway. Rather than pay, she had to blacklist herself from Heidi, which sucks because Heidi's joint is only a 3 minute walk from the Citi-mothership
2) I bought some product once from Davy's Salon in Hong Kong for the steep price of HK$150 (about US$20). Anyway, I once crashed on Colleen's couch and she saw the product with the $150 price tag on it and thought I paid $150 for hair product! THEN she emailed Melissa and told her, and they BOTH believed I would spend $150 on hair product! I mean, I can be high maintenance, but that is ridiculous! Sometimes I wonder what kind of image I have cultivated!
Anyway, enough about my hair! I don't have too much to say. I'm hitting rugby sevens tomorrow, which is HK's biggest citywide party and a huge draw for pasty commonwealthers from across the globe. I told this to my friends Melissa and Jack (the same melissa that believed the hair product thing, see above) that you know you've been in China too long when you go to hong kong and think to yourself "Wow! Look at all the white people!", but its actually true. Actually, I think there are extra white people this particular weekend.
Anywhom, my goals for this weekend are the following:
1) Get haircut (CHECK!)
2) See Cordie and Bernice since I didn't really get to so much last time
3) Eat non-chinese food (yeah, not exactly the perfect town for it, but I figure I can get some thai or indian that will make me quite happy)
Alright, this wasn't much of a quickie, nor was it very straightforward, but at least its not as retarded as my last entry, right?
I should have titled this one: Dan is a high maintenance WIFI whore
Shaolin Showdown and Other Fun Surprises
Wow, so much to cover in so little time!
OK, here are some fun updates on whats going on with me:
1) My visa is expiring!!! WHEE!!! Whats that mean? It means I need to leave China for another country and then come back in order to activate my second entry (it’s a dual entry visa, go figure). So I had two choices: a) Korea or b) Hong Kong. Once I found out how much more expensive the flight to Korea would be the choice became obvious! So I'm going to Honkers this weekend, which happens to be the weekend of the Rugby Sevens (some of you may recall that I was in Wellington for their rugby sevens, which was great fun even though I couldn't get tickets!). I don't plan on actually going to any of the rugby matches, but it will be fun to hang out in Hong Kong while it is jam packed with drunk pasty british and australian folk. Also I am super excited to get a HAIR CUT which I desperately need. Haircuts are fun!
2) Min came to visit me! This makes her an official global superfriend, which is super cool. She's here for business, but we got to meet up and go to this incredibly ridiculous restaurant called the "Green Tea House". This place is insane. First of all, our table was made of clear acrylic on top of white cusions in the window, so it was like sitting on a window bed eating delightful fusiony stuff. Green tea pan fried dumplings anyone? How about foie gras with fish roe served on top of a rose petal? FYI, my green tea martini was GREAT, as was Min's green tea mojito! Plus we were able to catch up on old times and new plans. Yay Min! (and yay food!). Sadly this expat-extravanganza was not without its price, and I think dinner cost the same amount as my flight from Tai Yuan to Beijing (which isn't saying much either way.)
3) Tomorrow is my host-mom's birthday. Thinking I will try to pick up a birthday cake for her, as I'm running blank of a suitable birthday gift. It has been so long since I have bought anyone a non-wedding gift that I don't know if I can do it anymore!
4) Lisa Movius might be visiting Beijing next week! I haven't seen that kid in forever, but my social calendar is certainly filling up! Life is crazy!
5) OK, this weeked at the Shaolin Monestary was RIDICULOUS.
Voices in your head: Dan, was it as awesome as last weekend?
Dan (telepathically) no.
You: Was it ridiculous?
Dan: Yes, totally.
You: How so?
