Before I start the story off, I figured I'd explain Chinese tap water. It sucks. We can't drink from it, and not even the Chinese will. The water comes straight from the lake (Tai Hu), and is treated in some way, but is still full of lake-y goodness. Today, Wuxi smells odd everywhere you go, because the lake is warming up, and algae is growing like mad. What this means is that the processing plants that clean the water get backed up (literally, the pipes fill) with algae. So today, the entire city (or anything close to a water source) smells odd. This is common, and happens from time to time. I am told it will happen more often as it gets hotter.
(EDIT) I have since learned that this case is quite severe. It turns out that blue-green algae has backed up the processing plants, and this stuff is evil. It can cause liver damage, rashes, and all sorts of random crap. I can't shower in it, I can't ingest it, I can't even shave with it, because the algae releases a toxin that causes all this shit. So for two days now, I've been sponge bathing, and not shaving/brushing my teeth. They've been opening fire hydrants and pouring the water all over the streets because it has this algae which releases the toxin. The worst part is boiling it causes MORE toxin to be released, so there's no solution other than dumping it. Hooray for no showers! I feel like a scum bag!
(END EDIT)
Anyway, today was the day I started with my first tutor job here in Wuxi. I am teaching a 14 year old Korean boy named Hyeon Ik Kim English for 100 yuan an hour (About 15 bucks CAD an hour). His understanding was quite good, but his speaking needs practice, as is often the case with anyone who learns a second language. The whole thing went pretty well, despite my lack of knowledge about the Korean language. All I remember from Aaron in high school is "No nun na ugh Chingo", meaning "You are my friend". We got through the lesson plans without much problem, although the reading comprehension hour needed a bit of filler. The kicker, and reason for the first paragraph, was the mother. She doesn't speak much English, and won't speak to me in Chinese because it seems her Chinese is worse than mine (no, really). She offered me juice in broken English, and I said I was fine, but as the Asians love to do, she insisted I have something, so I took her up on her offer of water.
Go ahead and guess... yup, she served me tap water. I thanked her, as I hadn't noticed yet. I didn't touch the water for the first hour because I was busy trying to figure out how to stretch a two page story into an hour long lesson. After the first hour, my Korean boy went off to answer the phone, and I sipped the water. As I tipped the glass back, I noticed how murky the water was, and quickly recognized the taste with a thought of "Aww dammit..." and sat there, alone in the living room with a mouthful of lake water. I discreetly had to spit it back into the cup (Hey, it's either spitting or sitting on a toilet for a day) before the boy made it back. The cup sat full all lesson long, and my mouth got more and more parched as it went. Eventually, I just kept making the boy speak to me without needing responses from me for as long as possible. I explained the situation when the mother showed up at the end of the lesson as nicely as possible, since I don't know Korean culture and didn't want to insult her. They fired the last tutor, so I'd hate to start a pattern. It went surprisingly well, and I asked a few questions about Korean and Chinese culture, and told her a bit about Canadian culture, so I don't think I've broken any international borders thus far.
And yes, Tai Hu water tastes awful.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Monday, May 28, 2007
Day 36: Soho Again?!
I'm really getting exhausted with all the trips to Soho, but it's so fun, and every time I go, I pick up more and more Chinese. I've started bringing a notepad to the bar with a pen, and Li Bin Hui and I just sit at the bar or in the back staff room and teach each other words. Other people have gotten into it too, so if he's busy serving someone, a bartender will help, or even just other patrons. My vocabulary has grown considerably because of this place.
One bad bit about Soho came up tonight. Alex, who goes to Soho even more than I do, had seen this lady before, but tonight was the first for me. She's this crazy lady up on stage, and Soho pays her presumably to sing and entertain the crowd. What she does, I do not call singing. I call it yelling too loud into the microphone. It was painful to the ears, mainly for the volume reason, but she wasn't great either. Jessica had her fingers in her ears the whole performance. The lady also drank a bottle of beer while she was up there. I say drank, but she would have said chugged. It took her forever to finish the bottle, and she had to stop halfway through. Unimpressive. My unintentional whisky chug was way better.
