Last weeks Stage Invasion...I mean really.

Hi Folks, hope you are all well. I'm at the office (substitue bar) with my Paninni and coffee prepearing for tonights Tuesday Night Jam and someones just emailed me some photos of last weeks debackle so i thought i'd share them with you. Last weeks was amazing. it was exactley what I wanted from day one. Everyone getting up and having a good time. the South Americans stole the show, theres me banging out Mr Jones, Wonderwall and all the other songs i know with 4 chords and this guy havier gets up. Javier (pronounced Havier) is from Argentina and he gets up and does with a guitar what I thought was only possible with a ...no idea...but he could play that mo. He did some South American tunes and played my guitar left handed with the strings right handed (for all you non musos......it's vvvvvvv clever0 Anyway the night ended with a stage invasion . You may be wondering where I was on that picture, well dear reader, i was around the corner, on my own, crying into my pint whilst thumbing through my Burt weedons Play the Guitar In a Day. back to drawing board for me. Anyhoo I've enlisted the help of Javier and we did some rehearsing last night. it's going to be good tonight, I can feel it in my chinese water. anyhow i'll just tell you who's who etc. FROM THE TOP: Cecelia, Adri and Javier playing some tremendous stuff.

Pic 2: South American Stage invasion

Pic 3: US Forrest US Julia (who knew all the words to Rocky Racoon and Rich (who looks like Salador Dali....seriously)

Pic4: Philipino Risa singing Torn

Pic5:same as

Pic6: Me and Tim finish it all off with Nirvana, trying to out-cobain each other.

Cairns & The Great Barrier Reef

Sue: Hi everyone..... Im leaving New Zealand and my comfy home with Tracey & Steve to go off to Cairns on 4th March. I have been in NZ for 3 months and cant believe where the time has gone!

So my plan is to start at the top end of the East Coast of Australia and end up in Sydney where I will return to NZ to discover their South Island.
Really excited about Oz, although every Kiwi I speak to here is saying "Why do you want to go there???!!! Stay here its much nicer etc!!

I have been busy working to get as many pennies as I can before I leave so nothing else to report on at the moment.

Planning a big night out on Saturday, going to the Viaduct Harbour which is a buzzing area in the city and hoping to visit a bar thats made out of ice, where you have to wear special clothing and you can only be in there for 20 mins at a time because of the conditions! They even serve the drinks from a glass made out of ice.....cool....literally!! ha ha! Will post the photos soon

New Years Eve

My amazing immodium Diet...try it free for 15 days ...only$19.99

Well well reader, It's Chinese New Year and it really is going (fire) CRACKERS over here !!!!(see what I did there? Ok Gav enough of your crappy DJ lines) Yeah Chinese New Year is on Saturday and I can't wait. I'Ve been told lots of good stuff about it from the people over here so it should be a great time. Everything stops and shuts down over the festive period. Lots of people go away, including quite a few of the ex-pats. But I'm staying in The Joe (slang for Hangzhou), all the bar staff have left The World Famour Maya Bar, so I think myself together with Sheridan are running it, we were asked but who knows? Apparantly the sky lights up with Fireworks and at 12 o clock, there's nowhere in the visible sky where you can't see them. I'm trying to organise a hike up the mountain, or secure a great rooftop viewing point. As I am typing this I can hear huge fireworks going off outside, so there you go. So that's Saturday. Don and Jennifer go to Wenzhou tomorrow to meet up with her family, then come back for a day and go to Thailand for a couple of weeks.

Anyway, the 'Tuesday Night Music Club' (as I now call it) is going great, week two was a success with loads of new faces putting up with my singing and a few even coming up to sing themselves. Great night, I really look forward to it. A lad's just arrived from Manchester, Adam, top lad....and guess what? He's a solicitor in Moss Side....and the first thing that I said when he told me?........yes you got it 'You must be very busy'. But he's a good lad. Last night we met up with the American contigent which was great.

I've starting giving guitar lesson and I had one for a couple of hours yesterday with a kiwi. The hardest thing about having a little office above a bar is the fact that when you finish working or whatever you wanna call it, you then need to walk down the stairs and through the bar.......and there's always someone wanting to buy you a drink......it's a tough call I know....so last night was the same, the guitar lesson I was giving ran over a little bit, as I was walking down the stairs I heard lots of American laughs and craic, so I was straight onto it, with the usual 'Right I'm only staying here for an hour. That didn't happen. The owner gave us all some stuff that is apparantly 10x the strength of red-bull with vodka. the stuff was fast man. Less than 30 minutes later the owner and one of the americans were rolling around playfighting on the floor for ages. I just spoke to him before and asked him if he was planning anymore romantic Valentines nights for his customers where he ends up scrapping.

