Saturday, October 27, 2007

King of Apartments

NOTE:  It was about 4 in the morning when I wrote this.  I had just got back from a rave, and I was so drunk I could barely walk.  So cut me some slack.

So I ended up hooking up with my newest bestest buddy here, told me I was invited to a Halloween party at the house of a mate of his, after which we were all going to go go so club. Fin with me, I say, I love a good techno club.  So I proceed to getg as minumnentally shithammered as human y possible.  Oh, and this was after I spent the whole day looking at aparments, (More on that later.) At any rate, I can get 50 times the apartment for what I was paying in LA.  It;’s fucking gorgeous.  I actully popped wod at one point.

More details to comoe tomorrow.  Fior now, I am so stinking fucking drunk comingi back from some techno cliub at 4:30AM that I barely know who the fuck I am. Im’a sleep that shit off and check in wif y’all niggaz tomorrow and; shit, cool?  Cause this drunk-ass wanna-be Chinaman can barely type, let alone walk and do other coherent this,

Oh, one more thing, or those select few I I have sent the video to via email, you should be able to see if provided your QuickTime is up to date.

Other than thatm I’m gonna be one passed out muthafucka and y’all niggaz is just gonna have ‘til I wakes my asses up.

Friday, October 26, 2007

A-Hunting I Shall Go

A representative from the real estate agent is picking me up at 1:00 today to take me to look at apartments.  For those of you who (a) know the area or (b) give a shit, here’s where they’re showing me places.

The apt.she will show you is in Dongzhimen area: Season’s Park, Northeast ring road: Phoenix town.  Lido area: Richmond Park and Upper east side. or sth near chaoyang park.

I asked one guy who lives here what he thought of these options.  Here’s his reply.

Dongzhimen is my favourite area but that’s maybe because I’ve always lived here - close to most of the bars/restaurants/things to do. There’s a lot of famous places round here, temples, lakes, parks etc. some loud and dirty foreigner bars, sports bars, big Chinese bar street and ghost street - massive long street of Chinese restaurants - where drunken Chinese go to eat- more of a real Chinese Beijing than lido..

Lido area is nice too, i used to play football up there, but is more where expat families go - villas, big hotels, expensive restaurants - probably a bit quieter and more refined.

phoenix town is halfway between the two (geographically) - that area is a bit soulless i think, near lots of big hotels and all that brings..

However they are all within 20 mins cab ride of each other so I’d say just go for the nicest place. If you’re working in haidain though your commute won’t be much fun - traffic just gets worse and worse.

Just like LA.  Fun fun fun.  I have to admit, I feel like a kid the day before Christmas, I’m just excited as hell at getting to pick out something entirely new.  I mean, I used to pay $1100 a month for a 700 sq. foot apartment in LA.  It had one window, and when opened it had a glorious, picturesque view of the wall of the supermarket next door.  Not to mention that the area I lived in, while generally safe, was not averse to the odd gang shootout.

Long streets full of restaurants and bars?  Now that sounds like my kinda joint.

Rich Man’s World

I had forgotten about the money here.  The largest note that the central bank issues is a 100 RMB note, shown below.

Please excuse the oversaturation on the image, it’s not my scan.  At any rate, 100 RMB is worth roughly $12 or so. Imagine how thick your wallet would be if you had to carry around all your money in $10 bills.  Wanna go out for a night on the town and you feel like taking $400 or so?  That’s FORTY $10 bills in your wallet.  So when you fold your wallet in half to stick it in your pocket, you feel like George Costanza.  What a pain in the ass.  I’m looking at my wallet now and it’s almost 4” thick, with my credit cards and everything.

Yes, yes, I know I could get a money clip.  But still, China needs to get with the program and come up with a 200 or 500 RMB note.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Chinese Yummies

Let me tell you a little something about Chinese efficiency.  My room is on the 10th floor of this hotel.  I decided to go grab some lunch (I’m not much of a breakfast guy) around 1:00. I left the room and went up to the 23rd floor, which is where their restaurant is located.  They informed me that it would be 88 RMB for the meal, which is roughly $11.  No problem.  The restaurant was top quality, it was all buffet style, and they had about five different buffets to choose from.  One was a sushi buffet for the Japanese guests, the other was for westerners, there was a buffet full of deserts, and so on.  It was delicious, I tried a little of each.