Also, while we were there, some people were admiring Alex's tattoo, which is the Chinese character for Dragon. They were already fairly chatty with us, but I remember their excitement when I pointed at her tattoo, then pulled up the back of my shirt and showed them an actual picture of a dragon (the tattoo on my back). From then on in, it became half of a Chinese lesson as they showed off some of their tattoos. They kept telling us the words for their tattoos. The weirdest part about this to me was that it's rare for the Chinese to get tattoos, but we happened upon a group who all had tattoos. It makes me wonder if they all have them, but actively hide them.
The last interesting bit about this night happened at the very end. Jessica was ready to go, I wanted one last drink, and Alex wanted to stay and drunkenly dance with her bartender (I'm beginning to think she's got an active crush on the guy). So I asked Li Bin Hui if he could swing us a pitcher of beer to satisfy my thirst, and give Jessica something to do while we waited for Alex to finish up.
As a bit of foreshadowing, the last time we went to Soho (the 26th), Icey - one of the gogo dancers - came up to me with a napkin saying "beer vinegar" and pointed at the free pitcher of beer I had. I told her I didn't think there was vinegar in it, she must have the wrong word, but she insisted. I couldn't taste it, so I kept drinking. This time, it tasted like I was drinking diluted vinegar, not beer. Both Jessica and I made a face and acknowledged the vinegar taste, so I asked Li Bin Hui about it. Apparently, the Chinese think vinegar and beer mixed together is "very delicious". We originally thought they were doing it to prevent us from asking for free stuff, or to cheap out on the beer, but apparently, they thought they were making the beer more enjoyable. Blech.
One bad bit about Soho came up tonight. Alex, who goes to Soho even more than I do, had seen this lady before, but tonight was the first for me. She's this crazy lady up on stage, and Soho pays her presumably to sing and entertain the crowd. What she does, I do not call singing. I call it yelling too loud into the microphone. It was painful to the ears, mainly for the volume reason, but she wasn't great either. Jessica had her fingers in her ears the whole performance. The lady also drank a bottle of beer while she was up there. I say drank, but she would have said chugged. It took her forever to finish the bottle, and she had to stop halfway through. Unimpressive. My unintentional whisky chug was way better.
Also, while we were there, some people were admiring Alex's tattoo, which is the Chinese character for Dragon. They were already fairly chatty with us, but I remember their excitement when I pointed at her tattoo, then pulled up the back of my shirt and showed them an actual picture of a dragon (the tattoo on my back). From then on in, it became half of a Chinese lesson as they showed off some of their tattoos. They kept telling us the words for their tattoos. The weirdest part about this to me was that it's rare for the Chinese to get tattoos, but we happened upon a group who all had tattoos. It makes me wonder if they all have them, but actively hide them.
The last interesting bit about this night happened at the very end. Jessica was ready to go, I wanted one last drink, and Alex wanted to stay and drunkenly dance with her bartender (I'm beginning to think she's got an active crush on the guy). So I asked Li Bin Hui if he could swing us a pitcher of beer to satisfy my thirst, and give Jessica something to do while we waited for Alex to finish up.
As a bit of foreshadowing, the last time we went to Soho (the 26th), Icey - one of the gogo dancers - came up to me with a napkin saying "beer vinegar" and pointed at the free pitcher of beer I had. I told her I didn't think there was vinegar in it, she must have the wrong word, but she insisted. I couldn't taste it, so I kept drinking. This time, it tasted like I was drinking diluted vinegar, not beer. Both Jessica and I made a face and acknowledged the vinegar taste, so I asked Li Bin Hui about it. Apparently, the Chinese think vinegar and beer mixed together is "very delicious". We originally thought they were doing it to prevent us from asking for free stuff, or to cheap out on the beer, but apparently, they thought they were making the beer more enjoyable. Blech.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Pollution In China:
Something that has always struck me as unusual here in China is the pollution. Air pollution is horrible (seriously, my snot is black, and we have to wipe the kitchen counters down daily to get rid of all the carbon in the air that has settled), but the ground has almost zero litter in the city. This is true of all the cities I've been to. I'm sure this isn't true in the small villages, or the outskirts of the cities (which quickly turn into a ghetto like environment), but to have 4 million people in Wuxi and no litter boggles my mind.
