You Me Now

On Saturday 16 June, Marie-Eve and I went to Shanghai’s Gay Pride. Now I stop you right before you start picturing half naked men on floats!... We’re in China! Yes, they’re ‘tolerant’ enough to allow a Gay Pride, but indoors please! No demonstration, thanks!... Which means that what they refer to as Gay Pride, is only a gay night in an open minded club... Yes, I know, it sounds less exciting. Still better than in bloody Cairo though... Anyway, we went and danced the night away. Well, only until 1am... we’re no longer 20, you know... But then, as we left, we passed by another club’s backdoor which was half open, and we were so drunk that we just went in without thinking and ended up on the dance floor of this random club without paying... It wasn’t the first time I had entered by the backdoor, but it was the first time I had felt naughty about it... How ironic!

The next day, I checked the Shanghai Pride’s website for pictures of the night before, and I sadly found out that the only picture of Marie-Eve and me on the website, was a picture of our backs... Great!

Ok, May was a funny month... I started looking for a new flat in the city centre, as I am fed up with living in the south east suburbs where everything seems so far away – except for my school, which is literally down the road! But who wants to live near their workplace?! Ugh.

On Sunday 6 May, I went to the French Consulate to vote for our new president, and on my way, I found this place where they make delicious ‘Chinese testicles’ – don’t worry, no man was harmed to make this dish!... They’re basically rice paste balls stuffed with red bean paste, blueberry mousse, mango cream, etc. It’s really nice, but back in the UK, we didn’t know what they were called and Muriel named them ‘Chinese testicles’ – they do look like balls! – and I’ve always called them so since. So does my mum! Random, I know, but quite funny to hear her say ‘These Chinese testicles are so yummy!’

On Saturday 12 May, Marie-Eve and I went to Blend. A lovely café where we soon realised many sweet, sensitive Chinese guys come to relax. I thought it would become my turf as soon as I’ve moved to the centre, but I went back a couple of times and it’s too Chinese for my taste... if you know what I mean...

On Saturday 19 May, I cried like a 14 years old girl, while watching ‘We were here’, a beautiful documentary about AIDS in San Francisco in the 80s... Nothing funny about it, but a subtle way to encourage you to watch it!

On Thursday 24 May, I turned 31 and ordered a massive amount of food to celebrate. I binge ate and my body resented me for it the next day... wrong move!

On Saturday 26 May, Clare and I went to the Kerry Hotel to have breakfast – one of the best buffet breakfast ever!... but also one of the most expensive... As we were eating our dumplings with fried vegetables with poached eggs with mushrooms with chips, a parent from school came to say hello. Beside the fact that I was embarrassed by the size of my plate, this was this kind of moment when you think ‘Being a teacher is shit! Some parents are annoying! I can’t even have my breakfast in peace! UGH!’ But then, later on, as we left the place and asked for our bill, the waiter told us the bill had been paid by the hotel’s General Manager! Niiice. That’s when you suddenly think ‘Being a teacher rocks! Some parents are cool! I should have eaten more!’.

Today I felt very out of place in Shanghai...

First, Clare, Marie-Eve and I went to the annual Shanghai Design Art and Fashion Fair which took place along the river banks. The three of us were looking forward to finding out about the cool stuff happening in the city... and as soon as we arrived, I was like WTF?! The place was full of tw*ts who were pretending to be cool: wannabe hipsters and self proclaimed fashion gurus... UGH! I couldn’t stand it: I even saw a guy passing by me, wearing the same outfit Kylie wore in the Can’t get you out of my head video! Pathetic... First, you just look like a moron in this outfit, and second, you’re so 2002!... Anyway, I was a bit disappointed by the whole event, as I had high expectations and it was obvious I didn’t belong...

The second disillusion came in the evening when the three of us headed to a Mexican restaurant – where they had a special party on (with open bar and music) because today was Mexico National Day... We arrived at the place and as I looked round, I quickly realised the clientele were mainly students. We were soon surrounded by 19 years old people binge drinking and making fools of themselves, in order to get the crowd to cheer... Oh dear! Yes, we’ve all been there one day, and yes it was fun at the time, but years have gone by and gosh did I feel blasé looking at these w*nkers throwing up on the pavement outside the restaurant... Ugh! I can't be bothered with this!

Ok, so what’s happened since the last time I wrote something on this blog?... which was like 25 years ago! Well, in May we had our 4 days long weekend for Labour Day and Marie-Eve and I decided to go to Hainan – a Chinese island in the South China Sea. We arrived on the Friday evening in Sanya – the main island resort – and were really impressed with the hotel: four swimming pools, direct access to the sea, three restaurants, a spa... what else? as George would ask. Well, George, we also had a fantastic weather!

