.. Posted November 21, 2008 Report Share Posted November 21, 2008 I'm in one of those moods where I can't be arsed to mingle with the locals. My Chinese is crap -- I can read more than I can speak -- and even my Cantonese (which is my strongest dialect) is unintelligible to the folks here. This place is far enough off the beaten track that not only is English off the table, I feel like I did in Cambodia 10-12 years ago: a freak cuz everyone is staring. I'm the only gweilo around for sure. Too bad I'm not in the mood to make the effort to turn that into a cool night. Oh well. Some days are like that. Not that there is much here. Zhongshan is a small industrial ex-urb of Guangzhou, an hour-and-a-hlaf from Baiyun Airport. With all the charm that that conjures. Mao would be proud of the architecture. My hotel is nice, a four star for only RMB286/night. But there is nothing here. A fair-to-middling western restaurant -- had dinner there with my customer. They had Pabst Blue Ribbon on the menu. I had to have one for the novelty factor. It was pretty much as I remembered it...best left in the past. As I said, nothing in the hotel but this restaurant; no bar or anything social. There's a karaoke palace across the street, but I'm not in the mood for that. And a shopping centre, but I'm not a shopper. However, in the centre is a wine shop. Looking inside last night, I found a bottle of Taylor's Shiraz 2004 for RMB168 (B900, $25). That seems to be OK. Let's take a bottle home and watch TV. The main criteria being that is is drinkable and that it has a screwtop as I don't have a corkscrew. Thankfully, this is 2008, not 1990 and this is possible. In the end, this wine was indeed OK, but nothing to write home about. Buy it in a pinch and on sale. TV. Ugh. 38 channels and only one in English, and you can imagine how good the programming was on that. Good internet speed here, if heavily censored. I've MrBang's Slingbox ...let's look at that. No joy. MrBang's either watching it or forgot to logoff. Shit. Oh well, drink the wine, surf the 'Net and create havoc on message boards posting while intoxicated. Well not intoxicated, but in a "I don't give a fuck" mood. Try to sleep at midnight. Can't sleep. Damn pillows. Two are not tall enough and three are too tall. Ohhh, my aching neck and stuffy nose. Toss-n-turn. Call the States at 0300 to discuss business and some tech issues. Take a Dormicum to try to sleep. Finally do ~0400. 0730 comes early. Many hits of the snooze button and I get functional enough to comprehend that I have just enough time to clean up and meet my ride at 0900. No food, just a small can of cold coffee latte from the minibar. That was Thursday. Today's work went well. I nailed the problem and even amazed myself. I do that sometimes. Customer happy, but only one flight out of Guangzhou a day on TG and I ain't gonna make it. Lunch with the customer. He's impressed I know Chinese food, even tho' he knows I've lived in Asia donkey's years. Typical. We all prejudge each other. No big deal. Back to the room. Do paperwork. Now dinner time. I'm not in the mood, and figure that it is either Sheep General or Mackers. Both places scare me, but Mackers is a known quantity and I'm not in the mood to try to deal with being illiterate and ordering food in a restaurant called Sheep General. It may be just a name, or it may be...who knows? And I'm not in the mood to find out. So I decided to find a fine wine and eat Mackers. I ended up with a 2005 Sandalford Reserve Margaret River (West Aust) Cab-Sav. Very yummy. You should try it if you see it. It's nice. You really can't go wrong with a Margaret River wine. At RMB278 ($43, B1500), it was a bit of a splurge. Ordered a Big Mac (at RMB13) and two "Shaka-Shaka" Chicken thingies with the chili powder at RMB7 each. Back in the room, I decided that I just couldn't pollute the wine with the Mackers. The minibar saved me with a couple of Heinekens, a reasonable RMB12 ($1.85, B65) each. Still no Slingbox availability. Damn. So here I am,, listening to my MP3s, 2/3 through the bottle of wine, and writing this... Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pom Michael Posted November 21, 2008 Report Share Posted November 21, 2008 Saturday's is Chili party at Cactus! At least you have that to look forward too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
samak Posted November 21, 2008 Report Share Posted November 21, 2008 hi gweilo! you are the only gweilo in Zhongshan? you are kidding, right? they have even a ferry (i think 2 per day) to hongkong airport! have seen many the last time i was there (around 2 years ago)! mai tan and back to Bangkok! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Julian2 Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Nightlife » Regional [color:red]Sanuk[/color] » North Asia. Err... so where was the....?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavanami Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 SD...could be worse...you could be here in cold, azz Chicago! We do have the fine wine, but the sanuuk in down to the lower end of the scale... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
koow Posted November 22, 2008 Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 where you go? My friend she like you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.. Posted November 22, 2008 Author Report Share Posted November 22, 2008 Gee, Ms Language Person...that's fine grammar! Cheers, SD Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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