Part of the reason, as far as I can see, is because of the sheer numbers of the Chinese. Since labour is so freely available, there are people in blue coveralls picking up trash and sweeping the streets constantly. Even more effective than this are what we call the junkers. The junkers are essentially people who make a living by grabbing all the trash they can and recycling as much of it as possible. Apparently, it's quite profitable, so two interesting things occur because of this:
1) You see filthy people walking around with giant bags of crushed plastic with them (bags bigger than themselves).
2) People get excited to get your trash.
This second one is interesting. I won't even put large plastic stuff in bags anymore, I lay them in front of the dumpster, because people will run up to it all excited. They seriously yell and run for it. Fortunately, the junkers tend to work in groups, and seem to have territories, so I don't think I'll see anyone fighting someone else for my trash.
Even funnier is when I put beer bottles down by the dumpster. Now, I know there is a deposit on the bottles, but it's already so cheap (3 yuan == 44 cents CAD for a 700 mL bottle) that I honestly don't care. Even further, I bet the deposit is about one jiao (worth 0.1 yuan - the Chinese dime) and jiao are so worthless and hard to get rid of that you will see them discarded on tables or on the floor, and no one will bother to waste the time and effort to bend over in order to get the jiao. We even joke that beggars wouldn't bother to pick them up. Anyway, even non-junkers will get excited and run for the bottle, because the convenience store I bought the bottle from, and could get the deposit from is literally about 15 steps away from the dumpster. They need the money more than I do, so I just leave it and occasionally get some entertainment when someone gets excited as I walk away.
Part of the reason, as far as I can see, is because of the sheer numbers of the Chinese. Since labour is so freely available, there are people in blue coveralls picking up trash and sweeping the streets constantly. Even more effective than this are what we call the junkers. The junkers are essentially people who make a living by grabbing all the trash they can and recycling as much of it as possible. Apparently, it's quite profitable, so two interesting things occur because of this:
1) You see filthy people walking around with giant bags of crushed plastic with them (bags bigger than themselves).
2) People get excited to get your trash.
This second one is interesting. I won't even put large plastic stuff in bags anymore, I lay them in front of the dumpster, because people will run up to it all excited. They seriously yell and run for it. Fortunately, the junkers tend to work in groups, and seem to have territories, so I don't think I'll see anyone fighting someone else for my trash.
Even funnier is when I put beer bottles down by the dumpster. Now, I know there is a deposit on the bottles, but it's already so cheap (3 yuan == 44 cents CAD for a 700 mL bottle) that I honestly don't care. Even further, I bet the deposit is about one jiao (worth 0.1 yuan - the Chinese dime) and jiao are so worthless and hard to get rid of that you will see them discarded on tables or on the floor, and no one will bother to waste the time and effort to bend over in order to get the jiao. We even joke that beggars wouldn't bother to pick them up. Anyway, even non-junkers will get excited and run for the bottle, because the convenience store I bought the bottle from, and could get the deposit from is literally about 15 steps away from the dumpster. They need the money more than I do, so I just leave it and occasionally get some entertainment when someone gets excited as I walk away.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Day 34 - The Dark Soho Experience:
We went to the Soho yet again tonight. I wouldn't mention it, as normally the visits to the bar are routine: Haggle with the bartenders, get a 40 ounce bottle of vodka and some coke for 250 yuan, drink, chat with Li Bin Hui and the gogo girls, then stumble home. However, this time was a lot cooler. We only went because there was apparently some kind of party occuring today. Apparently, even days are lucky, as are Saturdays, and since 2 and 6 add up to 8 (a Chinese lucky number, or so I'm told), today is especially lucky. Chalk another one up for Chinese superstition.
Anyway, there were fireworks all over the place today, and Soho was having some special party. Li Bin Hui even text messaged me ahead of time to make sure I was coming, and he wanted to know how many people I was bringing. I'm going to guess that most, if not all, bars and anything else open late at night were celebrating tonight, because we had a brownout. The entire bar lost power. No music, no lights, nothing. It would've been pitch black, if Soho didn't have candles lit at every table as part of its look.
