Paddy's weekend

Well, this year I've been doing Paddy's day in style! No wandering out to the parade at 12 and then going straight to the pub after for me, this year it's all been official receptions and black tie balls! When I registered with the Irish embassy here when I arived, I automatically got put on the guest-list for the embassy Paddy's night party. After a bit of problem with getting the mailbox key off the landlord, I finally got the invite in my hands, so I threw on one of my new tailored shirts, grabbed a pair of good(ish) pants and headed along.

I was a bit surprised on the way in, I was expecting someone to be checking my invite and all, or maybe asking for some ID to prove I was irish, but I just walked in the door, no questions asked! I could have been anyone - I could even have been english! Apparently there's only 160 Irish ppl "officially" here in Beijing, but it seems that all of them came to the embassy and everyone brought a friend! The place was fairly busy, but it was a strange sort of party. You had maybe two types of ppl there, the official/business types in the suits who were there pretty much to network and who spent the whole time swapping business cards, and then you had the rest of us normal gobshytes who were just hovering around, shuttling between the buffet table and the bar!

I was expecting some sort of "official" part to the night, like a speech from the Ambassador or something, but there was none (he's not big into speeches at this kind of thing apparently). The party pretty much consisted of ppl wandering in, hobnobimng a bit, and wandering out again. Strange. Afterwards, a few of us headed out to Brown's down in Sanlitun (which seems to be becoming my "local" here!), where there was an Irish Music night. That was a bit more lively than the embassy do, and I ended up getting in around 6am :-)

Yesterday as a reult was fairly quiet. I went down to the Pearl Market again with Peter and arranged to get some stuff shipped home with Sandy, the owner of the shop we were getting all our pearls in. we went down to Dazhalan Hutong after, and I picked up a dirt cheap pair of pants for the Irish Ball which I'd gotten tickets for. This one is one of the big ex-pat social events of the year here in Beijing, and it was held in a 900-seater ballroom in the Kerry Center. It was a Black Tie do, so I should really have gotten a tux, but I'd brought my black suit jacket from ireland and decided that would do! :-) I could have gotten a tux tailored for me for about €100, but decided there was no point, how many times in my life will I be wearing one of them again!

The party was...... not exactly what I expected. It was packed full of ppl in suits of all shapes & sizes (even two guys in green velvet dresed as "Austin O'Powers"), all very fancy and all, and the decor was as you'd expect from a high-class hotel - a few shamrocks ad harps and flags, but all done very tastefully. The meal was excellent, 5 courses with the main one being a nice bit of braised steak (my only complaint on that one was lack of quantity!). There were a few speeches which were unavoidable but mercifully short, and then a resident MC whose really crap jokes we tolerated 'cos he was the one giving out the spot prizes, and then the band came on.

...And here's where things started to go slightly wrong. it was an irish band, so the first few songs were the expected jigs and reels, but then they started doing more "normal" songs, and the music drifted slowly towards wedding band teritory. At this stage a lot of ppl started drifting out towards the free bar, having exhausted the free bottles of jameson that were on each table, and that sort of set the tone for the rest of the night. Then, about midnight, the rugby came on, so the party definitely split into two halves - the people in the ballroom dancing and the people out in the reception area watching the TV! I sort of wandered in and out between the two for a while, at least until the Ireland v England game came on. By that stage, most of the people had left, and all that were left were the "die-hards" - the die-hard dancers in one room and the die-hard drinkers and rugger fans in the other! :-)

the band wrapped up about 1ish, ad most pple left then. After the game ended, everyone else cleared out, and a few of us headed off to try to find liveliness and drink somewhere else, but at 4am there was a shortage of both!