China Diaries 5 - Hangzhou to Xiamen with a little in between....

Monday, November 19, 2007


Hangzhou to Xiamen with a little in between.


China is quite an interesting place. I'm glad I get to experience it for the length of time to work and explore. For the mos part, foreigners come here to work moreso then for a holiday, but if you do want to have a holiday into a country unknown [and CHEAP], you come here because your dollar will go along way despite the ever declining rate.



With that being said, I want to catch up from the last time I wrote my blog. I think I left off about partying at a great club called SOS and the first day of the series. I believe it 3-4 days ago. Since then, alot has happened. The sight seeing around Hangzhou was limited because of our schedule and the weather didn't help either. Back in Beijing, the series wasn't organized very well, we didn't know when to be at the track and what they expected us to do because we had no inparticular call time or schedule, we basically winged it and did what we thought and vaguely was told what to do. Here in Hangzhou, the good thing was it was organized by the city so we had alot of people helping, had a schedule, call time, and more leadership. However, because we were the last of the todem pole from drivers, to mechanics, to officials, to being the minorities, to being the models, we were controlled more then what we should of been and lacked the participation of being in the series then what we anticipated.




We had two organizers who were in charge of the models and made a schedule for us to make appearances in the morning at the stadium for some of the crowd. Remember when I mentioned us making up a dance routine for the show, well needless to say we wasted half a day coming up with a routine because we never even got to perform. The weather permitted us to do as it was cold and rained. It rained on the days the series was happening, go figure, so we just did our parade route around the track waving to the crowd. We did manage to go on the stage and wing a little left to right dance number for the spectators, but the entire dance was scratched. To kill sometime, we did a half circle and individual solos for the crowd to showcase our dance and model tra la la la. No one really got down because the stage was so wet and this poor Chinese model, bless her, went up, started to dance (I'm laughing right now already just leading up to this), next thing you see is her legs slip from underneath her and her left side/face planted onto the floor of the stage (I can't stop laughing right now) infront of the entire stadium. Mind you theres a decen amount of people watching too. We all didn't know what to do if we should help her get up or if she was ok. It's like one of those scenes in a movie were someone is running and slips on a banana peel. Add your own special effects sound and you then I bet you can start laughing right about now. Funny as hell. She did get right back up though and continued to dance so kudos for her.




After we were done entertaining the crowd in our mini skirts and space cadet shirts, the drifters came out and entertained the crowd as well parading around and messing around with eachother. This was the first night of the series so the crowd was pumped to see the Chinese and Americans battle their cars and give a show.




I have to go now.......more to come later.

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OK I'm back.........



The entry above was prior the plane ride to Xiamen, and now it's 4:40 am in Xiamen, but I'll pick up where I left off.....So the first night, the girl felt flat on her face infront of the entire stadium and her solo, but like I said she was a trooper because she got right back up and continued to dance. We were only out at the beginning of the event because even though we had an itenarary when to make appearances, get the crowd going, the police decided to lock us in the room so they shut the main hallway to the entrance of the stadium. So, our leader said screw it, we got dressed and went back to the hotel. Pretty lame considering they flew us out here to China for the series and no one really knew what was going on or who we could talk to about the whole situation so we left. Didn't even stay to watch the event.




Four of us models decided to get a massage at a spa after since it was only about 7:30 pm. The stadium in Hangzhou is nuts because around it is a shopping center, and bars all lined up along side of it and a spa in the stadium. The massage is dirt cheap for 80 minutes and they come bring you tea, snacks, it's not like at home where you take your clothes off and you do either one on one or couples. You keep your clothes on and it's a room of four with a tv and reclining chairs. So the four of us go in, can't speak a lick of Mandarin, use hand gestures and point to what we want done and it was an entire 80 minutes of abdominal work out because we and they were laughing the whole time. I got a foot massage while the others got a back massage. You know it was quite funny as we

This was entertaining
Probably the most fun I ever had a massage parlor. LOL

don't speak Mandarin and they don't speak English so of course they were probably talking about of junk as we were goofying off. It was quite entertaining!



Once we were finished, another model and I went and ate some food and then called it a night. It was pretty much how the same thing the following night only the ones who didn't make it to the next round on Saturday night wanted to go out and considering the club is a two minute walk from the hotel, I was up for it. We all piled into the club around midnight and SOS is awesome!!!! I don't know if I stated this previously before in my other entry but clubs in China put clubs in Cali to shame. It's like taking Avalon in Hollywood, times 10 with how it's set up around the club, the visual effects, the sound system. etc.....The Chinese seem to pay attention to super clubs here and making them plush. The best part about it is you don't pay to get in either, you just go in.....well we didn't anyway...lol The music was electro and we had a table on the second

mmmmmm
Sooooo nice. :-)

level which over looks the club. The theme for the entire weekend was jungle so people had leaves on their heads, painted faces, etc....it was pretty dope.



As the night progressed the drinks were coming and the music was dirty and I love dirty electro. Chunky bass lines, some break beats, and of course they eventually brought in old school trance/house and I'm talking Alice Deejay stuff people!!! The one thing about here is they are alittle behind in music, or it's still quite popular. Either way, I was on the dance floor making friends and dancing with the drifters. It was funny too cause' I didn't give damn about the people pushing and the small dance floor or even that I was alone at times on the dancefloor, I wore my chucks, pants, bikini top and had a blast. It was my cardio time and I was faded off the chivas and green tea again. But by 2:3am, I was done and took off from the club to catch some shut eye. I didn't have a hang over which was awesome, just lacking sleep.



