Kinkkinen juttu: Night out with the teachers

Greetings from the -2C - -6C Beijing! No snow on the ground but cold wind is chilling us down quite efficiently.

Nevertheless, Christmas is coming although it doesn't feel like it, because there's no people running around and talking frantically about what their Christmas should be like etc. We will be probably hanging out with Jaan and Marit at their apartment and try to eat something special (maybe go to a special store for this). On Friday I am quite sure I'm not going to go to class. New year's also approaching, which again, is quite invisible here. Just some parties and stuff. Fortunately we are having two of our Finnish friends come to Beijing all the way from Finland to celebrate the new year with us <3. We'll see what we will come up with.

Now some future plans: with Silja we agreed on upon leaving China to visit at least the following places: (maybe) Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Hanoi (Vietnam), Luang Prabang (Laos), Vang Vieng (Laos) and Vientiane (Laos). From there it's still unknown. Few of my classmates have been to Cambodia and they recommended a few places there, so we might check out e.g. some beach (e.g. Kep) on the coast of Cambodia and a city called Siem Reap. I would also like to visit Thailand, maybe some island plus Bangkok to feel the clash of modern and traditional thai-world all come together. So, our trip afterwards will be mainly composed of Indo-China, and trying to chill as much as we can. Month is not that long a time to travel... But as usual, when it comes to travelling, there's a lot of things to take care of before leaving so we should soon start to organize it full-speed. Now I'd need to know e.g. how much a parcel would cost to Finland, as I thought of sending most of my stuff back to Finland prior to leaving mainland China.

Back to the present. Our tai chi and kung fu classes ended this week, so it's now done. I think kung fu was not my cup of tea: too much thoughts went into how something looks like rather than how efficient it is in terms of self-defence. Too much of "the higher you kick the better" -mentality. I wanted it to be more like something I could actually utilize as a self-defence mechanism, but nope. So I stick to krav maga <3. Tai chi on the other hand was quite an experience, because it taught me to maintain calmness, posture and smoothness throughout moving and doing relatively hard series of techniques. I think it along with e.g. meditation would reduce stress levels and all that, so I think tai chi was fairly OK.

Friday was our class's big night as we had two out of our three teachers come out and play with us. Although only about half of our class was there (plus of course I invited Finnish popula with Momo, Natalie and Harry to come along), we had a blast! We went to this great Fapanese restaurant in Wudaokou to eat out all the delights a Japanese kitchen can offer. At first our teachers seemed more like wanting to (still) teach us Chinese, but I dunno know, it was good practice I guess.. I mean I introduced some few people in Chinese but it's hard man! So soon we switched on to English.

Oh yeah, our teachers: Wang Li and Sha Qian. The former is our kouyu teacher (spoken language) and the latter our written teacher (they call it "comprehensive"). They are both quite happy and energetic all the time. Especially Sha laoshi (teacher), who radiates and intoxicates all us (male) students when she's present. I mean, she seems to be bursting out of happiness every time she's teaching our class. She always also helps me out when I present her my many hard questions, and never forgets to mention how congming I am for asking these questions. And never gets down even though I might all the time be insinuating to some not so..proper things. Anyways, both teachers are very good at what they do, and Wang also speaks quite good English, Sha not that good but always understands what is being said to her. E.g. Silja is not so fortunate as her kouyu teacher does not talk English. So we have this kind of an advantage going on for us.

Having finished our dinner, we headed for Helen's cafe, to where also our teachers came by for a beer. I started to be in my Fridayish health, so I started to chat with our teachers about meditation and other cool stuff, and they were just laughing :). I also informed them that I'm not that good at speaking Chinese (which I truly believe) but they courteously denied this and said my intonation is quite good. Which was nice. But soon our teachers had to head off back home (they're both married :/ ), so we continued to have fun without them. I got drawn a lot since I brought a black marker with me (fortunately water-soluble) to write something Finnish to the bar's walls, which are covered with truths, sayings and drawings from all over the world. So, Silja wrote something on the wall (kerroppa omassa blogissas?, en muista :) ) and I wrote something on the table. Yah and I got drawn to my hands, all kinds of fucking stuff in English and Chinese, and some sheeps. I looked actually kinda cool when I went to the shower on Saturday morning and glanced at myself via mirror :). Jaan was also in the bar with us, sharing the fun and hanging out. At some point we decided to head off to Sanliturrrrrr. The gang divided on this occation and our merry league was composed of: Jani, Oscar, Lasse, Natalie and me (later on came Ben also). Oscar is leaving on the next Wednesday so it was kinda also his farewall party (which officially was on Saturday in me and Ruslan's dorm). We first hit a place called Babyface, we danced our hearts out and I, in my ultimate wisdom, had also brought my ear plugs, so I would not be deaf for the next week's time. Dancing, dancing, always conquering the peak point of the dance floor (there are always these small areas which are the most elevated parts of the bar) and showing mad skillz for the rest of the clubbers. After this place we headed off to a place called Coco Banana, which we did not enter as they kept saying we are Kazaks and would have had to pay 100 kuai instead of the normal fee..bastards! Afterwards I think it was a good thing, because we had great time in our next place near the north gate of the workers' stadium: Latte. Free entrance, not-so-shitty music, not over-priced drinks, good decoration and not too big. Dancing dancing, until it was time to return to the dorms at 5.45 A.M.

On Saturday we had promised Oscar to organize a party for him at my and Ruslan's dorm, because his dorm was not big enough. As it turned out, we would have not needed the extra space - relatively few people came. We still had a good time at my dorm room and went to Wudaokou for some Saturday night fever. Soon on though Antti, Alard (English speaking Chinese guy, very nice guy indeed) and me decided to retreat as we were quiite tired.

That was this weekend then. Maybe we will go today to the jjimjillbang of Beijing, we'll see.