They lit even more candles, and kept selling booze right through, but they were facing the dilemma of entertaining the guests (ourselves included). They tried getting one of the bartenders to do his normal routine of juggling flaming bottles, but he was too drunk (possibly our fault... whoops), and the gogo dancers had nothing to dance to, so they just tried to look pretty and get people drunk.
So what happens? Drunken Laowhy attack! Jessica, Alex and Chris got up on stage, and did anything they could, while I was cheering from our table, and entertaining the tables around me. I tried to get up on stage, but Li Bin Hui told me not to, as apparently, I had been designated the job of entertaining the entire back of the bar. Li Bin Hui started bringing me free beer to cheers (Ganbay!) with people, and the girls and Chris were getting flaming shots up on stage to shoot, just to entertain people. Watching white people actually kept them happy for quite some time!
Because of all the cheers'ing we were doing, the whole night was hazy, but I'm glad I remember it all. We made a train of Chinese people, we gave English lessons, Chris and I sang on stage (everything from Happy Birthday, to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, to We Will Rock you). We Will Rock You went surprisingly well, because the beat was easy to keep, people actually helped, and they knew the lyrics, which was mind boggling! Apparently, everyone knows the words to Happy Birthday too, but they didn't like that one so much, I think because they knew it wasn't the gogo girl's birthday like we tried to pass off. Tough crowd.
Eventually, the bar stopped giving us booze (I'm told the manager is quite cheap, we get most of our free stuff from the lower employees and supervisors), so other customers starting giving us shots and drinks to keep dancing and singing. The only part of the night where I nearly got too drunk to control myself was around this time. One of the customers handed me a glass of what I thought was beer, and got me to Ganbay the bar from the stage. It turned out to be whisky. Now, the reason this hit me hard was because Ganbay is not like our version of Cheers. When someone yells Ganbay, you are expected to finish your drink, not sip from it. So I was there, up on stage with my half drunken swagger, and I yelled Ganbay and threw back my drink. Discovering that it was a full glass of whisky actually took me a few seconds after I had swallowed because my mouth was numb.
By the time 1 AM hit, most of the patrons had gone home, bored of the weird foreigners, so we took the juggling bartender, Li Bin Hui, and the gogo girls out to barbeque. It was a lot of fun, since I finally got to talk to Li Bin Hui outside of his work, and everybody sort of taught each other a bit of Chinese or English. I still struggle with the tones though. Jiao has 4 meanings I know of so far, depending on the tone (dime, name, teach, and pepper - as in green pepper). The gogo girls paid for the barbeque, which frustrated me a bit, since I know that while going out is relatively cheap for me, it isn't easy on their wallets, but I'm determined to pay the next round. Chris apparently treated them to a 200 yuan meal the other day anyway.
The Soho people are awesome. They treat us so well, they're fun, and they keep finding us ways to get free stuff, which is always a bonus. We ended the night with some arm wrestling between the Chinese guys and the White guys, and Rock Paper Scissors, which truly is an international sport. All in all, a very fun night, and I now love Chinese brownouts.
Anyway, there were fireworks all over the place today, and Soho was having some special party. Li Bin Hui even text messaged me ahead of time to make sure I was coming, and he wanted to know how many people I was bringing. I'm going to guess that most, if not all, bars and anything else open late at night were celebrating tonight, because we had a brownout. The entire bar lost power. No music, no lights, nothing. It would've been pitch black, if Soho didn't have candles lit at every table as part of its look.
They lit even more candles, and kept selling booze right through, but they were facing the dilemma of entertaining the guests (ourselves included). They tried getting one of the bartenders to do his normal routine of juggling flaming bottles, but he was too drunk (possibly our fault... whoops), and the gogo dancers had nothing to dance to, so they just tried to look pretty and get people drunk.
So what happens? Drunken Laowhy attack! Jessica, Alex and Chris got up on stage, and did anything they could, while I was cheering from our table, and entertaining the tables around me. I tried to get up on stage, but Li Bin Hui told me not to, as apparently, I had been designated the job of entertaining the entire back of the bar. Li Bin Hui started bringing me free beer to cheers (Ganbay!) with people, and the girls and Chris were getting flaming shots up on stage to shoot, just to entertain people. Watching white people actually kept them happy for quite some time!
