Xin nian kuai le!

Meaning "Happy new year!". I would rather wish y'all pleasant and calm new year 2010.

So what's new? My and Silja's friends from Finland, Anne and Piia, arrived on Thursday just in time to celebrate the changing decade. In addition, we have been let to know that as part of our final Chinese exams, we have to perform a skit for other students; for our group, 20 minutes worth of Chinese-speaking pain (4 people: David from Ireland, Europe from Mexico, Aleksandr from Kazakstan and me). It's gonna be a lot of fun I can tell's ya! This day I've been working both on this one scene of the whole skit, plus I wrote a full A4 essay in Chinese characters of my life in Beijing. Not too shabby for a Sunday, I've been toasting myself. Even accomplished to send some e-mail for my previous employer. Efficiency has been today's mantra.

Fortunately, three days prior it was totally something else - the new year with the old gang and of course Piia and Anne. We started off at my dorm, where also Piia & Anne eventually came after some trial&errors in the notorious taxis of Beijing. Seriously, Piia & Anne's hostel managers had been able to write "west" instead of "east", so the taxi driver drove Anne & Piia to the wrong side of the campus. Well, all ended well and our friends got to us safely. I was so happy to see them! We then proceeded to a Hunanese restaurant in Wudaokou with all sorts of good pots of food. Marination process was well beyond any decent boundaries, so we quickly moved on to Helen's Cafe to do the midnight final countdown. Lots of soju, shisha, erguotou, bad jokes, dancing, bruises, riverdance and such were included in the evening's menú. Countdown was so nice, Helen's so nice as it has this warm atmosphere, everybody were brothers and sisters, champagne spilling all over the place and people holding on to each other while doing the countdown. Lennart would love it. Nevertheless, at some point we wanted to head off to Sanlitun to the club Latte. And maybe it's best that I now conclude this evening's storytelling, as it did not play out as well as before. Oh well, I lived! :) Hopefully so did others.

This evening was also the last for Jani in Beijing, as he left on the next day towards Shanghai in a train with Arto. Bye bye Jani! See you in Finland, have a great trip! Jani and Arto would travel also to Hong Kong, Macao, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and to some tropical paradise island in Malaysia. Then off to Finland (for Arto it's China again).

Hah, lately I've been fortunate enough to know Natalie and Nick, with whom I've been able to laugh at different accents. Natalie knows well the different British accents, whereas Nick is master at doing either New Yorker or Texan stuff. It's sooo hilarious! Also, Jussi B., thank you for your always so funny "Oh Cod!" :). We've been using it here.

On Friday night we took Anne and Piia for some classier Beijing cuisine, actually to the restaurant I and Silja (along with Doro and Heike, two fellow travellers from the Transmongolian) first visited when arriving to Beijing in the beginning of September. It was good, food was excellent, plentiful and Nick, Russell, me and Silja even played some piano in the restaurant, after courteously asking whether or not we were allowed to play. After some ice-cream in Wangfujing shopping district, Anne & Piia decided to retreat back to their hostel, which fortunately is near Wangfujing, while we others went back to Wudaokou to Jaan & Marit's place for some soju & pijiu (beer). Oh yes, and sake. It was more laid back night than the new year's eve, though we stayed up quite late and had always a bottle in our hands. The last place we went to was Lush, where they serve their excellent hamburgers, so much better than in any fast food chain. And cheaper. It was about 6 o'clock A.M. when we got back to the dorms.

Come Saturday I just..well did nothing. Watched some stand-up comedy with Natalie while eating some food ordered in. T'was OK grub, potato salad and chicken sandwich. Meanwhile, Silja was hosting Piia & Anne in Helen's, to where I also ended up. From there we transited to Club 13, an ug-place, where there's good Chinese rock bands playing music. This sort of music is somewhat ug in China, I reckon. But the band that was playing.. man it had such skill, such enthusiasm, such novel Chinese instruments and ways of presenting themselves that I could not believe my ears nor my eyes. Very good music, in short. Thank you also Anne for the ear plugs, they were a life-saver.

And yes, now today I've just been writing a lot of school stuff. Next week is the last week of our actual teaching, after which we'll just practice on our own our skit, our vocabulary, writing, listening, speaking, everything. I'm confident I'll do just fine.

Pics of the past days' events I have yet to receive in big amounts. I have just some, will add more later on. The videos I possess are either slightly hazardous to be published or just too restless. For private eyes only :/.

New Year 2010

Piia & Anne Facebookin kimpussa

P.S. Today we have received a ton of snow to the ground. Which is new. Tomorrow we will make Anne & Piia taste the weird bugs of the Wangfujing "insect market".