'Happy birthday' in chinese . . .

Woke laura up with brekkie in bed and the bag I sneakly bought and a weird panda book.

Went for a shop for a couple hours on our way to the lake. During this occassion I stopped to play with a puppy, well I can safely say I probably now have rabies, as this is the second miniature dog I've played with who ended up attacking my ankles and biting everything and anything, trying to pull my low crotch pants off, ee it was so funny I was helpless, trying to get the dog interested in the cigarette packet it was orginally attacking, but preferred skin.

Here we hired a tandem. Words cannot not describe this experience. I was the driver, and to begin a very wobbly and hysterical fits one at that. As we set off, I was getting the bike straight and I hear this, 'vicky when are you going to start pedalling' come from behind me. I hadn't realised that it was laura pedalling us along while I'm walking with me feet. We ended up traveling a couple metres before collapsing at the curb. Here I thought I was going to wet myself, the bike people were peeing themselves at us aswell. After an unsteady start, by the end of our four hours of cycling round beijing we were pros, racing and over taking other cyclists on the road, it was so funny and so fun. We did however travel no where, except ride lost in the streets. We were getting stared at a lot as people just tend to use these novelty bikes around the lake, but we had ventured far.

We stopped off outside the forbidden city where I rode and laura walked, it was heaving. Laura asks, 'why is it that people stare so much at us', I mean the fact that one we have a tandem and two what we are wearing is so odd(laura in her floral pj shorts, me in me indian low crotch pants and new cartoon print top) and three we are white might have something to do with it. How we laughed. We got our pics taken a few times here.

Also we stopped for a pee break. So I ran into a mall and stumbled across costa, they did iced latte, which I knew laura had been after, so I got us some take away teas and coffees and a moon cake for laura. She ate the moon cake but there was a little packet inside the moon cake packet, so me being me tells laura its probably sauce for the moon cake and that she should eat it. The writing was chinese. So she opens it, has a smell and then decides against it, I was going to try it but saw the tiny english writing next to all the chinese. Well, I was trying to make laura eat oxygen absorber. The poor girl, I don't know how she trusts me!

When we gave back the bikes you hand a ticket in. So laura always has the responsibility of tickets and room keys etc, gave them our ticket. There was a 5minute confusion on this matter, but it was all in chinese the ticket and we had no idea. But we got our deposit back and we were on our way to get changed ready for our night out. It was here we discovered that laura had given the bike people our ticket for the great wall tour, identical except a different stamp on it, and of course different chinese symbols. Eee what fools we can be.

Fools that people want to take pics of, as on the way back I stopped to buy chestnuts, unaware of the group of guys with huge cameras standing behind taking pics, when I noticed I grabbed laura and we posed, it was like having the paps following us! Madness.

It turns out on the daily chemist hit, my chinese symbols for antihistamines must mean diet pills as the options are all the chemists think I need to lose weight or my symbols are wrong. It made us laugh.

On our way back I bought some new red boots I had spotted earlier, slapped on with my over sized blue jumped and black bikini, laura in a tight short stripy dress, we headed off both feeling rather naked, we haven't worn such little clothing for a long long time.

We had a lovely meal on the lake. Then headed out drinks. I wanted to dance, so we sat outside on sofas with a live band playing and I danced, everyone walking on the street stopped, people taking videos, pics, just amused that someone would dance. I had attracted the attention of a group of chinese people who invited us to join them playing a ridiculous drinking game so we ended up dowing a few beers with them and got them dancing. They were good fun, from shanghi trying to set me up with their boss who they were getting ridiculously drunk. He bought me and laura a bunch of flowers each.

We headed to the next bar where gerry started talking to us, a new yorker studying here. I made him sing chinese happy birthday to laura. He joined us in the next bar where I got a bit carried away with the tambourine I found lying next to the band. So the 3 of us danced the night away.

Walking back we up our cafe lane and had some teas and hot chocolates while chatties.

Got back at 3am for beddies. Laura said she has had a very interesting birthday. I think we both have gained a six pack today from laughing so much.xx