On the Saturday, after a whole day lazing around the swimming pool and a lovely meal at the restaurant, we went to the hotel spa in order to check out the deals they offered... and we chose a couple of facial/massage treatments. It was bliss and we really lost any notion of time, as we realised when we went back to our room at 1am! We couldn’t believe we had stayed there for something ridiculous like 3 hours... Well worth it though!

I actually think the body massage went a bit too well: when we got up on Sunday morning, Marie-Eve told me that at some point in the night I woke her up, as I was fidgeting, breathing heavily and whispering some ‘oh yes, oh yes’ while lying in my bed... I swear I wasn’t pleasuring myself! I was a bit embarrassed when I heard the story and was actually a bit gutted I couldn’t remember anything of this apparently delightful dream!

Anyway, the rest of our stay was basically spent the same way: having breakfast, lazing by the pool all day, going for a nice meal. They were no sightseeing holidays really, we just wanted to enjoy the sea and the sun! We also met this waiter who managed to put a smile on our faces everyday: you may be aware that Chinese people tend to have a Chinese name and a Western name. These Western names are sometimes very random – like Echo, Shadow or Rosalie, who all happen to work at my school... Anyway, this waiter was called... Lola!... WTF?! Er... has anyone ever told you that you have a girl’s name, mate?! We obviously never told him, but it made us smile every time he came our way.

In April, my mother came to visit for two weeks. We started with Shanghai, as I hadn’t had the opportunity to visit the touristiest bits of the city yet. On Sunday 1 April, we went to the World Financial Centre – which is the fourth tallest building in the world – and we had the scariest – and most embarrassing! – experience ever... Once we arrived on the top floor, we realised that the actual floor was made of glass – well, probably not glass as such, but a pretty similar material – which means that you could literally see everything beneath your feet and you didn’t feel safe at all!... I swear, my mum and I just shat ourselves! We were so scared to walk on this floor, we basically went round the room step by step, holding on to each other – well, more like gripping each other’s arms! – feeling dizzy and giggling nervously, as my mum was repeating out loud ‘Don’t look down, don’t look down,...’ It was so embarrassing! Especially, as I looked around us and saw all these tourists looking at us in this kind of ‘WTF?!’ way... We must have looked like a pair of autistic people!... Everyone else in the room was leisurely walking on this transparent floor without blinking... Once we reached the exit, I was so relieved! Still shaking a bit though...

On Monday 2 April, we took a train to Beijing, where we stayed for four days. We made the most of our stay: we went to Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City and the Olympic Park, we climbed the Great Wall, we visited the Summer Palace and the Temple of Heaven, etc. As you can see from the pictures, I went a bit crazy with Instagram – I know it’s so 2010! – but at the time, I was still experimenting with my new smart phone and loving it! And actually, I’m not being funny but it saved our lives many times during this holiday, as we were able to use the GPS and other gadgets to find our way round Beijing... Bonus!

After Beijing, we took a night train to Xi’an, which is the city where you can see the famous terracotta army. The whole night train experience was actually funny: my mum and I hadn’t been able to buy tickets for the same compartment and had to sleep in different ones. I ended up sharing mine with a Chinese family and my mum shared hers with three Russian tourists. People were very nice once you had overcome the awkwardness of sleeping next to strangers. I was only worried about my mum, especially when I heard her ask the Russian tourists whether Russian girls were really the sluts that everyone seems to think they are... Oh dear...

Xi’an is the old capital city of China, it’s surrounded by ancient walls, and the highlight of our stay was definitely the morning we spent cycling on them. Great weather and great views over the city! Another hidden gem of Xi’an is the Great Mosque, which is a beautiful Chinese building with endless Arabic quotes carved on the walls... Stunning! Now, you probably think that I must be forgetting about the terracotta army, because that’s certainly the highlight of any trip to Xi’an... Well, yes and no... The army is impressive, but I must say I was a bit disappointed: there are actually ‘only’ five hundred soldiers or so on the site – most of the soldiers have been destroyed or are still buried – and what you can see of the army is currently kept in massive hangars – to protect it, obviously!... So if you picture endless rows of proud soldiers defending some kind of monumental tomb – as I naively thought I’d see – well, you’re wrong!  It’s more like fifteen rows of soldiers in a hangar, and the tomb they’re defending has yet to be unearthed... Shame.

After a couple of days, we took the night train back to Shanghai, but this time round, we were able to be in the same compartment. We actually shared it with a young Chinese couple, who offered us to play cards with them. It was very funny, as after each round, the loser would have to stick a small piece of wet tissue on their face – eww, I know! – and we all ended up with pieces of tissue all over our faces. Really random but funny!