They asked what I wanted to drink, so I told them to bring me the local beer, which turned out to be pretty tasty, though it only had 3.8% alcohol in it.  Nonetheless, as I was sitting there I had this odd feeling like I was moving.  It wasn’t anything I could place my finger on, but it was definitely there.  Then it dawned on me—it’s a fucking revolving restaurant!  And you know how often times in a US restaurant you end up looking for a waiter or waitress?  They had a staff member standing about every 20 feet to take care of your every whim should you need something.

Not bad, huh?  A delicious three course meal in a revolving restaurant for $11.  Ah, China, how I have missed thee.

Unfortunately today is foggy as hell, like London- or San Francisco-level fog, so I couldn’t see much of the skyline, but when things clear up I’ll post some pictures and show you what things are like around here.  Apart from that I may go out and go exploring, see what the neighborhood has to offer.  But I’m on the payroll, and that’s the most important thing to me.

And then, to top it all off, right as I got back to the room the maid was just leaving after having cleaned it.  I wasn’t gone for more than 30 minutes and my room was completely cleaned and organized.  That’s better service than you even get in Vegas.

Thirsty?

This is the sign above the sink in my hotel bathroom.

Apologies for the flash, but you get the idea.  Yummy!  “Yes, we’re advanced enough to use a missile to shoot a satellite out of the sky, but parasites in the water kick our asses.”

Friday, September 21, 2007

Official First Post

Well, after my long three-week ordeal in Texas, which all told cost me maybe $8,000 or so, I am finally here in the PRC.  Thanks to Jim for the site design, I’m going to keep updating it as time goes on with cool graphics and stuff.  But for now, this will work perfectly.

Okay, the day began early.  I was waitlisted for a first class upgrade on my flight between Houston an San Francisco, and I was 5th out of 8th.  I didn’t get bumped up to First but I did get put in Economy Plus, which is an economy sized seat with a crapload more legroom.  Nice and confmy, so no complaints there.

We arrived in SF about 20 minutes early, which gave me just enough time to get to my departure gate.  They were actually boarding as I arrived.  I was sitting business class for this one, so I was able to plug my laptop into the seat and watch movies.  Of course, due to the wonders of Xanax I ended up sleeping through most of the flight.  Passport control and customs here in Beijing were a snap.  They have GREATLY streamlined their processes from when I was here 5 years ago.  They didn’t even keep my passport at the hotel they just took a photocopy of it. 

The room I am in is, much like the Chinese themselves, clean and efficient yet small.  But it works perfectly, and after a brief restorative from the minibar (in this case a Tsingtao beer, which for you domestic-types is pronounced “Ching Tao” not “Sing Tao”—the old British spelling— which is one of my favorite beers in the world.  Tomorrow I’ll have to scare up a bottle of Jack Daniel’s somewhere.

I was met at the airport by a driver holding my name on a sign, driving a town car type thing.  He took me to the office.  We began to drive past all these nice office high-rise buildings, and I was thinking, ‘Wow, I bet it’s in one of those.” Then we pull up in an alley, and there’s this piece of shit door with the name of the company on it.  I walk in and it’s like night and day.  It looks like any state of the art office you’d see in Santa Monica.  I love it.  I’m absolutely thrilled.  I got to met most of the people I’ll be working for, I got to meet the crew who will be working for me, and I think this is going to be a hell of an opportunity.

Besides, I’m home.  This is how I grew up, and it’s this type of environment in which I seem to thrive the best.

The company is paying for my room for the next 20 days, or until I find an apartment, whichever comes first. They have an apartment service which has lined up a whole slew of places for me to look at.  The office has told me to feel free and take the next few days off to rest and get over my jetlag, but I’ve been doing this for so long I feel pretty good about it.  I should be over the jetlag in a day or two, then I can spend the next few days exploring.

So, for now I am going to hit the sack.  It’s 5am in Houston, 3am in Los Angeles, so I’m sure as hell not going to wake anyone up at that hour.  But I’m here, I’m alive, and I’m loving every second of it. Also, check this out.  I got a few kick-ass pictures of the San Francisco Bay Area from the plane.

Pretty cool, huh?  And this is the view out my hotel window.  It’s a little bit early for the whole city scape to go all Blade Runner on me, but this is what I see.