Boxing Day in Beijing

The day started early with a phone call from home. I didn’t sound very chipper on the phone because I had to get out of bed at 7:30 AM to answer the phone and I couldn’t sleep at all last night.

After talking to many family members I went back to bed. I didn’t really sleep much and in the end had to leave the house in a hurry to make my appointment downtown.

I actually wasn’t quite sure where we were meeting, so I was late but they knew that because I kept sending SMS’s asking for directions. I met Winnie who is yet another student who wants to study abroad in Canada. She has already registered for classes at SFU and found a place to live, she just wanted to ask me a few questions. I ended up drawing a very elaborate map of Vancouver showing key streets and shops.

She had previously surfed my website of course. I had never met her before, only her teacher who was a French Canadian teaching at BLCU who have not surprisingly changed their website since 2005.

I then had to rush home to show my apartment to two real estate agents and two girls. The apartment even the bathroom was deemed clean. Since I pretty much do the cleaning this was a surprise. I did clean the place up prior to going to Shanghai.

I then rushed out the door again to register for language classes. On the way to the school I was accosted in the street with the question “Are you from North America?“. I said yes, though as I learned in Thailand, questions like this are often the start of an elaborate scam. However, because I’m a nice guy, I heard him out. What he wanted was to record my voice for LG cellphones and in return for reading out a few phrases I would get 100 RMB. Not exactly a princely sum, but considering it would take no time, or so he claimed, I said yes. I get all sorts of odd job offers, none of which have anything to do with my recent MBA studies.

I registered for classes, at the Korean school. It isn’t really called the Korean school, but even Chinese people refer to it as such, it had a dot co.kr URL which no longer works. It is true that Hyemi studies there, but non-Koreans also study there including Julia and I think a few other MBA classmates tried it. I wanted to start this week, but next Monday makes more sense, as it will be the first unit in the book and all. I guess that gives me the rest of this week to look for work and a place to stay.

Yesterday while at MyShop possibly while buying beer, some Koreans were putting up a sign. It was for a New Year’s Party featuring Korean Hip Hop. They invited me to attend in English. Their sign is mostly in English but they have information lines in three languages. It is only 50 RMB if you register in advance. There will probably be a good number of Korean girls at this party, I may even invite some myself, thus increasing the Korean girl to non-Korean girl ratio. I’ll also likely have the opportunity to meet Korean girls studying at the Korean school.

Well enough about Korean girls, while in MyShop today I noticed a beer I had not seen before. I’m now trying Kulmbacher. It is not bad. It’s yet another German beer. I don’t know if it is a testament to how many Germans there are in Wu Dao Kou or the quality of German beer, or maybe the Koreans who run MyShop like German beer. Regardless I haven’t drank so much German beer since I was in Germany.

While in Shanghai I got to try Kingfisher. This was an OK beer but I switched right away to a dark German draft beer while we were eating a huge Indian meal. This meal converted Julia into a fan of Indian food. I believe the beer was the one my sister refers to as “an old man’s beer“.

I however quite like it.

Update: I ended up living and working in China years later. This of course was documented in this blog. I still do not have the high paying job that the brochures and websites promise though I’ve completed my Sauder MBA and passed all three CFA® exams. I also haven’t managed to blog my way to a better career but I guess I’m still trying as I’m updating all my old posts to be more optimal or focus or even just longer.

I’ve also deleted hundreds of blog postings that probably weren’t helping my career or my search engine optimization efforts. In 2019 I plan to get a new job, lose weight and maybe just maybe enjoy myself. I definitely enjoyed a few beers while living in China and the options for beer drinkers are much better thirteen years later.

This entry was originaly posted on December 26th, 2005, it was last edited on May 23rd, 2024 and is filed under: Rambles and tagged: Beer, Beijing, Wu Dao Kou.