Bye bye 五, Bye bye 胡胡, Hello 鼓, Hello 舒服 （Bye bye Wu, bye bye Huhu, Hello Gu, Hello shufu!)

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Well, shall we get the rest of the Beaurocratic Inertia out of the way first? Sof’s company went bankrupt. Well, as bankrupt as a company can get in China. They told us this the day we arrived back from Australia (our last short stint - see the last blog if you haven’t already). The last 2 months have involved many a fight to try and get paid, arguing with stupid middle management and going on strike! The long and short of it; Sof quit. And just in time. 4 days after she quit they closed her school down because they hadn’t paid the rent for 2 months and building management were getting a little pissed off.

Enter Norman. Actually, for Rachel’s sake, a friend of ours who objected to having such a crappy organisation linked to her surname (quite understandably), Norman will now be referred to as Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock. If anyone reading this blog has the surname, Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock, we feel terribly sorry for your primary school years, and well, your whole life really.

Anyway, Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock has been putting his nose into our lives again. Even though Sof has her visa now, there are all sorts of regulations regarding work permits. And of course, changing permit from one job to another is supposed to be an easy task (Why haven’t we learnt yet?). Unfortunately, Sof’s previous company, now known as “Stingey McStingalot” decided to employ her as a standard employee through the ministry of labour, instead of a ‘foreign expert’ through the foreign experts department as she should have been. This “changeover” is still in progress. Stay tuned for more exciting developments.

Enter Zac’s adventures. Upon re-arriving in China, Zac put together an application for the foreign experts. This involved many bits of paper, all needing to be stamped (never underestimate the importance of a red stamp in this country) by his school offering him a job. So, off Zac went to find the foreign experts.
Step 1. Ride several km to the north of Beijing to the Foreign Experts building.
Step 2. Find out that the FE department is not inside the FE building.
Step 3. Follow the instructions to west Beijing to where the FE really are.
Step 4. After much cursing, finally find the FE and try to lodge application.
Step 5. Find out that this is the National FE department and my application needs to lodged at the BJ City FE department. Come on!
Step 6. Go to central BJ, where the foreign experts department is hiding. It took solving the magic cuttlefish’s riddle, eating enchanted cheese and duelling with Voldemort to finally get to the door.
Step 7. Hand in application. They say that the application is fine, however, the school that wants to employ Zac is not allowed to this year, because, and wait for it, this has to best the best ever beaurocratic excuse ever…..
The school was having its dormitories renovated in January, so can’t employ foreigners this year.
Step 8. Curse again.
Step 9. Repeat step 8 several times.
Step 10. Little bit more of step 9.
Step 11. Look at the options. Find out that there is a 6 month visa that spouses can get, if their better half has a work permit, which Sof does. Awesome.
Step 12. Try and get all the paperwork together for this application. This involves an application form (red stamped by Stingey McStingalot), a photocopied marriage certificate (stamped by the Australian embassy, who are about as helpful and in touch with reality as Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock. Let’s call them ‘Extorting Dickheads’), and a million other bits of paper. Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock really digs his paperwork, particularly the paperwork which we’ve already given him in previous applications.
Alas, Stingey McStingalot wouldn’t stamp the application form, cos she was being a bitch. Actually, she’s just always a bitch. But we did get the stamp from the Extorting Dickheads, 200 kuai later, and a couriered marriage certificate from Adelaide to Beijing (thanks James and Julie). Oh yeah, and they can only stamp the certificate between 2 and 4. It took 3 bloody rides to the Extorting Dickheads to achieve this.
Step 13. Panic. One of our friends who has a ‘star visa’ (requested to leave china within 10 days - see last blog) was rejected from her last application and is now back in Russia. Zac has a ‘star visa’ too, and there are rumours that no visas are given to people with star visas until October. Enter some corruption, dodgy friends, name dropping, etc. and we finally get the better of Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock. For now.
Actually, because Stingey McStingalot didn’t stamp the form, Zac could only get a 1 month. But if he gets allowed back into the country, Sof’s new company SHOULD (?!?!?!) help him out with 6 months, which SHOULD (?!?!?!?!) see him through this nightmare period called the Olympics, where 30,000 of the 250,000 expats in Beijing have been sent home.

But Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock’s beaurocratic inertia doesn’t stop there. We moved house, and it took 4 visits to the visa place to register sof as moving house. 4 visits. Yep. When we already registered at the police that she’s moved.

Dude.

