Saturday, August 12, 2006
Whoopa! Take that sleep!!
Ok, so I did it again. How many times am I going to blunder into a foreign country without the slightest idea of what’s going to happen when I get there?
So the thought strikes me half way to Japan, that I have no idea what to do when I get to China. Joe and Ben had discussed going to a different hotel hours before I left. And with everything I had to think about, I forgot to get the name of the hotel. Joe had taken an earlier flight. How was I to get in touch with Ben or Joe once I landed? What was I supposed to write in the little space on the immigration form where it says, “name of hotel or residence”? Of course my cell phone wouldn’t work until I got the Chinese card installed at the Chinese phone shop when they opened in the morning. All I could do was fudge an address and phone number on the form and hope for the best.
So, it’s 11 PM, I walk along the line of ariport sign holders, after I leave immigration, and there at the very end was my name. What a relief! I met up with Joe at the hotel bar and downed a few with a couple from London. (By the way, the name of the hotel is: the “Regal Shanghai East Asia Hotel”.) So as I looked out over the city from the sky bar I wasn’t impressed. The city looked deserted. There were no lights on in any of the apartments. It was, like midnight and everyone was already asleep. In fact, besides Joe, the couple from London, Bessie the bar tender (No shit, that’s what she called herself) and myself, the bar was deserted. Friday Night in the big city of Shanghai.
This morning I’m woken up at 5am by the sound of a Chinese orchestra being broadcast over a loud speaker in the square outside the hotel. Wonderful stuff, the Chinese orchestra; every instrument is a distant cousin to the American banjo and is played with a bow. Unlike the banjo these instruments don’t have frets. Each musician is in charge of finding their own note in much the same way that each driver is in charge of finding their own parking spot at the mall at Christmas. You know how a western orchestra tunes up before every performance? Well, these guys do it on the fly. So the overall effect is a slidie, skiddie, tinty sort of sound not unlike a bunch of cats fucking over a loud speaker. Then they play it over a loud speaker!
I’m sure there are those who love this type of music. In fact, given that China is so big, and there really are a lot of people here, this “cat fuck orchestra” is statistically, probably the most popular music in the world. But, I’ll tell you what, at 5am after going to sleep at 3am with a gut full of beer, I don’t care if it was Bing Crosby risen from the grave with a heavenly chorus, handing our twenties, they’d still get a resounding, ”Shut the fuck up” from me.
So I stagger to the window and look out, hoping to get a look at the guy who’s in charge of this noise and maybe get a good shot at him with my shoe. And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Outside were about 200 people doing Tai-chi. Cripes! “Whoo-pa! Take that sleep!” These must be the people who all went to bed before midnight!! The fuckers!!!
I guess I was all wrong about Tai-chi. I thought that it was a serine peaceful path toward enlightenment and physical prowess, but this morning’s display pretty much shoots that theory. Now it’s right up there with line dancing or the Hokey-pokey.
In other news:
Sorry about the lack of pictures, readers. My Buletooth is on the fritz. (another sentence my mother wouldn’t understand) My computer is the only device my phone refuses to communicate with. There are devices all over the world that my phone will talk to, but not with my computer. I think they had a fight when I wasn’t looking. I’m hoping that they will make up and maybe I can start to download the 500 pictures stored on my phone.
So to make up for it, here's a picture of the couch Jen is thinking about getting:
More later!
So the thought strikes me half way to Japan, that I have no idea what to do when I get to China. Joe and Ben had discussed going to a different hotel hours before I left. And with everything I had to think about, I forgot to get the name of the hotel. Joe had taken an earlier flight. How was I to get in touch with Ben or Joe once I landed? What was I supposed to write in the little space on the immigration form where it says, “name of hotel or residence”? Of course my cell phone wouldn’t work until I got the Chinese card installed at the Chinese phone shop when they opened in the morning. All I could do was fudge an address and phone number on the form and hope for the best.
So, it’s 11 PM, I walk along the line of ariport sign holders, after I leave immigration, and there at the very end was my name. What a relief! I met up with Joe at the hotel bar and downed a few with a couple from London. (By the way, the name of the hotel is: the “Regal Shanghai East Asia Hotel”.) So as I looked out over the city from the sky bar I wasn’t impressed. The city looked deserted. There were no lights on in any of the apartments. It was, like midnight and everyone was already asleep. In fact, besides Joe, the couple from London, Bessie the bar tender (No shit, that’s what she called herself) and myself, the bar was deserted. Friday Night in the big city of Shanghai.
This morning I’m woken up at 5am by the sound of a Chinese orchestra being broadcast over a loud speaker in the square outside the hotel. Wonderful stuff, the Chinese orchestra; every instrument is a distant cousin to the American banjo and is played with a bow. Unlike the banjo these instruments don’t have frets. Each musician is in charge of finding their own note in much the same way that each driver is in charge of finding their own parking spot at the mall at Christmas. You know how a western orchestra tunes up before every performance? Well, these guys do it on the fly. So the overall effect is a slidie, skiddie, tinty sort of sound not unlike a bunch of cats fucking over a loud speaker. Then they play it over a loud speaker!
I’m sure there are those who love this type of music. In fact, given that China is so big, and there really are a lot of people here, this “cat fuck orchestra” is statistically, probably the most popular music in the world. But, I’ll tell you what, at 5am after going to sleep at 3am with a gut full of beer, I don’t care if it was Bing Crosby risen from the grave with a heavenly chorus, handing our twenties, they’d still get a resounding, ”Shut the fuck up” from me.
So I stagger to the window and look out, hoping to get a look at the guy who’s in charge of this noise and maybe get a good shot at him with my shoe. And what to my wondering eyes should appear? Outside were about 200 people doing Tai-chi. Cripes! “Whoo-pa! Take that sleep!” These must be the people who all went to bed before midnight!! The fuckers!!!
I guess I was all wrong about Tai-chi. I thought that it was a serine peaceful path toward enlightenment and physical prowess, but this morning’s display pretty much shoots that theory. Now it’s right up there with line dancing or the Hokey-pokey.
In other news:
Sorry about the lack of pictures, readers. My Buletooth is on the fritz. (another sentence my mother wouldn’t understand) My computer is the only device my phone refuses to communicate with. There are devices all over the world that my phone will talk to, but not with my computer. I think they had a fight when I wasn’t looking. I’m hoping that they will make up and maybe I can start to download the 500 pictures stored on my phone.
So to make up for it, here's a picture of the couch Jen is thinking about getting:
More later!
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