Mei Gao Mei

01/05/2010 - But for me it is still belonging to yesterday.. almost 4am.. just back from a very good night ended at Mei Gao Mei, 美高美, a disco in Hefei.. where I danced almost without breaks for more than 2 hours.. forgetting the jogging of this afternoon.. I guess I will remember tomorrow.

So, disco, free entrance, no compulsory drink, and when I entered the hall.. a look at the bar and.. my jaw fell on the floor.. 3 dancers on the disc.. dancing.. dressed like.. like what you don’t see in Norway!! And moving like.. ways you don’t see in Norway!! Then, scanning the place.. and my first thought has been: "minkia ke figaio!!!!". The thought was repeated along the evening.

Dancing all the night with new friends met at Revolutionary (especially two super cool girls from Chile!) and occasionally with a few Chinese girls.. ahhhh… so young though.. I have no idea about age limits in China for discos.. that is bad!!!! Got a number too, she can teach me Chinese, unfortunately her English is like her age: too little for me..

Time to sleep now.. Wan an, good night, folks!

Good mood!!

30/04/2010 – Today I am in a good mood.. maybe because of the very nice full moon that yesterday night shone from my window.. maybe because I had a good night sleep (even if my iPhod application Sleep Cycle says I was not in deep sleep for a long time).. maybe it’s because yesterday night I managed to install and remove some stuff from my eee PC without messing up everything (for once all the step by step explanations worked out fine, without several error messages).. maybe it’s because Monday is holidays, so from tonight (no overtime!) starts a long weekend where I am going to meet 2 MSN contacts that both live in Shanghai and both are originally from Hefei..

Got a few reasons to feel good this morning, and I even had some ok news from work, about some contacts I am working on to establish (with a Norwegian company!!)..

And it was sunny, again with a nice sky, not too full of humidity, with good weather forecast for the weekend, with temperature well over 24 degrees!

Two colleagues will go for one week to work in France, so I spent some time sending him links of French food he should try and trappist Belgian beers: he told me he thought German beer was the best.. I told him only one name (for a start): Leffe.. then I sent him several links from Wikipedia about trappist beers.. OK, now I miss Europe very much!!!

But the mood is still good, because I know that tonight I will eat one of my favorite vegetables in China: it has a funny name, 木耳 ie. tree ears, and it’s a sort of mushroom.. and I saw the mini restaurant (yeah, the very cheap one) close to my place has it! Yippy!!! Funny thing, I got also in the lunch box some of these mushrooms and meat.. It’s wood ears day!!!

The day is still long, so I hope I will be able to update this post (even if I had minor troubles opening the blog from home). Hope the afternoon/evening will be nice with my mood, keeping it good!

..Almost 8 pm.. recovering after a jogging tour and  right before the pain, the “joy” to get my second hand washing machine at home, with help of a colleague and the owner of the shop where I bought bed, desk and other stuff.. with his little and great truck!

Time soon for dinner and then bus to the center. No real plan, except strolling a bit around and maybe end again at Revolutionary.. Talk to you later, guys!

Hefei’s moon

Hefei’s moon,
by ..AikiDude in China...

Full moon last night.. or close to that.

Picture taken from my window with Nikon D2000

Residence permit!

28/04/2010 - Blue sky this morning! Sun.. about 26 degrees (according to the thermometer on the bus).. a short shower with thunders and lightning around 6 am (I was already awake, I went to bed too early yesterday night!) and all the humidity in the air went down.. So the sky and weather is really beautiful. And I was lucky that today the HR colleague had decided to go to the center for my residence permit registration.

From the company it is quite a long way, and we took 2 buses (602 and my favorite 901).. good for me that I really like going around by bus! Crowd or not, smelly or not, it is a nice way!

Once there, the official was nice: when he saw I’m Italian, he started asking em the correct pronunciation of the Italian football players. I was a bit worried before because I don’t have anymore the original copy of my health certification: since it was not mentioned in the Chinese embassy page, when I went to Milan to get my working VISA I had with me, by chance, the original paper, so when they asked for it I gave them the original, knowing I have anyway a good quality scan. But apparently the printers here does not have the great quality as the printers I had in Norway, so the print the HR person had with her was quite bad quality. But for the official it was good enough! Next week I should get back passport and permit!

