Since we’ve now got a car, it’s possible to go a bit further afield for our entertainment. So on Friday night, we drove to a German restaurant near Steve’s school (not very far, but too far to walk, and it’s way too cold to ride our bikes at 8pm). Schindler’s has another branch downtown (called Schindler’s Tankstelle) and the Haltestelle is a more recent addition to the Beijing eating scene – luckily for us!
Many ‘Western’ style ventures here in Beijing look like the real thing, but then often fail some how or have a certain Chinese-ness to them, which shows they’ve kind of missed the point. Obviously, ‘Chinese-ness’ is a good thing in a Chinese restaurant, but we were hoping for some authentic German-ness tonight.
We were presently surprised by the decor (we almost thought we were back in Germany) and the range of food on the menu. Unfortunately, the waitstaff did not speak German, but other than that it felt quite authentic.

We had some of our favourites to eat: deep-fried Camembert for entree, a roast pork knuckle for Steve and beef olives for me. They all stacked up very favourably and tasted just like ‘the real thing’. Steve couldn’t finish the pork knuckle as it was so large, and the sides of sauerkraut, potato puree and rot-kohl were also generous.

The price came out at €27 for 2 mains, one entree, a large bier and an apple juice. So not cheap as chips, but certainly cheaper than at a similar joint in Düsseldorf. And, except for not being able to order in German, it really did feel like quite the authentic experience!

If you had told me 10 years ago that one day I would own a big ol’ SUV I would have laughed right in your face. Gone are the days of the Wanker Sticker Idea* Adam and I had back in 2003. I present to you my new old car:

a 1999 Jeep. When i cut my dreadlocks off 5 years ago someone accused me of having changed. I still think that changing my hair was only a growing up process. This car however means that something has changed. I was quite proud of not owning a car for four years in Germany and now I own a big gas guzzler; the kind I used to really hate.

* Adam thought it would be cool to get a bunch of stickers printed out that read “Wanker” and then go around and stick them on the back of SUVs parked in our area. It sounded like fun, but quickly the idea mutated into something that we probably would have been arrested for, but that’s not for the telling.

M says a lot of awesome stuff these days. She is starting to speak Chinese and yesterday when i got home from work I was greeted with, “Ni hao daddy.”
Often when she has run out of something she says, “Mei you,” which means I’ve got none. The best was today though and was in English. She was on my lap and we were watching Astro Boy which she says is scary. She was saying something over and over and I couldn’t understand her because she had her Shu Shu in (it was just before bed) so I asked her to take it out.
“Daddy keeps me safe’” she said.

Here is the promised picture of Em from Saturday’s trip to the water park:

As you will note, toddlers are not known for their fashion sense or ability to chose just one item to wear at any given time! (She didn’t actually wear her trousers or tshirt in the water, but she insisted on wearing the swimvest in the car on the way to the pool.)

We went to Merry Super Happy Water Park on Saturday with about 60 other westerners from ISB and WAB. We all drove in a big long convoy of about 14 four wheel drives and must have been quite a sight for the guards at the gate to the car park.

The water park is huge with numerous pools, one of which is a very large wave pool complete with huge, floating human/hamster balls. There is a great water castle for the kids to play on, but it is only great until you get up close and see how rusty it is. M didn’t really get into the spirit of things and stayed close to her mother and me; maybe she was thinking she didn’t want to get a tetanus shot. Despite being a bit substandard, we had a fun time and if the kids were a bit older it might be worth going again.

Leaving was a Chinese experience all of its own as I had to line up three times to give things back, update my account and pay. Sheesh, what price full employment.

ISB = International School Beijing
WAB = Western Academy Beijing

My old friend Glen died of a massive heart attack last night. Bradley and Samantha (his young kids) and Lee (his wife) will surely feel something that no one else can even go near right now. I always say that I never know what to say when something tragic happens and again I really don’t know what to say. Anything just seems kind of lame.

Glen was about the same age as me. Is it selfish of me to relate it back to my own situation or is that just a natural reaction? I’m gonna go home and hug my kids.

Yesterday afternoon I went with some colleagues down to the Pomegranate for a few drinks. It is quite a western enterprise but is situated inside the local village which means that as well as the toilets being frozen and the taps not working, we were also evacuated because of a gas leak. We moved on to King’s Bar (which is owned by one of the teachers at my school) where the toilets were also frozen.

In our compound everything is working (or at least the Chinese version of working) but as I wander through the village and see how frozen everything is I wonder how much of their stuff is still working.

Google is getting ready to stop filtering their content on the Chinese version of their search engine which means they will be blocked by the government here, so they will instead pull out of China. The white house is backing Google’s desire for a free internet, which is interesting because the Australian government is getting ready to control what is available for Australians to see on the internet.

It is difficult to expertly express my disappointment over the changes that have been made to the Boy’s Day Out and I think the reasons that I can only write this weak blog post (rather than get to the nuts and bolts of the issue) are the same reasons that this Boy’s Day Out will be completely unlike any of its forebears.