My First Earthquake!
I just felt my first earthquake! I thought I was dizzy/hungover/tired but apparently the shift that I just felt was an earthquake! Woah!
I think the reason why twentysomethings are so fixated on age is because we feel a pressure to be a certain way at 23, at 25, at 29. There are all of these invisible deadlines with our careers and with love and drinking and drugs. I can’t do coke at 25. I need to be in a LTR at 27. I can’t vomit from drinking at 26. I just can’t! We feel so much guilt for essentially acting our age and making mistakes. We’re obsessed with this idea of being domesticated and having our shit together. It’s kind of sad actually because I don’t think we ever fully get a chance to enjoy our youth. We’re so concerned about doing things “the right way” that we lose any sense of pleasure in doing things the wrong way. Youth may be truly wasted on the young.
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The reason why I am happy about my life choices. Too many people lose sight of what life should be about: living and having fun. I’d like to think that my youth has not and will not be wasted on me. I can deal with the consequences later.
Why Do Twentysomethings Always Feel So Old | Ryan O’Connell (via cityyandcolour)
(Source: juneandafter, via sparklesanddots)
Biggest banana I have ever seen. Pretty sure it is a mutant with two bananas in one skin.
Update: Yep, just ate it and it is definitely the amalgamation of two bananas.
I never learn. I knew I had to wake at 6.50am Saturday morning to head on a 3 hour trip to the Great Wall but still drank the night before. So of course I set my alarm for the wrong day and was woken at 7.20am by Rakhee asking me where Clark and I were. I was asleep. Clark was passed out on his futon, fully clothed from the night before.
Miraculously we managed to get to the bus on time and survived the 1.5 hour ride despite still having alcohol in our system. We also somehow survived the 1 hour black cab ride from the second bus stop to the hostel that we were staying at, with four crammed in the back and two at the front (we recruited an Australian/British couple who were also waiting for the hourly bus that had just driven right past us). And then we managed a 4 hour hike along an unrestored part of the Wall (Gubeikou).
I found out on the hike that I was a lot more afraid of heights than I was aware - my legs shook with fear as I walked along the barrier-less, rocky path and I had to refrain from looking around to appreciate the awesome landscape so that I didn’t freak myself out with thoughts including: how fast can a helicopter fly out to take me to the nearest hospital to repair my broken neck/concussed brain?! Where is the nearest hospital?! What is the emergency number in China?!?!
Despite the hilarious mess of trying to get there and my intense fear of heights, the trip was….great.
Yin Yang Cats.
I just realised that I have blogged about cats three times now. I am not a cat person but the cats that I have come across here seem cuter somehow, probably because the majority of people here have small dogs that look like rodents.
My nan and uncle came to Beijing for a quick 3 night visit. We took them all across Beijing to see things that had previously taken me 2 months to do: Olympic Village, 798, Nanlugouxiang/Hou Hai, Wangfujing, Antique Market, Fragrant Hills (by accident), and Sanlitun. Working in an office job for the past year, my legs were definitely not in shape for the distance that we covered. My 85 year old grandma outdid me.
Here’s an overexposed photo (I sort of like it because it looks artsy fartsy) of my cute nan at Revolution Bar just before she drank some mojito. She’s only been drunk once in her life.
Strawberry Music Festival
With road beers in hand, the five of us boarded a rented school bus with my cousin and his friends for an hour drive to Tongzhou Canal Park. Once we arrived, I ran straight to the parking lot to pee behind some bushes because I stupidly drank too much coffee and beer in the morning. I came back to find that Richie and Simon had bought 5 kuai balloons. So being the sheep that we are, Sara and I bought them too. We figured that they would be good for locating one another in the crowds. Within 5 minutes Richie’s balloon escaped, within an hour Simon’s popped and Sara and I got sick of wearing ours and threw them away.
The whole festival was a hilarious and memorable experience. Walking with a crowd of Chinese people, we entered through an indoor fun park with dodgem cars (which Sara insisted on visiting throughout the afternoon/night) and eventually reached the park in search of the one band that we knew was playing at the time. After annoying many people for directions, we failed to find the band so decided to pick a random stage. There were four or five stages, the most popular being the one playing heavy metal. Chinese people love their metal. The best music we saw that day was a Mongolian rock band and Blonde Redhead. Both were amazing. Great music. Or maybe it was because I was under the influence, which explains how Richie was able to convince me that the sun was the moon. The award for being too drunk to function goes to Sara though, for mistaking a stage for a rollercoaster. Her: I want to go play dodgem cars or go on a rollercoaster! Us: There isn’t a rollercoaster here. Her: Yes there is! It’s right there! Us: That’s a stage…Her: I don’t care, let’s go on it anyway!
Anyway, apart from the fact that the festival organisers forgot that people at festivals NEED TO HYDRATE, everything else was good. We came across a lot of interesting outfits, a guy on stilts, a random American football game, and a lot of serious-looking soldiers.
The event finished with Sara, Clark and me crawling under a fence that is not meant to be crawled under in order to cross the road to reach the bus, in which everyone was already waiting for us. And then we went to have Peking duck for dinner before heading to a roof top bar where we saw an impressive dance-off.
I hope I never forget these moments.
Smelly Cat got a new ‘do.
Balancing on bricks on the way to class.
The cake Rak and I made for Amanda. You can now refer to us as…Baking Queens (couldn’t think of anything better).
I first met Amanda in May 2011. It was my second week in Beijing and it was the first night that I met and partied with the CD crew. After the consumption of many free beers, I remember Amanda coming up to me and yelling over the music, “We should hang out more!”. She probably doesn’t remember saying it, but I do. Her simple, alcohol-fueled words gave me comfort that the upcoming months were going to be awesome. And that’s how my love affair with Amanda began. Since then, she has become one of my best friends in Beijing. We spent a lot of time watching shows with the Fab Five, visiting new cafes/restaurants/bars, and traveling around not only Beijing but also other cities of China.
Amanda is one of the most loving, caring, giving, thoughtful, carefree, down-to-earth people you will ever meet in your life. This is not some bullshit exaggeration. She really is that great. I challenge you to find ONE person who has something negative to say about her.
Beijing without Amanda will not be the same - she helped make the Beijing experience unforgettable and if it were not for her, most of us would have overlooked half of the crazy fun things that this city has to offer.
[Flash 10 is required to watch video]
Happy holidays. A short film I made at the aquarium today. Watch at own risk.
These guys are the best people in the world. We should worship them.
Awww, schucks Amanda. You flatter.
ANN-YAWN A choir sang during a concert in Pyongyang, North Korea, Monday. The country is celebrating the birth centennial of its founder, Kim Il Sung. (Photo: David Guttenfelder / AP via the Wall Street Journal)
This is why riding in Beijing is awesome: you get to see this.