Because of all the cheers'ing we were doing, the whole night was hazy, but I'm glad I remember it all. We made a train of Chinese people, we gave English lessons, Chris and I sang on stage (everything from Happy Birthday, to Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, to We Will Rock you). We Will Rock You went surprisingly well, because the beat was easy to keep, people actually helped, and they knew the lyrics, which was mind boggling! Apparently, everyone knows the words to Happy Birthday too, but they didn't like that one so much, I think because they knew it wasn't the gogo girl's birthday like we tried to pass off. Tough crowd.
Eventually, the bar stopped giving us booze (I'm told the manager is quite cheap, we get most of our free stuff from the lower employees and supervisors), so other customers starting giving us shots and drinks to keep dancing and singing. The only part of the night where I nearly got too drunk to control myself was around this time. One of the customers handed me a glass of what I thought was beer, and got me to Ganbay the bar from the stage. It turned out to be whisky. Now, the reason this hit me hard was because Ganbay is not like our version of Cheers. When someone yells Ganbay, you are expected to finish your drink, not sip from it. So I was there, up on stage with my half drunken swagger, and I yelled Ganbay and threw back my drink. Discovering that it was a full glass of whisky actually took me a few seconds after I had swallowed because my mouth was numb.
By the time 1 AM hit, most of the patrons had gone home, bored of the weird foreigners, so we took the juggling bartender, Li Bin Hui, and the gogo girls out to barbeque. It was a lot of fun, since I finally got to talk to Li Bin Hui outside of his work, and everybody sort of taught each other a bit of Chinese or English. I still struggle with the tones though. Jiao has 4 meanings I know of so far, depending on the tone (dime, name, teach, and pepper - as in green pepper). The gogo girls paid for the barbeque, which frustrated me a bit, since I know that while going out is relatively cheap for me, it isn't easy on their wallets, but I'm determined to pay the next round. Chris apparently treated them to a 200 yuan meal the other day anyway.
The Soho people are awesome. They treat us so well, they're fun, and they keep finding us ways to get free stuff, which is always a bonus. We ended the night with some arm wrestling between the Chinese guys and the White guys, and Rock Paper Scissors, which truly is an international sport. All in all, a very fun night, and I now love Chinese brownouts.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Day 33 - Electronics and Nan Chan Se
Chris and I made it out to the electronics market today (finally). This place was called Dream World, and to a rich geek, it really would be. Four floors of computer parts of all types. I say rich geek, because a lot of tech stuff is more expensive in China, despite it being manufactured here. My theory is because of shipping costs. I'm fairly certain that the stuff is manufactured, then sent to Canada/USA/wherever to be assembled/packaged (so they can claim it is an American product, or wherever it was assembled), then it gets sent back to China for retail sale.
A second contributor to the price problem is clearly the colour of my skin. I was asking around the floor that had video cards all over the place for a certain model of video card that is quite new. I know the high end version of this goes for upwards of 600 bucks CAD (as of the time I left Canada, anyway). The low end version sells for 250-300 bucks CAD. They offered me the low end version, for the high end price. I laughed and said no. Sometimes, I think they forget that my lack of mastery on the language does not equal stupidity. I wouldn't be asking model numbers and questions about memory if I didn't know what I wanted and what price to expect.
Eventually, Chris and I found a spot that carried laptop batteries and I communicated (mostly with pen and paper) that I needed a laptop battery for the plane ride back. This went fine, as I brought the model number (see?!) of the battery, my laptop, along with the voltage ratings and the mAh of the battery. My problem was that they clearly didn't know much about batteries, as I wanted a high charge battery (something with higher mAh) to hold a longer charge. The plane ride is 12 hours, and I only have battery power for 3 of them. They kept saying a higher mAh wasn't doable, or that it would damage the laptop. I insisted, so they called their provider.
"Provider" is simply the term I've given the mysterious men on the other side of the phone call. Every shop that doesn't have what you want, can get it within two days from some mystery man only a phone call away. I suspect it's just a family member sitting at home checking out Chinese eBay, or something along those lines. It's mildly suspicious, and I know the legality is probably a bit of a gray area, but it's nothing abnormal in China.