Back in Shanghai, we went to the Aquarium – where, as you can see from the pictures, I had a moment with a fish! – and we visited Yuan Gardens – which are beautiful traditional gardens in an old district of the city... When my mum left, I was certainly shattered but I felt I had made the most of my holidays!

On Saturday 10 March, Marie-Eve and I were having a lovely meal at a tapas bar, when Marie-Eve received a text message and started some frantic texting while laughing her head off. As I was inquiring about it all, she explained that a male colleague of hers had seen some pictures of me on the Internet and was keen on meeting me... I was flattered but a bit freaked out. I mean, ok, we’ve all done a bit of Facebook stalking in our days, checking out friends of friends’ accounts, etc. but still, when you’re the one being stalked, you can’t help thinking ‘freak’, right? Anyway, she explained that he’s British, he’s a music teacher at her school, he’s funny and sweet – er... obviously! He’s gay, duh! – and that it could be nice to meet up tonight, as he happened to be out in town with a friend... If I didn’t know Marie-Eve better, I would have thought it had been a set up!... I was actually quite reluctant to go and meet him, as I hadn’t really prepared psychologically for this kind of ‘blind date’. Anyway, Marie-Eve insisted and after our meal, off we went to the gay bar where Andrew and his friend were having drinks.

Now, as we arrived there and sat at their table, it was obvious that they were already pissed! I wasn’t impressed... But wait, it became worse, as while I was chatting with Andrew – as far as you can have a conversation with someone who’s so pissed that they seem to look at the person sat next to you when they speak to you –, he suddenly started stroking my arm and my head – WTF?!... I was SO not prepared for that sh*t, and honestly, being touched by someone I’ve known for five minutes is SO not on!... Well, ok, it may depend on the person... but anyway, I literally pushed him away and pulled the kind of face which says ‘What are you doing?!’... So he told me that I obviously preferred his friend and he suddenly left the bar! OMG, W...T...F?! And then his friend, Harold, turned round to me and started having a go at me, saying ‘Well, ok, you may be good looking but no need to be so uptight! When people want to have fun, just play along!’... I was like ‘You know what?! F*** you, Harold! Go back to Maud!’... Well, I actually didn’t say that, I wish I had, but no, I was so upset about this whole sh*t that I just kept quiet for the rest of the evening, well just the time to finish my drink and f*** off, really...

But I must say that afterwards, it made me wonder: Did I overreact?! Am I really uptight?! Are all gay men as sh*t as these two c***s?! Ugh, I can’t be bothered with this...

On Friday 9 March, Gaby invited me to her birthday party, which took place in a bar called Oscar’s. I thought it was really nice of her and I was more than happy to go along... that was until I entered the place: Oscar’s is a bloody sports bar! WTF?! Who has their birthday party in a sports bar?! We spent the evening standing at the bar – because there was no table available, as these sports bar are very popular with the chavs! –, drinking beer – because you can’t ask for anything else than a beer... a cocktail in a sports bar?! I don’t think so! - and watching football – because even though football isn’t your thing, wherever you look there’s a massive TV screen showing a football match! Ugh, what an evening!

Anyway, company was lovely... that was until, pissed as they were, they all decided to go to a club and we all parted to take taxis to the place, which was fine as a plan... except that I ended up in the same taxi as Clare and Nesil, and then there was this awkward moment when, as we got on the taxi, we all looked at each other and realised that none of us knew where the club was... and obviously everyone else had already gone! FML! So we called Helen, or Tom, or whosever number we had, and they were so bloody drunk that they couldn’t even understand us or make themselves understood! The taxi driver was getting really impatient, as we were trying to get an address from these pissheads... Eventually, we decided to go back home, as we couldn’t be bothered with this, and we spent the journey back bitching about how sh*t people are... My favourite topic, really!

The rest of February was not very exciting and I’m afraid I don’t have much to say...

On Saturday 11^th, Marie-Eve and I went to a Spanish night in a random bar in town, as we are both quite keen on the Spaniards, with their dark looks and their charming accent... It did feel like being in Spain, as everyone around us was speaking Spanish, and every now and then you had the odd good-looking guy bumping your shoulder as he elbowed his way through the crowd to get to the toilet... so romantic! As we were dancing, I got chatted up by... a girl!... Definitely a great night out!

On Wednesday 15^th, Jen – an English teacher – invited many teachers to her flat for her birthday party, and I decided to go along. Everyone was friendly and the evening was lovely until Jen suddenly shouted ‘And now let’s all play pass the parcel!’... WTF?! Do people who are older than 10 still play this game?!... I wasn’t impressed, especially when the music stopped as I had the parcel in my hands and I found out my dare was to impersonate Abu Hamza... Err... Could a dare be any more wrong?! I guess I was lucky, as poor Alex had to swap her clothes with someone else... Ugh!