Anyway, onto the title of the blog, and our new apartment. We’ve really moved up in the world to a really shufu (English: comfy) place, and it’s unlikely that we’ll ever be able to afford a nice place anywhere else in the world, so we’re doing it now. It was time to leave Wudaokou behind, where the college students are many and the cheap chinese restaurants too few. We now find ourselves in real authentic Beijing, where the college students are none and the cheap chinese restaurants are everywhere. We mean everywhere. Everywhere except Wudaokou.

We’re living in Gu Lou Da Jie, close to the traditional hutong (back roads, some unchanged for hundreds of years) and sweet sweet bars (which are a little bit newer…). We have a much better kitchen, however, with the increase of 7 kuai gaifan around the corner, we don’t seem to be capitalising fully. The MerryMart next door sells tiger beer at 3 kuai a can, so our fridge at least, gets a workout. Our local place is “Fonzie’s”; run by a Xin Jiang woman who says ‘Eyyyyy’ even better than the food she cooks’ tastes. Who would have thought that lamb and veg on top of nang bread could taste so good? Oh, and ‘da pan ji’: literally ‘big plate o’ chicken’. Nice.

Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to Huhu, our fish in the Wu. He belonged to the apartment, and we thought the move might kill him. We hope he’s happy with his 4th tenants. We also said goodbye to the noodle people… but we’ve been back. A few times.

Our bike family has now increased, as we introduce Viols to keep Rubes company as the two spares. Alan and Cherryll have come and ridden them, albeit quite slowly, well, very slowly, but it’s all fun. We’ve eaten our way through Beijing cuisine with them, climbed the great wall, got drunk on tea (and white wine), and now we’ve all made our way to Qingdao, a beachside town where it always seems to rain. Well, we say always, we mean usually. Luckily today the rain didn’t arrive, and we ventured down to the glorious spacious quiet peaceful sparsely populated pleasant bathing beach no. 1.

The name ‘bathing beach no.1’ was not a lie. Basically everything else in that sentence was.

Picture this. You weave your way through the crowds to find an empty place. You have your beach towel spread out. Suncreen is applied, and hat firmly on your head. All prepared for a sunbake, paddle and read on the beach. Suddenly, the surroundings come into focus (can your ears come into focus?? Maybe let’s say tune). The “surroundings come into tune”. A loudspeaker is pounding Olympic propaganda into the air. A front-end loader is charging through the crowds to pick up bags of algae. Children are doing their bit by scooping up plastic cups of algae from the water. And just when you think that’s as “un-beachy” as it can get, a platoon of army GI Joes come marching down the beach with rakes over their shoulders (picture the chimney sweeps in Mary Poppins). In summary, it was an experience.

And after all this, we know some of you are querying why we choose to live here (AGAIN). It’s kinda hard to explain via a blog, but we love it. Everyday is a learning experience. Everyday has a new surprise lurking around the corner. Everyday has a new smell (often bad). If you want more clarification….

We’re coming back to oz in july, hitting Melbourne, Tassie and Adelaide. Hope to see you all. Keep an eye out on facebook to see where we are, or send us an email. Please don’t ask us about anything we’ve written in our blog. We refuse to discuss visas. We’re over it.

Also, Julie and James have invited everyone (friends and family) to their house on the 25th. Please feel free to turn up any time from mid afternoon to evening. Drop us a line to let us know if you’re coming so we have a vague idea of numbers.

Til then, don’t let Pitchi-pitchi McGregor Burlock get you down!

Zac and Sof.

PS
We tried to upload our video but it didn't work. So for a full view of our video, go to

to see just how peaceful it is. If the link doesn't work, search 'Summer in Qingdao' published by chinafreak3110.

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Photos

Moving House
Well, before we hired a van, we did a little moving ourselves!

Red team or blue team?
You can choose...

Drinks at 12sqm
Well, their first night in Beijing should involve Coopers, right?

Mmm... sushi
Wade, Alan & Cherryll discovering our fav sushi restaurant.

Noodles!!
The compulsary visit back to our noodle people for lunch!

Summer palace
Ahh, such clear summer weather...

Trying to avoid the algae at Qingdao
(doesn't look like zac has!)

And another cutie!
sorry, i can't resist - don't let sof do the photos next time!

Beautiful Chinglish
"Half price for old man with credentials"
"Admission free for deformed man with credentials"

Truckloads of algae
No joke. The olympic yachting starts in less than a month!