The provider came up with a battery close to what I want (7200 mAh, which should get me around 5 hours more laptop time), but I was looking for something closer to 9000 mAh. I'm still not sure I'm going to buy it even now after the event, but I humoured them and got a price. Surprisingly, the extended life battery was equivalent to about 77 bucks CAD. This is (I think, you can never be sure in China) a great price, relatively speaking. In Canada, an extended life battery goes for well over 100, sometimes even over 200. However, I hadn't even haggled yet, so this low price threw me off. I started wondering if the battery was new or refurbished, or if they were somehow screwing with me, so I got a bit scared off. I told them I'd think, and come back. They didn't like that so much, I got a lot of resistance and "You pay deposit now, pay now!"
Chris and I also headed over to Nan Chan Se, where we got prices for modded PS2's (for Rob), looked at some games, and just random adventuring. What amazed me is how efficient Chris and I are shopping together. I've said before that doing something in China usually takes setting aside the whole day, but Chris and I got through the electronic market in 2 hours, finding everything I wanted and then some, plus when we got to Nan Chan Se, I got a belt (finally!) and sunglasses. I had set aside a day of belt/sunglasses shopping before, and gotten nothing done. Today, I had gotten a good idea of my battery situation, prices and locations of the PS2's, an "authentic" Caivin Klein leather belt (that's NOT a typo), and polarized sunglasses. It was the most productive day I've had in China yet.
A second contributor to the price problem is clearly the colour of my skin. I was asking around the floor that had video cards all over the place for a certain model of video card that is quite new. I know the high end version of this goes for upwards of 600 bucks CAD (as of the time I left Canada, anyway). The low end version sells for 250-300 bucks CAD. They offered me the low end version, for the high end price. I laughed and said no. Sometimes, I think they forget that my lack of mastery on the language does not equal stupidity. I wouldn't be asking model numbers and questions about memory if I didn't know what I wanted and what price to expect.
Eventually, Chris and I found a spot that carried laptop batteries and I communicated (mostly with pen and paper) that I needed a laptop battery for the plane ride back. This went fine, as I brought the model number (see?!) of the battery, my laptop, along with the voltage ratings and the mAh of the battery. My problem was that they clearly didn't know much about batteries, as I wanted a high charge battery (something with higher mAh) to hold a longer charge. The plane ride is 12 hours, and I only have battery power for 3 of them. They kept saying a higher mAh wasn't doable, or that it would damage the laptop. I insisted, so they called their provider.
"Provider" is simply the term I've given the mysterious men on the other side of the phone call. Every shop that doesn't have what you want, can get it within two days from some mystery man only a phone call away. I suspect it's just a family member sitting at home checking out Chinese eBay, or something along those lines. It's mildly suspicious, and I know the legality is probably a bit of a gray area, but it's nothing abnormal in China.
The provider came up with a battery close to what I want (7200 mAh, which should get me around 5 hours more laptop time), but I was looking for something closer to 9000 mAh. I'm still not sure I'm going to buy it even now after the event, but I humoured them and got a price. Surprisingly, the extended life battery was equivalent to about 77 bucks CAD. This is (I think, you can never be sure in China) a great price, relatively speaking. In Canada, an extended life battery goes for well over 100, sometimes even over 200. However, I hadn't even haggled yet, so this low price threw me off. I started wondering if the battery was new or refurbished, or if they were somehow screwing with me, so I got a bit scared off. I told them I'd think, and come back. They didn't like that so much, I got a lot of resistance and "You pay deposit now, pay now!"
Chris and I also headed over to Nan Chan Se, where we got prices for modded PS2's (for Rob), looked at some games, and just random adventuring. What amazed me is how efficient Chris and I are shopping together. I've said before that doing something in China usually takes setting aside the whole day, but Chris and I got through the electronic market in 2 hours, finding everything I wanted and then some, plus when we got to Nan Chan Se, I got a belt (finally!) and sunglasses. I had set aside a day of belt/sunglasses shopping before, and gotten nothing done. Today, I had gotten a good idea of my battery situation, prices and locations of the PS2's, an "authentic" Caivin Klein leather belt (that's NOT a typo), and polarized sunglasses. It was the most productive day I've had in China yet.
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Finally!