On Saturday 18^th, Clare and I went to the ‘Sculpture park’, which is in central Shanghai and – as the name says – is a park where you can find many sculptures by famous artists. It’s lovely and we had fun taking pictures. The weather was also exceptionally sunny for February. Don’t be fooled though, it was freezing!

On Saturday 25^th, Marie-Eve, her friend Barbara and I joined Taj – a colleague of mine – at a venue called MAO Livehouse, where they had a Brazilian night on. There was a live band playing samba tunes, and we soon ended up dancing the conga with around a hundred people. I was laughing my head off, as it felt like being at a wedding party. So random!

On Wednesday 29^th, I attended my first boxing class, as Dorian – a geography teacher – offered to run a class for members of staff. OMG! I had never realised that punching around was so shattering! After 30 minutes, I had to leave the class, as I didn’t feel well at all and needed to rest, and as soon as I entered the toilets I just passed out, right there... God knows how long I stayed there unconscious! So embarrassing!... No one came to check if I was ok though! Bastards!

On Tuesday 7 February, the school organised a pub quiz night for staff. Some of you out there know very well how keen I am on taking part in this kind of shit, and so when David – the Spanish teacher – asked me to be part of his team, I almost wet myself with excitement! Now, I must confess that I wasn’t really sure about our team’s potential: all the school departments had their own teams – the English literate, the Science geeks, the PE hunks, etc. – but David went for a mixture of people who – let’s be honest here – were actually rejects from all the other teams... Sad but oh so true! In our team, we had: History Scott – who is a bit O.D.D.!, IT Mike – who’s, well... an IT guy!, David and me – who can’t even speak English properly! It was a really weird team and my confidence was quite low...

Anyway, the quiz started and I soon realised Scott was actually hyper competitive and quickly turned into Quizilla! Every time one of us wanted to write down an answer on the answer sheet, he would push us away, claimed he knew the answer and wrote down something that wasn’t always the correct answer... David, Mike and I had to literally rip the sheet from his hands whenever we wanted to write an answer... WTF?! However, we ended up being quite lucky with the different quiz topics – especially the ‘perfume’ round where we scored 11/12! I knew spending so much time at the Duty Free shop every time I fly would pay off one day!... Anyway, we finished second – only 5 points behind the English department! – and I was very proud of our team of outsiders!

On Friday 3 February, the school organised a Chinese New Year staff party at a Chinese restaurant near my place. We started off at Gabi’s flat, which is in the building next to mine. I’m not sure whether I’ve ever mentioned Gabi before: she’s a primary school teacher who works with Clare. She’s got a boyfriend, Tom, who teaches literature at a university in Shanghai.

Anyway, we started drinking at Gabi’s and went to the staff party, being already a bit tipsy. I was perfectly fine until... I drank some baijiu! Now, for those of you who are not familiar with Chinese culture, baijiu is THE national drink in China. It is basically distilled from sorghum and can have up to 60% alcohol by volume. This is the most disgusting drink you will ever taste on this planet! Ugh! But you drink one shot and you’re off your face... So was I, after I had ten shots! I know, I know, you’re thinking ‘why would anyone have ten shots of this crap?!’ The thing is once you’ve got this horrible bleach taste in your mouth, it’s too late, you might as well keep on drinking it... or so said Tom – as in hunky Tom from school, not Gabi’s Tom – and as I’m very weak, I just followed his lead... The sad thing is that because of this bloody baijiu shit, I basically can’t remember anything from that night! Honest! When I try to think about what I did, I only have random pictures of me talking about Hemingway with Gabi’s boyfriend – WTF?! – or me singing a song in front of everyone – OMG!? – but I can’t remember which one... It’s pathetic! I was completely pissed! I don’t even know how I managed to make it back home...

The next day, I woke up with the awful bleach taste in my mouth, and asked Clare if I had made a fool of myself. She basically said yes but everyone there had had so much to drink that no one will probably remember anything from that night! Phew, I was safe!

The next Monday morning, I bumped into Katie – a primary school teacher – who asked me with a smile ‘how are your lips today?’... Then I got really worried! What the f*** did I do on Friday night?! She laughed and, as I expected her to tell me that I spent the night snogging random people, she said I kept complaining about my dry lips and asked around for some lip balm... WTF?! I was definitely off my face! And the worst was when one of my Year 13 students came to me on the same Monday morning and asked me ‘What were you on about on Friday night when I saw you?’... I couldn’t remember seeing him AT ALL! He said that I came up to him in the street and started going on about how I was pissed from a bloody staff party but how happy I was, and so on... I was SO embarrassed!