18 March 2007

A great party

It must have been a great party. I didn't get up till midday today. Haven't done that in ages.

So yesterday afternoon just after one we went out to try and catch a bus. 'Try' is the operative word. The first two buses were so packed we couldn't get on- remember, we're both well used to Chinese public transport. If we couldn't get on the bus, you can rest assured it made a sardine can look comfortable and spacious by comparison. The third bus we managed to squeeze on, but we didn't get all the way to Xidan as planned. Eventually we just said, fuck this for a joke, and got off at Jishuitan. Well, it's also a subway station, just less direct than getting the subway at Xidan, because it required us to change from Line 2 to Line 1 at either Jianguomen or Fuxingmen. But big deal, the travel time would work out about the same.

We got to Oriental Plaza bang on three, just in time to find this exhibition (I hope that link gets you to the right page. If not, go to the main page and look for Te Papa Exhibition) and see the performance. We found the exhibition, but there was no sign of any performance, so we looked around and played with the exhibits (it had been organised by Te Papa, and followed Te Papa's interactive philosophy). Eventually the members of 'Strike', a percussion group, showed up to perform. Their performance was good, but far too short. And the group from Whitireia was nowhere to be seen. The information I had seen suggested both groups would perform, but as it turned out, the Whitireia performance was at 11am and only Strike was performing in the afternoon. And a very, very short performance it was. Add to this the exhibits themselves: They were good, but didn't come anywhere near close to living up to the hype. And, well, the whole thing seemed rather disorganised.

Anyway, the exhibition was cool, and I recommend checking it out, but still, I was expecting a lot more.

And, well, this left us with rather a lot of time on our hands. The plan was to check out the exhibition and see the 3 o'clock performance, and then head round to Jeremiah's housewarming/St Patrick's Day/engagement party. The timing should have been perfect, but suddenly we had a couple of hours to kill. So we wandered around Oriental Plaza, then ducked outside to get some breathable air instead of the highly processed shite inside the shopping mall (it's a scary thing when you step outside for fresh air in Beijing- and feel much better for it), then lzh declared she was hungry and wanted Yoshinoya. So we ate, and then we stopped by the supermarket for a bottle of wine, then we got on the subway.

It should've been easy to find Jeremiah's place, the directions were very detailed. In fact, the compound was very easy to find, and, even though I'd left the directions at home, we walked straight there. But finding the apartment proved to be more difficult. Never mind, we got there, eventually.

And it was a great party. Jeremiah and YJ are awesome hosts.

There was about a 50:50 mix of Chinese and laowai. I noticed at least half the laowai present, perhaps most of them, could speak Chinese, which was a nice breath of fresh air. I don't like being surrounded by monolinguals. One guy decided to tell me- twice- that I look ridiculously Irish. Well, that accounts for half my ancestry, sure, but 'ridiculously' Irish? Is that a compliment, perhaps? Jeremiah and YJ have the coolest bathroom in Beijing. Honestly, they should sell tickets to view their bathroom, it's so cool. I was a little disappointed that the studio is not, in fact, made of granite, but Jeremiah informed me the name for his blog has some connection with his home state. Apparently his home state is made entirely out of granite, or something like that.

Anyway, great party. Thanks Jeremiah and YJ, you guys are awesome hosts.

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