HAPPY HOLIDAYS! couple of quick snaps from Yuan Yuan’s christmas party last week, looking forward to more parties and excess. see you in the new year!!

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very pleased to announce that the BADTASTIC DJs were voted in as one of shanghai’s best of 2009, at least according to Smart Shanghai. there’s no accounting for taste, but we are stoked and busy planning our next party. watch this space for more info!

snippet from the blog post:
know they are actually like 497 DJs, BUT they perform as one. And when they play, well it really does feel like one entity, a feeling of honest singularity. The transitions between songs are immaculately consistent between every DJ and they just drop shit… from NOWHERE… without even a hint. It’s kinda like Pearl Harbour but the aftermath is people thrusting their pelvises into the air. They play better music than most DJs I’ve heard in Shanghai (actually I don’t even think that they know other DJs in Shanghai exist). Oh, most of them are pretty hot and wear really nice clothes that I can’t afford.

ps. i also chimed in with my two cents, feel free to click through to the article.

[photos by me, mr. tsang and sammy bib.]

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john & i went to Beijing for a four day weekend to visit with our friend mark, who was visiting from london. ohhhhhh Beijing how i love you! we stayed at the OPPOSITE HOUSE for our first two nights and it was straight up the most professionally managed most amaaaaazing hotel ever. we had a food orgy at BEI and the food was so delicious, and we danced around all night at with one of my favourite lomangs ever. also, drinks at apocathecary and dinner at middle 8 rounded out a perfect two days in my former adopted city. also, bonus! british airways lost mark’s luggage, and thanks to him being insured up the wazoo, he ended up with 1000 pounds cash to spend on clothing. he went buck wild for two days at prada and luis vuitton, and at zero hour when we were supposed to be leaving, he realized he still had 6000rmb to spend. lucky for john and i, mark deems anything non-luxury brand to be beneath him, and so we went to american apparel (the closest shop to the hotel since we were running out of time) and did a grab and go shopping trip in under 20 minutes. not surprisingly though, AA is ridiculously overpriced in china, 6k really only got us one bag of cheaply made little ditties.

after the opposite house, we made our way to the Kempinski managed Commune on the Wall, which was beautiful but employed the most useless, hapless collection of staff who were completely unable to handle even the simplest of requests. hey Kempinski, you’re going to be getting an email from us very soon, 5 star hotel my ass.

back in shanghai now, and it’s very very nearly christmas. happy holidays, everyone! xx

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it’s very nearly christmas, only one week to go! spending another holiday season in shanghai is a bit sad, but there are always things going on and it’s not very pleasant in canada right now anyways, with it’s incessant snow and -30 degree arctic temperatures. to get into the christmas spirit, i searched online and found a shop that delivers christmas trees, and ended up getting a 6ft tree (real tree!), 2 wreaths, 3 gold wrapped poinsettias and a ton of decorations for about 50USD. china, love you! also exciting is that i bought a violin over the weekend, after having not played for 3 years, it feels quite weird. will keep practicing and see what comes out of it.

hmmmmmmmmmm. despite the fact that john & i are both ill, it was a very enjoyable weekend filled with both good and bad alcohol related decisions. on friday, we went to the shanghai grand theatre to see helen grimaud play a piano recital. it was my first time going to the theatre and the acoustics weren’t terrible, quite a nice venue. the music was OK, she barreled through her repertoire quite a bit but all in all, a nice friday night out. think i’ll definitely make more of an effort to do things that don’t involve clubs and bars in the new year – turns out that FAME is coming to town and have booked 6 tickets for the 23rd of december. musicals in china, will it be good?!

on saturday, i met up with the usual gang at MoCA, our friend Nial was participating in the Animamix Biennial, and it was a lovely time had by all. the exhibition will be up until the end of January, i would recommend heading down if you’re in the area.

post show, we had dinner at barbarossa (blech barbarossa but it was right next door and someone had booked a table) and then off to monkey lounge, which is Shanghai’s latest attempt at a ’secret bar’ – i stayed for two glasses of champagne and then headed off to meet John at our friend’s birthday, which by the end of the night had ended up being hosted at the BARBIE STORE, how ridiculous! by the time i got there, everyone was off their nut and swishing around to kind of awesome top 40 jams, and it was super surreal being surrounded by barbie decor while being goaded on to do baijou jello shots. we poured ourselves into a cab around 230 and called it a night, oooooomf.

by the way, DO NOT recommend baijou jello shots. never never never.

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super into playing guitar hero/rock band lately. was over at bryan’s the other day where we geeked out on beatles rock band. check out the swanky george harrison gretch duo set guitar!

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was laying in bed on a quiet saturday evening when john wandered in and noticed crazy plumes of smoke coming from the building next door. we looked out the balcony and the whore house slash ktv joint on anfu road was crazy crazy on fire! i was all ‘meh, let’s just walk from the balcony’ but john went into survival mode and insisted that we grab the cats (in backpacks) and our passports and laptops and rush outside. ‘the fire could spread!!! it’s so close! let’s go go go!’.

we ended up standing outside with about a zillion other rubber neckers watching the fire dance around and the emergency systems fall into place. the fire brigade turned up with their trucks and hoses (very efficient), and the whole scene was very carnival-esque. only in china, about 100 people standing about taking photos dangerously close to the action and gleefully telling any new arrivals the situation, with the obligatory group of civilian men “helping” the firefighters by holding up ladders, shouting instructions and generally getting in the way.

the cats were VERY unhappy about being dumped so unceremoniously into backpacks, and i got alot of really weird looks standing around with a meowing backpack. after about half an hour, things calmed down and the fire fighters did their job. ho hum, back to the grind.

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another friday night in shanghai. now it’s saturday and i’m in the office, feeling rough, drinking a smoothie, trying to focus. looking forward to going home and playing video games with the cats.

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stoked to see that my friends at SPLITWORKS are bringing more awesome Canadian bands to China! HOLLERADO are doing an insane 14 city tour across the PRC and they’ve even organized a chinese site to generate more buzz. they play this SUNDAY at YUYINTANG. see you there!

ps. also stoked that the GREAT LAKE SWIMMERS are gonna be rolling by in january. yay, canada!

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