Flying Choppers, Flying Acrobats and Party Bags

So what do these three things have in common? They were all part of Maddy's first birthday here in China.

Having been VERY excited early on about her first birthday here in our 'temporary' home, it took me a few weeks to get Maddy finally pinned down with a decision on what she wanted to do for her party. In the end she chose to follow in the footsteps of a friend who had his party at Fundazzle, a local kids playgym that has the only ball pit ever to play a leading role in a movie - this thing is HUGE. So with the decision made I was back and forth a few times in the last fortnight organising food and cakes to be delivered, and booking the room for the kids. In the end though it was a breeze, as the place had a manager well versed in English as a second language and also a very strong focus on customer service (which, while they are trying very hard here in Beijing, doesn't always show).

Meet the star of "The Abyss", which also moonlights as a ballpit at Beijing's Fundazzle kids fun park.

The culmination of all this was Maddy's birthday party on Sunday, which was a bit quieter than expected due to us scheduling it on a long weekend (mental note for next time) but alot of fun nonetheless. Lots of sugary stuff was eaten, 'Happy Birthday' was sung in three languages (English, Korean and Chinese) and games were played, although I'm still trying to decide if teaching a group of kids from Japan, South Korea and India the game of Heads and Tails classifies as cultural enrichment (possibly not, but Two-Up on the other hand...). With a small sleight on hand on the last toss of the coin I was also able to ensure all kids got a prize, which was a bonus and did avoid tears at the end (although I must also remember to make sure all prizes are the same thing, same colour, same size. There appears to be no room for promoting differences in taste and individuality in 9 year old girls, with them all wanting the same prize).

Maddy about to blow out her cake candles (with her friends eager to help). Clockwise: Yaashi, Eujean, Maddy, Sydney and Reika.

The very fancy animal birthday cake, this one coming from a local cake shop
(as opposed to one of Amy's usually high-quality creations). No hippo's though.

Luckily for us Maddy was not as indecisive about what she wanted for presents - her own iPod (so she didn't have to share Mum's) and a pair of rollerblades. After our previously unsuccessful attempt to try the cheap-ass option and pick one up from the local markets, and also hearing of a friend buying a fake version even at a supposed 'authorised reseller' we decided that the only way to get the iPod this time would be to import one from a trusted source. This meant going online to the Australia Mac store and doing it mail order. The added bonus here was the free engraving which means that it will be harder to go missing thanks to any wandering fingers. It is funny though the difficulty one faces in trying to get an authentic Mac product here in China in any of the shops, given that they are made 'just down the road' in Shenzen.

Thanks to the local markets and less need to get something brandname the sourcing of the rollerblades came alot easier. We had all decided to head to the Golden Five Star markets in the NW of the city on Friday (being a public holiday here and all) to sort out remote control helicopter issues, and found more than one store selling blades in a large range of styles and colours. We managed to find a pair that were not only in Maddy's preferred colour (no prizes for guessing this :-) but also had more metal in the important areas than cheap plastic. So we not only grabbed them for her birthday on the Saturday, but we also gave them too her the day before her birthday and she is already getting better at them. As the pictures can attest to there is no claret from the knee caps to photograph as yet.

Maddy trying out her new blades, with her "Calvin Klein" knee and elbow pads. (having only got the brand name on the elastic straps though, we tend to think that there are a few pairs of designer undies out there right now missing their waist elastic).

In addition to these she also got some great presents of friends and family, including a jewellery box, jewellery, an i-Tunes voucher, a Pin the Tail on the Donkey game and a remote control helicopter.

While it sounds all very bourgeois these remote control helicopters tend to be the rage with a lot of the westerners here in Beijing and having played with a mates the other week I just had to go and get one one for myself. In what was a very cooincidental chain of events a friend of ours here wanted to buy Maddy a small one for her birthday, I wanted a big one, and Amy wanted a few of them for presents for people back home. Just so happens that we had scheduled in a trip to the Golden 5 Star market on Thursday for our language lesson - the place where my mate got his from and also where we later found you can buy ANYTHING you ever wanted house wise. This place has to be the biggest market in Beijing (a claim supported by our Taxi driver on the way out anyway). And I have certainly got to know it well the last 5 days, having been out there on three occassions - once to buy the minis and a big one, once to take my big one back (to find out I wasn't charging it right) and once more today because I'd stuffed the charger by not charging it right. Luckily, today I got my Chinese teacher along to translate, and they were happy to exchange it on the spot and I also picked up a small one to practice on.