Me: OK, first of all the first day we went to some sort of freaky fucked up theme park in Kaifeng, which is the old Song dynasty capital. I will refer to the theme park as "China-Land" since I have no idea what it was called. We basically wandered from one ridiculous show to the next, seeing people swallow fire, a puppet show, some acrobats, and some other stuff. All-in it was pretty lame. Then that night we went to dinner at a restaurant whose theme was "Cultural Revolution", which I also thought was a bit bizarre. Stranger still, our tourguide decided to take advantage of the "open mike" in our tour bus, and SANG to us. Awkward much? I wish I hadn't been sitting so close:
You: But Dan, how was your hotel?
Dan: Can I tell you, using a modern shower has never felt so good. Plus I was able to pick up some delicious bitter melon beer and have some fun conversation with the kids from my school. Not a bad night.
You: But what about the Shaolin Temple?
Me: Sadly the Shaolin Temple would had been in a beautiful area if not for the smoke. Meanwhile, seeing thousands of little kids practicing kung fu, all in the hopes of being the next Jet Li was pretty interesting. As were the white trash kids that were part of the "martial arts program" put on by my school. Could they kick my ass? Yes. Did they try to steal a cusion, a potted plant, a tea cup lid, laundry bags and towels from the hotel and subsequently get busted by the hotel for it? Also yes.
You: So the temple sucked?
Me: Are you even listening? I said it was cool. OK, well I meant to say it was pretty cool. Plus my friend catherine got her picture taken with the cutest baby ever! Also hey were practicing some weird propaganda mass participation thing next door, so I got some fotos of that. Later we ended up at Longmen Grottos, which were basically more caves.
You: Whats up with you and caves?
Me: I don't really love caves, I just seem to end up at them in a tourist capacity. Perhaps I should become a dwarf, although I'm already too tall.
You: So was that it? This trip sounds pretty lame.
Me: Well, it was ok, but the read madness started on the train back to Beijing. We boarded at 7:30 and would arrive around 6 or 7 the following morning. So we get on, and of course started drinking beer. 4 big beers later, I'm haning out with kids from the other school along with white trash kids from the martial arts program. By 10pm I'm hanging out next to the bathroom with German classmate Karina, mohawk dude (self explanatory), some guy who I kid you not is named Honey or something that sounds like Honey (which reminds me of that awesomely bad Jessica Alba movie wherein she shows a lot of midriff and looks cute for 1.2 hours), and some guy that looks like one of the hobbits from Lord of the Rings (except taller). 2 big beers later I'm having a deep and meaningful with my buddy Rachel (non-jew) who has taken a vicadin. Long story short, I'm not sure how much of that conversation either of us remember, but we're planning to have tea at the Ritz in london in May now. Whoohoo!
You: Is this story going anywhere? Cuz I have to pee…
Me: Hang on! So long story short, two more beers later, total beer count of 8 for me an Karina, we're locking Honey in between the rail cars and wandering through the dark hallways of the sleeper cards. FYI, they turn off the lights at 10:30 of so. Whilst wandering through the dark cars I keep saying to Karina "Das ist nicht schtaken-blacken", which if you have seen it on Conan O'Brien is freaking hilarious. Karina and the mohawk are looking pretty cozy, and we end up in the dining car surrounded by jovial sino-dudes (and girl) with oodles of bai-jiu (think paint thinner). They offered, and I accepted.
You: So did you go to bed?
Me: Funny you should mention it! Somehow I ended up getting back to my car, despite Karina picking a fight with Honey and potentially making out with the mohawk, drinking a shitload of bai jiu, making friends with the other people in the car, and having no idea where I was meant to sleep. 7am rolls around and I can't find my camera. I assumed it was lost and got really depressed, hopped on the bus back ot my flat in Beijing, bought some giant bao-ze, ate said bao-ze, and checked myself into bed. I woke up around 3pm with a monster hangover. At 3:30 I realized that my camera was in the backpack. Life is good.
You: So the point of this story is that this weekend was interesting because you got really wasted on a train?
Me: Pretty much, yeah.
6) I am very very tired…and got a nasty cold which I am attacking with hours of sleep and have been skipping school...
