How Do People Room-Party in Hangzhou

Last weekend our company organized a team building trip to Hangzhou, a southeastern Chinese provincial capital which used to be the national capital back in the Song Dynasty (1000 AD). Last minute notice but it turned out awesome. A noteworthy event was a room party we threw in our hotel at a colleague's room - 7 ppl with limited alcohol and a retarded card game but we made the best out of it. And below is a priceless discover we made:

The alcohol purchasing group went down to the grocery shop and brought back this:


Hang on, hang on, Jenny, you know we have a no-alhocol-no-kofola-no photo rule on this blog, right? That's a frikking rice sack!
Yes I'm crystal clear about this rule but I F*CKING MADE IT (YEAH)! But wait and hear me out, let's take a look at what's inside:


Yes baby, the grocery store didn't have anything big enough except for a 50kg rice sack (which can be used to bag cement lime as well, by the way) to bag those beers.

WE LOVE HANGZHOU.

PS. Those are West Lake Beer - world_pivo strikes again!

Will & Lindsey sparkling!

Will & Lindsey sparkling!, a photo by jennyhu on Flickr.

So Will and his friend Lindsey come to China, right? The first thing they saw and drank when landed in the airport was a can of Tsingtao beer that greeted them at the gate. Everyone reckon this was a good start, eh? It gets better.

Day 1, without even a glance of Shanghai, they are shipped to the coastal city of Xiamen. And again, without even a peek of the beach or sea, they are tossed into a rental car and driven to a rural village of Hakka people. By this time they have been traveling on the road for like 36 hours with only a short interval of a 5 hour nap in a hotel room.

So we get to this town and what do we see? Cold beer and sparklers. What better can we do!

Xiamen Local Beer

Xiamen Local Beer, a photo by jennyhu on Flickr.

Homemade Hakka Rice Wine. BEST. RICE. WINE. EVER.

dinner in a #tulou - homemade rice wine. Best I've had EVER!, a photo by jennyhu on Flickr.

The four of us finished a litre over dinner that night between beers. It made the night drive to the tulou viewing points more fun!

Chongqing expedition

It's been a while since I last went on a solo trip, so I thought I could use the past long weekend holiday to have a date with spicy hotpot and cold beer in spring time. So, Chongqing it is!

Shancheng beer is the local brew. Shancheng literially means "city of mountain" in Chinese, or "city in mountains", or "mountains in city"... whichever way you like to call it, it will never fail to help picture the city layout for you. It's literally a city built on hills and mountains along the Yangtze and Jialing Rivers. Amazing view and amazing heartbeat when you are in a local taxi/bus racing up and down winding through the city streets on hills and tunnels with the gorges and rivers just underneath. I don't even know how the city's cartographers make their living in a 2-D map world because the city is practically vertical!

Anyway, back to the business. A photo for your edification on how the locals spend their day - hotpot and cold beer withe a window view of the Yangtze river.


[Eat your heart out]

Why it is important for the ordinary to carefully read government report and understand the impact

I'm not sure if I'm the only one who spotted this and felt this a crushing affect to our normal life, but I think this deserves some quick actions and petitions!

Booze

If the government applies the duty escalator, raising the price of alcohol faster than inflation each year, it could add up to 7p to the cost of a pint of beer from April. (UK Budget 2011)

Are you tired of hearing how beer is good for your health yet?

Well, here's more to come. After helping on heart problem, here's beer's contribution to your blood sugar level - a brewmaster's formula for insulin production.

I'm more shocked to know that I didn't know that before!

Beer to be classified as alcohol for first time in Russia. (news)

How come I never knew that it was NOT alcohol before in Russia - I would have been more proactive to visit that country! The last lost land!

Seoul, Korea

This time it's Seoul! One would need courage and a special mind to voluntarily go to Seoul in the heart of winter to be caught in a middle of a blizzard. However you would be surprised that I did think that a Korean winter is more bearable than the damp coldness in Central-Eastern China that soaks into your bones! Even better, warm stew, soup and BBQ with all those beers, sojus and makkoli's would just make it way more than bearable - they are pleasant!

[First Encounter with Korean Local Brew]

[Korean Beer with Pork BBQ. Oh how good was the pork belly!]

[Soju Finally!]
Side story:
Setting - Team dinner, majority of the visitors female, and majority of the Korean local team male.
Action - A pinkish bottle of drink was brought in and we were told that it's strawberry flavored makkoli, soft and sweet, "just perfect for girls".
Trigger - Not a fan of strawberry flavored stuff, I kindly turned down the second serving of the pink drink after the first taste and requested for more soju.
Response from the local male audience - "Oh no, come on, soju is for guys, Makkoli is for girls!"

[Makkoli, original flavor. NOT PINK!]

[Cass in Bottle]

[Cafri in a cute (but strange) 2nd floor cafe on a side street of Myeong-Dong]

[New Ad Slogan: Cass in Jug, best with Half-an-Hour Shisha!]
Oh, that's where I saw a MP in full army gear patrolling Seoul bars, for the first time in my life!