Anyhoo, what else,.....ermmmmmm I go to meet some new students tomorrow. I was supposed to go tonight but as it's Dons last night and Chinese Davids birthday, my scrawny ass has been invited to KTV, the karaoke drinkfest. Not that I want to go. I have had a severe....how can I can say this nicely?.....ahhh thats it...a stomach upset....I am currently having Imoddium for breakfast everyday and taking the strong advice of my dear old man by carrying cycling clips with me (you work it out)

So I'd better get ready for this night and this weekend, I'll try and post some piccies of the fireworks thing as soon as I can. Anyway better go, the immodium's wearing off.
Laters People
LOVE
gAv

PS Rick I'll youtube that TV thing ASAP

Piccies from previous blog nonsense

From the top then, we got 'Dangerous Daves' Girlfriend, mel who did a top 'Blackbird' and an Alanis Morisette one.
then
Yanna, an American who brought the house down with 'Killing me Softly' and 'Aint no Sunshine'
then me
then
Jing Jing....Sheridans better half, who did a great version of 'Torn'...whilst I ate the microphone.
Me did usually nonsense, started off with The One I love like we use to do it 'State of Confusion', thanks chaps.

I nearly crashed on my bike laughing at an accident

Well hello reader! Dunno where I'm up to on the news from this side of the globe so I'll just babble for a bit (nothing new there then Gav)

Loads happening at the moment and it's a bit CCCRRRAAAYYYYZZZZEEEEEEE! Did a recording for a TV show last week. The show which is being aired over Chinese New Year ( in a couple of weeks). We were asked to recreate a scene from back home on what we would do on a typical New Years Eve. So me, Dangerous (Dave) and a couple of yankee doodles sat around table in a Tea shop, drinking Li Chee Tea, looking bored and then I chirped up with....'Hey guys shall we sing 'Auld Lang Syne' after which I produced my guitar that I just happened to have behind my chair and sang and strummed (absolutely murdered it cos I was full of a cold and can't sing), Dangerous could not have looked less impressed at my rendition so it's going to be funny. It's being aired on the big tv channel over here so I may get even MORE stares and laughs from the natives than usual....so that'll be....errrrr......terrible. (I'll youtube it if it's either very good or very bad).

Yesterday I nearly crashed on my bike laughing at an accident. Let me explain......you know I told you about the driving over here?..... well the cycling is the same (as soon as I get a camera I'm going to video my taxi ride). Listen to this, it's not uncommon when cycling around the city to be cut up whilst in the cycle lane (cycle lane which cars fly down). So you tend to get a little road rage from time to time -very un-asian thing to do. Anyway I was cycling back from the office/studio and this lunatic chinese man flew past me. He wanted to get past the two bikes riding side-by-side in front but there was blatantly no room. The two bikes in front were six inches apart. So Lance Armstrong then decides to ride straight at them......and he let out a chinese expletive as he flew over the top of them and landed on his backside, well I nearly wet myself with laughter as I passed.

'OK Gav, passing the scene of an accident?....how heartless'

......you may think, but no, I have been advised that as a westerner, I shouldn't stop at any accident, the natives will bring the police who will then blame you and try and fleece you for dosh. I heard about a guy who was in a taxi when it knocked a cyclist over. He got out to help and then had to pay for the hospital bills and taxi damage!!!! How bizzare eh?

Had a great conversation today with one of the expats. We were extolling the virtues of Chinese culture, which didn't take long. Then we came up with a theory that most people subscribe to. The Chinese are brilliant and making stuff. You're probably reading this on a laptop Made in China, in clothes Made in China, with a watch Made in China and virtually most of the things that you can see around you are MIC etc, so these people are fantastic at mass production. But they have no idea how to think. The communist regime has been in power since the year dot and have made laws that persecute the curios. Questioning and logic is very much frowned upon. Therefore the people become conditioned to 'not thinking'. So they are totally impressed with anyone who has ideas. A lot of the westerners over here are here solely to make decisions and give ideas to the factories. And that philosophy is right across the board, from driving, socialising through to manufactoring. So that was my thought for the day.

