Par-tei'ing 'n' touristin'

Yupp,

it's finally happened. As amazingly as on the 1st of October the weather was clearer than clear (feichang ming), on the night when it became November, something else happened: it started raining snow. Though already almost completely molten away, the students of the school were like little kids when they had the chance..the campus was filled with snowmen :). Cute.. :)

I placed an order today for a new 250 GB 2.5" external hard drive because I'm running low on space..Total cost is not anything special compared to the Finnish prices - a tad cheaper: 39.7 euros. Let's hope it is delivered ASAP, as my picture album and movies are filling up the hard drive of this over 4-year-old laptop.

On this week there two major events: DJ Kid Koala (Canadian-Chinese turntablist scratcher) @ Yugong Yishan, a kind of a venue for DJ's to perform, so not a bar. Here' few shots from there:

29.10.2009 Kid Koala

Kid Koala was amazing: he played from one end of the musical genre spectrum to the other end - from very calm and soothing, beautiful melodies (all the time doing some vinyl mixing to form beautiful multi-layered melodies) to some harsh distorted guitar beats. And the mastery of the turntables was without a doubt something I have never witnessed before.

On Saturday it was time to do some basic sightseeing and in the evening to celebrate halloween. The day began early with some Beijing Drum & Bell Towers near the Lama temple that we went into almost 2 months ago. We there witnessed a nice drumming ceremony, reminded me of some kung fu movies with the hitting on the rim of the drum membrane. Drum & Bell Towers, in the early times, were meant to direct the liferhythm and pace of the daily life of the Beijingers. Nowadays they are just a popular sightseeing destination, nothing more. The other place we visited was Beijing Planetarium, which was, against the expectations, not so good. The exhibition - although very cheap - was quite poor. One had to pay extra for going to the space theaters and whatnots...so we did. 2/3 were total crap as they were more or less meant for under 10-year-old persons. Imagine they show people this kind of shit with the expensive and very capable equipment in these half-sphere movie theaters, where you could virtually experience something very beautiful, if they would have had the time and the effort to do so. But no. Anywhay, one show was good, it was about deaths of stars.

Drum&Bell towers ja Beijing Planetarium

The nighttime was reserved for the halloween. I did not manage to buy anything from the Xizhimen's all too crowded market for the night to wear, but fortunately Silja and our Japanese friend Momo did buy me something.. It was quite a sight for sore eyes when I wore it :D. Anywho, we started off with some Johnny Walker black label, some 2.1 L booze bottle and sodas. So, off to good start..But this time we did not overdo it so it was quite OK and, at least I, was feeling very well the whole night and without empty spots in the nighttime memoires. We went to a party called "Acupuncture", which was located in a fancy location in LG (the trademark) twin towers high up in some floor. It was kind of classy place with three different venues: techno (it really was techno, praise the lord), house music (it was also really house music, again praise the ..well maybe I shouldn't say lord) and retro music. Jason offered us one round of rum-cola, but man the place was so expensive that I did not myself buy anything, just offered Jason my small token of appreciation in the form of money. We were dancing a lot, laughing, taking funny pictures and mingling amongst the people - we had great time I think. Silja was dressed as a bitch (net stockings and heavy-duty makeup) and Momo was a Chinese street fighter, in this cool Chinese blue dress. Ruslan was quite wasted but did manage to be in his senses for the whole night. Jani was Jani :), happy as always.

Halloween @ LAN Club

Sadly I have to inform that I went to eat to McDonalds - a mistake not to be repeated hopefully ever again. After the LAN bar (the name of the bar we were in) we went to Wudaokou to check out Helen's cafe but decided, instead of free beer, to go to a place called Lush to eat our hamburgers before retiring at 5 A.M. to the warmth of the dorms (which by the way now have central heating turned on \0/).

Next week's agenda will be following: Silja has her 25th birthday on Wednesday, so some kind of action is bound to take place both on Wednesday and on Saturday. Friday I might go to a Tresor-party, which has its origins in the Berlin-based club called - surprisingly - Tresor, which is the birthplace of the German techno. We'll see where I'll end up.

Cheers to Finland!