Our new toys. OK, to be truthful only the purple one is Maddy's, and I've certainly used it more than her. But oooohhh so much fun.

The bigger beast, which is actually a different one from the original model I purchased and had to take back (stuffed due to user error, but jeez they were nice to swap it anyway).

Still on the topic of things that fly, we decided on Sunday morning that a trip to the Chaoyang Chinese Acrobats would make a great finish to Maddy's birthday long weekend. While the tickets appeared to be very pricy for what was a one hour show, we decided that it was worth the plunge having seen the Chinese Circus in Australia and seeing some of the Chinese acrobats in the Circ de Soliel productions. I can certainly say it was worth the ticket price 5 times over. Maddy's comments were priceless (oh Jesus Christ being just one of the classic statements that slipped from her mouth), and some of the stuff making me wince. Then there was the awkward positions that make a Karma Sutra manual look like a Dummies Guide to Beer and BBQ. It was Circ de Soliel without all the arty-farty crap, and the feats were a lot more amazing. And let's be honest - if you were to ever cut all the dance performance wankery out of a Circ de Soliel production you would have leftover a very good show around an hour long - about the maximum length of time you can handle watching summersault and balancing variations before even the most talented stuff becomes a victim of "been there, seen similar thing previously".

On the work front Amy, had an interesting time in the provinces in her last week away from Beijing. She was on a work visit that involved, amongst other things, travelling in a motorcade complete with police escorts and right of way through all intersections. She also had dinner at a "biological” restaurant – a huge indoor rainforest with lots of rare plants (including an Australian boab tree that reportedly cost 1,000,000 RMB), a pool with 3 seals in it, a cage with 2 crocodiles and lots of birds including a cockatoo and a macau. On the menu was Australian lobster, abalone and sea cucumber (Amy braved it and thought it tasted OK). I'm not sure myself about all this funny food (Abalone?, Sea Cucumber?) - give me chicken's feet and three veg any day.

Outside of the birthday excitement Maddy and her friend Eujean decided to have a shot at BSB Idol at her school, so after a few afternoons at her friend's place practicing they presented it the week before last to the judges in the preliminary rounds. Unfortunately their Matrix-inspired routine didn't get the attention of the judges so they didn't make it through to the 2nd round, but I can tell you that the video I have of them doing their final practice run has me asking 'why, Simon, why?'.

On a final note I will be trying to get a few stats from our blog in the next few weeks. I'm told there is a feature to give us stats on number of blog visitors and other cool figures (well cool to an ex-ABS employer anyway). Given the larger than expected number of people who tell me they read it regularly it would be interesting to find out exactly how many people are taking precious time out of their day to (try and) decipher my ramblings.

The next post will be just before we head to Canada for our short stint to see family. Between now and then we are heading off for a 2nd crack at Bubbalicious this Sunday, and trying to get a bit fitter. We are both really enjoying the Wushu, with Maddy even staying around for the complete lesson this week. It is certainly the one time a week that I definitely get my heart rate up, and just to remind me of the repeated horseriding stances I usually feel it the next day (especially where there are stairs involved :-). In addition to this I have also made a 2nd attempt to get back into the serious bike riding, heading out for a 45km ride on Saturday with an Italian riding companion who lives close by. In the end we made it all the way to the Summer Palace, and I only nearly died a few times trying to keep up with Miso who was darting in and out of traffic and squeezing between moving buses. Whoever thinks bike riding in Beijing is boring is spending too much time on the bike paths.

Maddy modelling some of the presents she got from her friends. Australia's Next Top Supermodel? Mmmmm, maybe. Maybe n....