Baby Candy & Professor Peter Gulke
It’s Spring in Beijing… and new leaves and flowers blossoming everywhere. Beautilfully… of course. There are white and pink flowers seen almost everywhere in school… nice nice~~
Studies are busy, as usual. I’m conducting Stravinsky’s Concerto in Re for Strings at the moment. The changes of his time signature is kinda driving me crazy. But the music is very fun… very "dancey" and cute. But that’s not what I wanna blog about…
First of all, let me wish all of you a very happy Easter~ Hehehehe… although it is 2 days late. On Easter day, I went out shopping! YAY~~~ Not for myself… for my sister and Angie, because I promised them to get them sweaters. I bought a blue one for Angie and a red Roxy one for Rong… then I saw this sweat-shirt that is REALLY nice and CHEAP.. like RMB45 for 1 and RMB70 for 2… Crazy PRICE!!! So… Hahaha, I couldn’t resist the buying temptation and bought 2… one in black (for myself) and one in reddish-pink, for Rong lorr. Lolx.
Then we went to the night-street-market along that area (wu dao kou) with people selling all sorts of stuffs ranging from little key chains, clothes to PETS like puppies, kitties… and even PIGGIES. Lolx. Then the little greyish furball caught my attention. RABBITS sized of my palm! I went nutz seeing them… i wouldn’t have bought them if they were all white or black colored bunnies… but when I saw my darling little greyish-blue furball… I went crazy. HAHAHA… Let me introduce you to baby CANDY~
I decided to name her Candy because she is JUST so SWEET~~~ She keeps licking you and wants you to pet her and when you do, she’ll rub herself against your skin and snuggle near your legs. And she’s VERY clever as well… not to mention, she knows who’s her owner (ME!). Like when my friends come and play with her and she doesn’t feel like playing with them, she’ll run to me… Or if I walk around the room, she’ll follow my feet… cute lerrr. I’m totally in LOVE with her…
Asides my lovely Candy, I’m currently on a exciting mission. Hehehe, a Conducting professor from Weiner, Germany has just landed in Beijing today~! (9th April 2007) And I’m his official TRANSLATOR throughout his stay in Beijing. His name is "Peter Gulke"… I had to wake up extra early this morning because I was going to the airport to meet this German Conducting Professor, who is supposedly very "old". I had a little idea of how he looks like… but to make things safe, I prepared a paper and wrote his name over it in CAPS and held it at the exit. His plane LA720 from Frankfurt arrived at 8:30am and he came out around 9:00am. SURPRiSINGLY, he wasn’t as OLD as I expected! I was told that he was 80++….. so I was kinda expecting this really old wrinkled man that held some tongkat and needed people to help carry his luggages for him. BUT then this 50 - 60+ looking, healthy, fast-paced man came out and when he saw me with the paper that had his name on it, he hung a broad smile over his face, and with a twinkle in his eye he winked at me.
I, of course, was on my best "good student" + "adorable active little girl" attitude. Yea, the kind of attitude that ALL teachers adore~~ Lolx. He was SUPER friendly… and I escorted him to his hotel - Minzu Hotel (20 minutes walk from school) in the school’s car of course! (Yea, the school has special cars - Black Audi 6, to fetch these big big maestroes) After he settled in the hotel, I went back to school for my darn English class. Then around 1pm, I headed back to Minzu to fetch him out for Lunch along with my department’s secretary and Shen Hao… the eat-then-sleep-for-your-life-but-never-gain-weight score-reading teacher.
We had lunch at Quan Yu De, THE place for THE best PEKING DUCK EVER FOUND on Earth. It has a history back all the way to Qing Dynasty. WOW~ Lolx. SUPER EXPENSIVE of course… we only ordered 1 roasted Peking Duck, 2 veges… and the whole table for 4 cost RMB402.70. WALAO… nevermind, all food fares are on the school anyway. Hehehehehe. Yay me, free nice food… SHen Hao was very happy of course… he ate the most. He actually HAD lunch already, and he still wanted to go. =_+""" Tsk. Professor Peter Gulke enjoyed it of course, haha… he had a hard time with chopsticks, but he’s a fast learner and is very patient. But of course in the end, he gave up and used fork instead. Lol!
After lunch, we went back to the conservatory and me and Shen Hao gave Professor Peter a little tour in school. ONLY NOW I knew that the old old building in schools were actually tracable all the way BACK to QING dynasty… WUAHLAO~ It was actually a palace for one of the prince. Hahahahaha!! I went for to practice double pianos later on when Professor and Shen Hao watched the rehearsal of Brahms Double Concerto. They came by later on to watch us practice… Chen Ke was conducting Rossini’s Barber of Seville’s Overture. He was nice enough to comment a little bit, he told us something very true: "Better to have the score in the head, not the head in the score!" Because CHen Ke was busy looking at the score instead of looking at us - his accompanist (fake orchestra).
Then he went back himself to the hotel. Said he wanted to walk around, so he walked back. HAHAHA… He’s SEVENTY THREE years old… and he’s still very active and healthy and jumpy. Lolx. Around 8pm, I went to meet him to take him out for dinner. We went to XiDan’s Taiwan Cafe and had little titbits. He was still very full from lunch, and didn’t wanted big dinners. We chat a lot, and I learned a lot… like how Rossini likes to cook more than his music… and how Kleiber had weird attitudes or how Karajan snores. HAHAHA… funny little details, but it’s really nice to know… and he’s been around since WORLD WAR II… so you can imagine how much you can learn from someone like him.
Hehehe… He’s SUPER nice to me! He gave me two big good night kisses on both my cheeks. WAKAKAKAKA, I’m super adorable, I know. Lolx.
