Breaking The Shackles

Merry Christmas To You All and a Happy New Year

Well Christmas here in China is about to be over in about 20 minuets, so I thought I'd get a post up before Christmas is officially over. However, by the time I actually submit this post, it might already be over - so we'll see what happens :p

Work last week was brutally tiring for some reason. I felt exhausted by the time the week was over. I came home, helped Doug with the computer for a bit. Since he was using it, and I didn't have anything to do I decided that I'd go lie down for a bit to catch some sleep. I purposely left the light on so I'd annoy me and I'd get up after a bit, which usually works, but it felt like by the time my head hit the pillow I was out. Evidently Kevin called us, and I was asleep, so I'm sorry I missed your call Kevin. I would have liked to talk to you over the phone, and not the internet for once, but I'm more than sure you understand how things are sometimes. Doug told me this morning that he went into my room to turn the light off and tell me that Kevin called, and according to him my eyes were wide open and I was looking right at him. He said it was kind of creepy... Evidently he told me that he just came in my room to turn the light off and that Kevin had called, and he claims all I did was shut my eyes and that was it. I don't remember any of this - so like I said, I must have been really out. I woke up feeling pretty refreshed, but I didn't wake up till around noon or so.

I messed around on the computer for a bit, and like 10 minuets later Doug got up. He cooked some food then we went out and did some shopping for each other. I got him a guitar amp for Christmas, sadly I thought he had a cable and he doesn't so he's going to have to get one in order to use it. One nice thing about being in China is you can haggle when buying things sometimes. I decided to not lowball the guy, but I offer 50 yuan less than what he quoted, and he agreed. So it was a small discount, but still feels better than paying full price. I probably could have gone lower, but I was in a hurry. Doug got me all sorts of neat things... Something to drink tea out of with a built in filter, a bowl for rice or noodles, some slippers (yay!) to keep my feet warm, some blank DVDs, a DVD case binder, a keychain/money clip, a bottle of Tang (yummy!), a web cam and some headphones for the computer too. All in all it was very nice of him - seemed like he put a lot of thought into it. I've always liked that about Doug when it comes to gift giving.

Afterwards, we went to a co-workers apartment, then headed off to the Holiday Inn (with a few stops in-between). Getting there was quite an ordeal - had to take separate taxi's, no one knew where it was so we had to get someone to help, but in the end we finally got there and that's what counts. It was a pretty swank Holiday Inn too... nothing like in America. They have people to open doors for you, the whole bit. We walked inside and there was a massively huge Christmas Tree. We decided to take some pictures of it - here they are:





Very Nice, yes?

We located the elevators, and at first we got into the wrong one, because the restaurant was on the 27th floor, but this elevator only went up to the 24th floor. For some reason it decided to stop on the 16th floor, so we got out and got in the proper elevator, finally reaching our destination. We were greeted by some English speaking Chinese staff (not great English, but decent) and found out that they had a lucky draw going on too. We went to our table and they gave us some gifts, that were actually New Years stuff instead, but it's the thought that counts right. This restaurant was quite impressive I thought. It was one of those revolving restaurants which I'd never been in before. All in all I thought the revolving bit was kind of a novelty, although I'd certainally go there again. They had all kinds of food, Western , Chinese, Ice Creams, Coffees, soups, breads, fruits, sushi, a grill - like I said, all kinds of stuff. I ate about 3 plates full. There was even some live entertainment, I'm not going to spoil what it was because Doug took a video of it, and I think that'll be better. We pretty much stayed there till they closed which was around 10:00.

Whilst we were there, I did notice one of the waitresses would keep looking at me and smiling. I'd waive back at her and she'd get all embarrassed - it was pretty cute actually, and she was too. At the end of the night, some of the staff ended up asking to take pictures with us, which we let them do. After that, the girl asked if she could take a picture with just me, so I gladly let her. She seemed like a nice girl, I didn't get her number or anything though, so I'll probably never see her again haha funny how things work out. So I'm just home now, waiting for some drivers to finish downloading... They keep failing and I have to restart them - it's rather annoying.

Here are some more pictures for you to enjoy:

This is that girl I mentioned up above.

Another shot of her - I felt like a spy haha

This picture I was just feeling artsy on.

Ahh it's 12:08am now - looks like I missed the goal... Oh well...

Anyways, Merry Christmas again, and I hope you have a great day.

Oh one more thing:

Grandma and Grandpa: Thank you for sending the photo's - Doug and I really enjoyed them. Baby looks like a really cute puppy - I hope things go well with him/her (which is it?)