Last night was one of my favourites so far. I was asked to play at the local bar, so made it into a bit of a jam night. I sang a few songs and then got some of the punters up. The quality was good and I just got a text from Tim at the bar who says they doubled their takings for a Tuesday. This is Tim I mentioned before who is a nuuuuyarker (new yorker), funny as hell and an all round top bloke and he's responsible for giving me some breaks and a lot of good advice. Everythings....forgetaboutit' , '....that's the stoooopiddis thing i ever huyed....'.and alike. Anyway I got a regular paying spot every Tuesday there, loads of fun and making money? It's the way forward. Someone took some photos and is sending me them so I'll post asap.

We have done the final presentation demo for the radio station, so the shows there. Now we gotta see what they think when they get it. I'm chuffed with it and me and Kev (aka The Mac) are laughing a 'proper gee-raaffe' (laugh) doing it . I'll youtube a copy of that soon, but you'll be able to download it from www.morehangzhou.com . It, hopefully , will be a one hour show everyday. The pre production, recording, research and editing all take a bit of time , but it's well worth it. I'll get some pictures of the studios/offices and post them soon. Again we're getting loads of support from the ex-pats here and it's really appreciated.

Right just got 'On the Waterfront' on DVD so am gonna watch it now.

Peace out brothers and sisters

The MonkeyMan

PS. Thanks to all you lot me and threebie are up to 2000 hits on this blog, keep posting your comments it's always good to hear/censor them.
P.P.S We were discussing this the other night, why do people still put P.S. on emails? Surely P.S was for when you wrote snail mail and had forgotton sonething right? Now you can just drop in..........think about it people.

Rotorua.....Mud Pool City

Sue: I have been away again on a little trip to Rotorua for a few days, this place stinks! No it really does as its named "Sulphur City". It has bubbling mud pools, hot springs and Geysers that erupt every day! The hole place smells like bad eggs but its a fun place to be!

This place was where the 8th wonder of the world used to be, the pink and white terraces before it was all destroyed by an earthquake. I visited a musuem (getting good at this to a point!) which explained all about the volcanos and earthquakes etc

For people who live in Rotorua, they have to have special telephones, cant wear silver, have their fridges replaced every 6 months.........all because of the atmosphere but the good thing they have is constant hot water for free!

I went for a Spa which is supposed to be in the top 10 in the world! Although I didnt experience that, I went to the cheap seats area instead! Still very nice, sitting in hot spa pools in the evening overlooking the lake! The Pools were a mixture of sizes and heat...In fact one was too hot to stay in for long...hotter than a bath! They claim it helps aches and pains and even some arthritis too! So hoping my bones are feeling the benefit of it all!

The next day I spent the morning at Wai - O - Taupu which means Sacred Waters. This is a thermal wonderland which was cool to see, lots of thermal areas of bright coloured water due to all the minerals there. There was a champagne pool, lime green ( Photo 4) , yellow and a blue one.. Also lots of bubbling hot mud pools, got so many photos of mud.....something to look forward to when looking at my photos on return!

Later I had a fun filled afternoon enjoying the Zorb and the Luge! The Luge (Photo 1) is like a Tobaggon on wheels where you scoot down from the top of a mountain and you ride around various courses and then use a Gondola to get back up again seeing some amazing views and then down you go! Great fun!

Zorbing (Photo 2) was the best though, you climb into an inflated plastic ball, they fill it with cold water and then they roll you downhill on a zig zag track, bumping into everything until you stop at the bottom! I have never giggled so much! Brilliant stuff!

In the evening I went to a Maori Village, (photo 6) this was a fun evening where they explain about the traditional way of life as a Maori. Performed a show of song and dance. Then we had a Hangi meal, which is how they cook their meals. They basically dig a hole, throw in some rocks, put the food directly onto the rocks or in baskets nowadays and then cover the hole up and leave for 8 hours to steam! Could you be bothered, even BBQs are now gas for extra speed for us brits! haha!

The next day I went to a Kiwi Sanctuary, where baby kiwis are hatched and cared for until they can be released into a protected wild as they are endangered species.

Since my return I have been working like a dog! Looking forward to my next trip!

Hope you are all well, speak soon!