Walking the Path

In my last post I said I was tired. That’s ventured into full-time burn out at this point. We’ve decided to redesign our website at work and that’s meant that we’ve started doing web-only stories on top of our magazine content (see my first one on Chery’s proposed IPO here). I’m still trying to adjust to the new demands and that has meant I was just slammed this week. Betty, my girlfriend and I were hoping to get away this weekend to Hangzhou to relax (it’s the only way to cope when things get like this), but she got sick and I still had a bit of work to do at the weekend so we’ve had to postpone the trip.

I did relax this weekend though. I went to Boxing Cat Brewery with friends on Friday and in the taxi on the way home to walk Roger, I found a Cuban cigar still in its case and fresh – that almost made the tough week worth it. After walking Roger, I went to Yuyingtang to see Convenience Store and meet up with Jake Newby. I liked the sound but the crowd was mostly young girls there to swoon over Convenience Store’s supposedly handsome lead singer. We left after watching Convenience Store for about 20 minutes and headed to Exit where we met some of the friends from Boxing Cat and I got to enjoy that cigar. Ended the night wandering Xikang Lu looking for a BBQ stand.

Saturday, I spent the day sleeping, reading and watching Star Trek. I’ve started Richard Price’s Lush Life. Price really knows how to write a crime novel and his method of writing dialogue – seen best on HBO’s The Wire where he was a staff writer – is simply superb.

Last night headed back to YYT again to see the amazing Jeff Lang, a blue musician along with Joker, another great up and coming Shanghainese blues band. I was amazed by both of them. Joker cause they’re so young and blues/rockabilly isn’t that popular among Chinese youth and Jeff Lang cause he can combine blues and progressive rock guitar into an amazing live set (he also played for nearly two hours in a felt suit). His amazing live set made me not want to pick up his CDs for fear of not being able to live up to his live sets (unfortunately Joker’s ep wasn’t there). They were also RMB100 a pop which made them a little bit expensive and probably hurt sales. For another take on both nights at YYT check out Jake’s post.

Today was literally a bit of a washed out day. It’s been pouring rain pretty much constantly since I woke up. It made walking Roger tough. Each time we got out it was heavy rain and even with his raincoat on he still got a bit wet. I spent this morning writing this month’s book review and the afternoon reading a bit of Lush Life and sleeping. I had only meant to sleep for 30 minutes but ended up dozing off for more than three hours  - I guess that shows you how tired I am. Going to take it easy tonight so that I’m prepared for next week.

Enjoy the rest of your Sundays.

J.