So all the bureaucracy is closer to an end! Probably one more thing to do after that (but this will be much easier with the permit.. or better, it will be finally possible with the permit): opening a bank account!

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY - I have noticed how bus drivers use the neutral gear: every time a crossing light is red and they are still far away, every time they have to stop at a red light or at a bus stop, if they have to perform slow turns (like the company bus in the morning has to perform a U-turn, and it is mainly inertial movement!). Every time they can ,the drivers put the bus in N-gear. Save the fuel.. save the world?

PS Happy Birthday Jessica Alba, as my dear friend Svein reminded me

eee F9

No, it is not a secret code.. "eee" is my Asus 10" pc, my only pc at home at the present time (soon going to get a big brother) with its funny version of linux Xandros installed on, and F9 is the special key in order to restore the factory settings, necessary in case of big screw ups..

OK, it’s true.. I have to admit it: I am a windows man, a disgusting microsoft b*tch, slave of easy application and installing and remove that the tyrants has prepared for us for decades now..

So yesterday already setting up the internet connection had been a little nightmare: 2 Chinese technicians and one Chinese colleagues that could not speak a single word of English and apparently knew only windows interface were looking lost at each other. After some trying and clicking (on my Norwegian eee PC) I finally managed..

So in the evening I thought it was about time to try to update a few programs (like Firefox 2.0) on my eee PC and re-install Gimp and Picasa.. so I searched info and forums and suggestions, and using some of the listed commands.. everything went banana.. a few of the start-up features disappeared canceled at some point and nothing of the freshly installed worked..

I hate this pc!!!
I really do!

Then the last resort was the terrbile F9, losing also all the data on the hard disk.. possibly some pictures without backup.. crap.. So I guess tonight I will have to try again, installing at least the basics and try to find a good way for backup (found the link, I wonder if i’ll manage!).. and checking the prices for a Windows (7) big brother!

Just before the destruction, I went for a run yesterday, the second, and I realized how dfferent is the air. Normally, I feel it is not Norwegian air, but still nothing bad compared to Beijing for example (or Milano!!). When I was running, I started coughing and I had almost to stop: god, it was so difficult to breath properly and it was so thick..

Together with the fact I hate jogging and I am tired already at the thought of it, given that I don’t see any chance to practice Aikido any time soon.. it my only way to avoid to explode because of the great food here!

But no funny thing for today, too pi$$ed for the PC.. yes, I know, it is my mistake.. but still..

Food food food…

spicy fish soup,
by ..AikiDude in China...

Time to start uploading some pictures of the delicious food in Hefei!!!

Just a little.. appetizer..

I wish I knew all the names of the food I have been easitng.. time to find some lovely meal companion that can help me at least in this task (let’s not be too blunt, Sverre, but I hope also other tasks )

PS 4 pm of Saturday and I’m still at work.. All my hopes in the previous post gone..

A 36 hours stretch!

24/04/2009 - Thursday morning when I arrived at work at 8:15 as usual I could not know that I was going to leave only Friday at 20:30!!! Did I mention that I arrived in a very busy period for my new company? I slept, yes, 4 hours on a wood madras with a quilt under and a quilt over me.. Best training for my back, to not forget the joy of sleeping on tatami..

And today, I’m also at work, even if I will not stay long.. but the company bus did not drive to my place this morning, so I had a 40 minutes walk to work.. Better way to start a weekend!!!

But tonight I am going to eat out with 2 colleagues and then "force" them to show me some night life They are both married, but come on, take the lao wai out is a duty!! And I got no plans (now..) to work tomorrow.. Different plans..

FUNNY THING OF THE DAY – The night at work was not all bad.. it was not bad at all.. just long, and I also got a delicious noodle box from the night guard. I am not sarcastic: here the noodles boxes, the ones you just add hot water, some little powders you find inside and after 2-3 minutes they are ready to eat.. yes, those, they are GREAT!!! First they do not have all the same flat taste as in Europe. They are really different from type to type. Then the taste is really something! this one was spicy.. perfect nattmat (I had at around 2am, night to Friday!)