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Published: December 25th 2010
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Ho-ho-ho! Merry Christmas!
It is unwise to yell this too loud in our neighbourhood, due to the "Gentlemen's Club" next door, and it may be considered offensive.... so we whisper this message to you.
Our Christmas tree is up, our cheap fairy lights are flashing, and there are a s**tload of vegetables piled up in the kitchen for cooking tomorrow. {Come to think of it, there are a s**tload of vegetables under the stairs outside our apartment. Remember cabbage-fest 9000? This year it's leeks. - http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Wudaokou/blog-222572.html} The advantage of the awesome apartment that we now live in is that we have a REAL oven. Yes, a real oven. It may not have a temperature gauge. You may not be able to turn on both the upper and lower elements at one time. You may not be able to bake cookies unless they're piled on top of 3 trays to stop them from burning. And you may not be able to open the cutlery drawer after the oven's been on for 20 mins. But it's an oven. A real oven. **Note to self: get cutlery out of drawer before roasting chicken and veg tomorrow**
Highlight of the year: Beijing
has been ranked as equal first with Mexico City as most congested city, and we're not talking about noses. The traffic is just getting silly. 3000 new cars a day. Pitchi-pitchi has just released a statement saying they will only allow another 250000 cars onto the road next year as a wonderful bang-up solution. It's going to be about as useful as a chinese made decongestion tablet. **Note to self: need to buy more demazin next time we're in Australia**
To cope (with the traffic, not our noses) we are pimping the bike riding experience.
1. For long-distance journeys, or those involving a drum kit, "Trike" is the weapon of choice. Fire-engine-red, no pedals, heaviest battery in history and a tray big enough for drums and wifey.
2. For cold journeys that involve too much sweating to warrant thermal underwear, front leg warmers. Now, these things are sexy. Furry leopard print on the inside, fake black leather on the outer. Anyday now, we'll be wearing them inside out.
3. For cold journeys and people who can't be bothered wearing gloves, handlebar gloves. Why wear gloves when you can attach them to your bike permanently?
4. In-built heavy-duty sub-zero air-con.
Oh, wait, that's part of the problem.
5. For the over-enthusiatic shopper, an extra bike basket wired onto the back of the bike. Padlock included. Great for the extra shopping, not so great when you need to park in a tight spot, turn a corner past the lamborghini parked at the Ho-ho-ho house, or if you need to walk your bike up the stairs.
6. Sexy Darth Vader face masks. Zac thinks that 'Sub-zero face masks' is a more appropriate name, but Sof doesn't think anyone will get the reference.
As always, we like to expand our culinary experiences, and this year has been no exception. There's an extremely popular duck restaurant where you can eat every part of the duck. Every part. Maybe even the feathers. Trouble is, you normally have to line up for 3 to 4 hours first in order to do so. Solution? Go with a billionaire, and walk past all the people freezing their tits off, straight upstairs to the 'reserved' table. Then stick your head out of the window, yell 'Suckers!' at the people still outside, and sit down and enjoy the feast. Big thumbs up to the liver, the skin, the normal
bits, thumbs down to the bony tongue and the webbed feet. Big question mark to the plate of white stuff that we couldn't get a good translation for.
In a spurt of surprisingly good news, Pitchi-Pitchi gave us a christmas pressie: 2 bright spanking new rubbish bins; 1 for kitchen waste, 1 for 'other'. We already split our recycling, so we finally thought that they were heading in the right direction and catching up with the rest of the world. Not so. When quizzed about where we empty our bins into, they said, 'Just keep putting it in the same big rubbish bin'. That's right. We split our rubbish up in the kitchen, then mix it back in together. Genius.
And while we're on the environmental theme, quote of the year from sof's student: Sof: How can we help save the environment? Student: Not build tree houses.
Oh, and Zac's mandarin has progressed greatly since cursing at students in chinese every day as part of his new job. He teaches 'jazz'. 'Jazz'.
Thanks to Steve, Kat, Steven, PJ, Wade and Cat for hanging at the Red Bar this year. A special thanks to Eli, who's early
morning visits and games ensured that we will not be having any children in the foreseeable future.
Merry Christmas and all that.
Boris and Doris
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Chas
non-member comment
Which one is it?
Who is in the photo with your Dad captioned "Singapore slings"? You or your Mum?