The following morning, us models had to make an

Lacie and I
Watching the races and withstanding the drizzling.

appearance for 20 minutes at the stadium to the small amount of people that weathers the coldness. We danced around and waved, after that went back to the hotel where some of us went back to sleep and others cruised around. Later that day it was the final day and we were asked to stay longer at the track because it was the final day and there was suppose to be a banquet of celebration right after................this is where it got crazy!




So during the show, one of the Chinese drivers who apparently is a rich guy, parents have money, he drives a porche, thinks he has pull, yadda yadda was doing tandem drifting with one of the Americans who's pretty good named Ben. He spun out deliberately trying to take Ben out, ended up crashing his car and used another car for another tandem drift. When he did the second one with another American named Ross who was in the running for first, he tried taking him out too. Needless to say he failed and when it came down to the final top three for podium, I guess maybe there was a

Lacie, DJ Jerry's mom, myself and Colleen
She lives in LA and DJ Jerry who now lives in Taiwan, born in Virginia, came to entertain the crowd. DJ Jerry is quite popular in both China and Taiwan.

tie for fourth???? I'm not exactly sure how it worked out but four guys were to go to the podium, with a tie for third place. First place went to a Chinese driver, second and third went to the Americans along with this guy. Well, when handed the trophy and flowers, the American got the trophy and the Chinese recieved the flowers, and he FLIPPED OUT!! He took the flowers and threw it at the judge, then flipped him off, got into his car, drove off into the pits, came back with his homies and all the sudden there was a brawl on the track. Mind you this is after us models leave, so we don't know what's going on really but we can kind of see it in threw our room window. Then, the Chinese driver took our photographer's camera and broke it. It was a huge mess, we got our stuff ready and went straight to the bus because shit was going down and being a minority in another country though your group didn't start it doesn't matter, the majority will have their kind's back.




While walking through the main entrance way into the

Alex and I at SOS again
The club is only a two minute walk from our hotel and it was such an awesome club to let loose at.

stadium, it looked like a polive academy because the amount of police there and what was going on, it was absolutely nuts. We then picked up the rest of the drifters in the pits as some words were being exchanged, and we knew right then and there that the banquet celebration was evidently going out the window, hostility and tension was in the air with both sides though some Chinese drivers apologized for their colleagues behavior and it was blantant that this guy was just a soar looser. After all this aftermath, we were on lock down in our hotel on the last night and couldn't do anything! Our last night was spent hanging out in the hotel room watching our two English speaking channels, and in my room it was movie night with Diane Lane and John Cusack "Must Love Dogs." The following day we had a make up lunch with the Chinese drifters which everyone was anticipating more brawls but it ended up being ok.



My roommate and I left early from lunch as we had to pack for the second leg of our trip to China. This time it was only the two of

Green tea and Chivas!
I know it sounds a little bitter, but it definitely is a great drink if you wanna last a while and not have a hang over.

us doing a tour for Coors Light. It's 11 cities in 11 days and the one guy who put it together is an American living and working over with his fiancee who's Chinese. He had to leave early to get his passport stamped in Hong Kong and we were meant to leave with her and two other Chinese guys who didn't speak English at all. So you can picture 3 Chinese-no english, a midwestern blonde-no mandarin and blonde hair along with myself travelling together. But you know, it's cool because we were all cool, and even though we can't speak much, we communicated well for what he had to do.



Initally our flight was 4:45 pm from Hangzhou to Xiamen where our tour starts and that is where [Paul the DJ] and his girl lived. When we arrived at the airport, it was delayed until further notice and we sat there for abit wondering what we were going to do. The airline was to put us up but we had to wait for the bus until then which was sometime. One thing that is good about language barriers and having some travelling experience, you DON'T HEAR BITCHING

Party in the hallway
Because we were on lock down, we ended up partying here.

AND COMPLAINING! You just got to roll with the punches sometimes and luckily my roommate and I are cool enough to just deal with it, handle it and not panic about what we were going to do. If you can't speak the langauge well, it's absolutely pointless complaining and whining. The bus did eventually come 45 mins later and it took us to a nice International Hotel where we were put up in cozy rooms, fed dinner and just waited until we were called to go back to the airport. My roomie past out for a few hours and I took a quick nap, then wondered off to find something to drink, eat, use the net . Around 9:45pm front desk called and said it's time to go so we lugged all of our luggage back onto the bus and headed to the airport.





Our flight was at 11:30 pm direct to Xiamen which is close to Hong Kong and Taiwan, an island. We finally checked in at the airport, got our passes and off

Last night
All dressed up and nowhere to go. Our last night there and we had to stay in the hotel.

to Xiamen, what an adventure. We arrived with no worries, grabbed a cab, headed to meet Paul, check into our 1 star hotel with awesome internet access (no joke) and then off to eat. Apparently next to us is a manwhore brothel, yup for the ladies......Skip the man whore part for us and we went to chow down some food. They say in Xiamen people never sleep, and it reminds me of Ibiza because people are up super late, partying, drinking, eating and sleeping in. We finally called it a night around 3:30am and headed back to the hotel where I am now writing this blog. It's 5:30 am here and I'm about to go to sleep because in about 12 hours, we have to hit the road to dance every night for Coors. It's going to be a great work out for the next 11 days, so I'm excited for it.

Last lunch
This is the last lunch we had where the Chinese driver apologized and we all had to burry the hatchet.

Goofing off with Larry
He was the photographer who had the confrontation with the Chinese driver. Larry is Chinese too. hahaha He speaks "Shanghai-nese."

Flight to Xiamen

Lacie and I arriving at 2 am
Finally made it to Xiamen, just got dropped off and waiting to go get something to eat.

Fresh Eel

mmmmmmm

Xiamen Island, China

Xiamen

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