Happy Aussie Day Mate & a Drunken Kitty Catchup
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
Xi'an, Shaanxi, China
HAPPY BLOODY OZTRAYLYA DAY MATE!
Talk about having the most awesome time catching up over the last few days!
Along with that add in one hell of a hangover!
I said my final good byes to my little school and dusty little town of Shangzhou on Sunday afternoon and Dutch Andre and I both made our way to Xian city as he flew home to Holland for the winter break early Monday morning and gathering how I felt Monday morning when I woke up I don't think his flight boarding would have been one to remember.
While we were busing it to Xian I got a call from Baise Kitty, who for those that don’t know or don’t remember she was a Chinese English Teacher in Aussie Kylies High School for our first year in Guangxi Province here in China way back in 2005. There was Aussie Leanne in Pingou, Aussie Judy in Tiandong, Aussie me in Tianyang, English/Chinese Gary in Baise and added to the crew was Baise Kitty and on most weekends we’d all catch our separate chicken buses to Baise city and have a wonderful time.
It really was one of my most memorable times here in China.
Anyhow, everyone but me headed back to Australia and Baise Kitty headed to Japan for a year and a half to study Japanese culture and while she was there she met a wonderful guy from Holland named Ivan. They returned to China together and soon after were married and they’ve been tooing and frowing it between China and Holland ever since. Now they have shacked up in Baise city (Guangxi Province) and have been doing a bit of travelling and this weekend they headed from Beijing to Xian city and joined Dutch Andre and I for dinner and beers. It was so wonderful to finally meet Ivan but to see Kitty again after three and a half years was totally awesome! Anyhow being in such a festive mood one thing led to another and for most of the night Dutch Ivan was waiving the poor waitresses to the bar and back again in a matter of minutes as it turned into a night of double Long Island Ice tea’s and Margaritas so needless to say none of us can remember leaving let alone getting home.
I do remember poor Andre texting me the following morning not long after his alarm went off at six.
I slept till after midday and poor Dutch Ivan who single handedly drank nearly as much as the rest of us put together was still asleep in the early evening when I rang to see if they wanted to catch up for dinner. I spent that afternoon and most of the following day walking totally around the outside of the city walls through all the little parks and gardens, taking pictures, chatting to students and squirming as I stopped to listen to the elderly sing, dance and play their memories.
To me it is always like skinning a live cat!
You have to listen to it as well as feel its pain!
Tonight I decided to head across to my local hostel for a few beers and to write my 'Australia Day in Xian’ blog and as usual I found all the tables full so I grabbed my beer and computer and asked if it was ok if I grabbed a seat with one of the girls sitting alone at a table reading. We began talking and then she stopped and stared at me and asked if I was Shane which of course took me by surprise as I was going to introduce myself as Bond, James Bond but I think as she wasn’t Chinese she may have caught on pretty much straight away. So to cut a long story short about a year ago I got an email from an American lady named Laura who wanted to come to China to teach and to teach through Buckland’s and we’ve been communicating ever since. She landed a job also in Shaanxi Province and over the Christmas period we thought we had missed each other in the same hostel but we then found out we were drinking in different hostels but tonight we finally got our surprise meeting which turned into a nice couple of beers with her and her friend Chinese Shaun.
Sadly though, I had to cut it short as I have an early morning train to catch tomorrow.
Thanfully to the south of China.
Also surprise to me it was the same table I met Aussie Doughal at who surprised me a few weeks later by contacting me through Facebook as he was good friends with Travelpod ScottWoz who had couch surfed at his place several years prior.
So I’m thinking I might just make that table my local each visit.
Who knows who I will meet there in the future!
Anyhow I must cut it short, I did have a heap of stuff I was going to write but it turned into a much better night than I expected thanks to Laura somehow remembering my noggin from reading my blog.
PS: Below is from an Aussie Day email I have receive from several friends so I thought I’d add it as it sums us Aussie Bastards up pretty well I reckon!
PSS: Next blog will be from somewhere in Guangdong Province…yeah!
PSSS: Photos can be found below all text.
Beers N Noodles toya…..shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by my favourite Aussie band, The Underground Lovers
The album was ‘Rushall Station’
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GOD BLESS AUSTRALIA, WE ARE ONE
We are the people of a free nation of blokes, sheilas and the occasional wanker. We come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New Zealand), and although we live in the best country in the world, we reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody like. We are One Nation but divided into many States.
First, there's Victoria, named after a queen who didn't believe in lesbians. Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, café latte, grand final day, and big horse races. Its capital is Melbourne, whose chief marketing pitch is that "it's liveable". At least that's what they think. The rest of us think it is too bloody cold and wet.
Next, there's NSW, the realm of pastel shorts, macchiato with sugar, thin books read quickly and millions of dancing queens. Its capital Sydney has more queens than any other city in the world and is proud of it. Its mascots are Bondi lifesavers that pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right sides of their brains separate.
Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the family that bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets an extra chromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles to the sternest faces. It holds the world record for a single mass shooting, which the Yanks can't seem to beat no matter how often they try.
South Australia is then province of half-decent reds, a festival of foreigners and bizarre axe murders. SA is the state of innovation. Where else can you so effectively reuse country bank vaults and barrels as in Snowtown, just out of Adelaide (Also named after a queen). They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views of Adelaide sent the Formula 1 drivers to sleep at the wheel.
Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant. It's main claim to fame is that it doesn't have daylight saving because if it did, all the men would get erections on the bus on the way to work. WA was the last state to stop importing convicts and many of them still work there in the government and business.
The Northern Territory is the red heart of our land. Outback plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, kangaroos, Jackaroos, emus, Uluru, and dusty kids with big smiles. It also has the highest beer consumption of anywhere on the planet and its creek beds have the highest aluminium content of anywhere too. Although the Territory is the centrepiece of our national culture, few of us live there and the rest
prefer to flyover it on our way to Bali.
And there's Queensland. While any mention of God seems silly in a document defining a nation of half arsed sceptics, it is worth noting that God probably made Queensland, as its beautiful one day and perfect the next. Why he filled it with dickheads remains a mystery.
Oh yes and there's Canberra. The less said the better.
We, the citizens of Oz, are united by Highways, whose treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than murderers. We are united in our lust for international recognition, so desperate for praise we leap in joy when a rag tag gaggle of corrupt IOC officials tells us Sydney is better than Beijing. We are united by a democracy so flawed that a political party albeit a redneck gun toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat in Federal Parliament. Not that we're whingeing, we leave that to our Pommy immigrants.
We want to make "no worries mate" our national phrase, "she'll be right mate" our national attitude and "Waltzing Matilda" our national anthem (so what if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who commits suicide). We love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a sailing race and still tell us who's winning.
And we're the best in the world at all the sports that count, like cricket, netball, rugby league and union, AFL, roo shooting, two up and horse racing. We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, and the worst dressed Olympians in the known universe. Only in Australia can a pizza delivery get to your house faster than an ambulance. Only in Australia do we have bank doors wide open, no security guards, or cameras
but chain the pens to the desk.
Stand proud Aussies - we shoot, we root, we vote. We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime. Even though we might seem a racist, closed minded, sports obsessed little people, at least we feel better for it.
I am, you are, we are Australian!
P.S We also shoot and eat the two animals that are on our National Crest!!!!
No other country has this distinction!
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY YA BASTARDS
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