I'm getting started on posting all the stuff I've written over the past month. Sorry it took so long to get online, but Internet's hard for me to get to, and wireless signals are few and far between here.
Here we go...
Here we go...
Monday, May 21, 2007
Bowel Movements:
Disclaimer: If the title didn't tip you off, this is going to be a bit of a crude post, so those with weak stomachs, bladders and the faint hearted should not go on. As for the rest of you, consider yourselves warned.
Just once in China, just once, I'd like to walk out of the bathroom without thinking something along the lines of "Well, I don't know what just happened, but that was weird!". Travelling to China apparently makes just about everyone (the foreigners, anyway) talk very openly about bowel movements. Questions like "So... you solid?" are not uncommon in my apartment. The worst part, in my opinion, is that you never know what's going to happen when you walk ominously into the bathroom. You just know it probably isn't going to go well. It is for this reason I have decided to classify the behaviours of my unforgiving digestive system:
"Solid Shit"
A rarity in China, this one is a normal trip to the bathroom to those of you in first world countries.
"Mud Butt"
This is where I feel like I'm peeing brown out my ass. It's severely dehydrating as well.
"The Plug"
You sit (or squat, if a western toilet is not accessible) and start off with something like a Solid Shit. Typically, this has a constipated beginning, followed by great relief when a normal poop begins. Once the first one drops (the plug), the rest of your time in the washroom is spent enjoying the wonders of Mud Butt, or something like it. This is often accompanied by many thoughts of "Why can't my ass make up its mind?!" and "Oh God, what next?". If I were religious, this would probably also include prayers.
"Rapid Fire"
A constant flow of little soft bullets coming out of your behind. None are terribly large, and the consistency is not great, though far more preferable to the infamous Mud Butt.
Earlier in the blog, I posted something about customers warning me at Staples that when I am in China, I am going to have low grade diarrhea. This has not been totally true, though it is becoming more true as time goes on and I've been in China longer.
I also mentioned something about Western toilets and Squat toilets. I have found there's about a 30-40% chance of getting a Western sit-down toilet in any given store. Squat toilets are a bit of an adventure, though often frustrating, because they take too much concentration. You have to make sure you hit the target (the bowl), you have to keep squatting in the same position, you have to make sure you don't pee on yourself, you have to make sure you don't poop on your pants, and it's all just too much work. I want to just sit down and wait for it. That's it. Especially since kids use the squat toilets too, and suck at aiming.
Just once in China, just once, I'd like to walk out of the bathroom without thinking something along the lines of "Well, I don't know what just happened, but that was weird!". Travelling to China apparently makes just about everyone (the foreigners, anyway) talk very openly about bowel movements. Questions like "So... you solid?" are not uncommon in my apartment. The worst part, in my opinion, is that you never know what's going to happen when you walk ominously into the bathroom. You just know it probably isn't going to go well. It is for this reason I have decided to classify the behaviours of my unforgiving digestive system:
"Solid Shit"
A rarity in China, this one is a normal trip to the bathroom to those of you in first world countries.
"Mud Butt"
This is where I feel like I'm peeing brown out my ass. It's severely dehydrating as well.
"The Plug"
You sit (or squat, if a western toilet is not accessible) and start off with something like a Solid Shit. Typically, this has a constipated beginning, followed by great relief when a normal poop begins. Once the first one drops (the plug), the rest of your time in the washroom is spent enjoying the wonders of Mud Butt, or something like it. This is often accompanied by many thoughts of "Why can't my ass make up its mind?!" and "Oh God, what next?". If I were religious, this would probably also include prayers.
"Rapid Fire"
A constant flow of little soft bullets coming out of your behind. None are terribly large, and the consistency is not great, though far more preferable to the infamous Mud Butt.
Earlier in the blog, I posted something about customers warning me at Staples that when I am in China, I am going to have low grade diarrhea. This has not been totally true, though it is becoming more true as time goes on and I've been in China longer.
I also mentioned something about Western toilets and Squat toilets. I have found there's about a 30-40% chance of getting a Western sit-down toilet in any given store. Squat toilets are a bit of an adventure, though often frustrating, because they take too much concentration. You have to make sure you hit the target (the bowl), you have to keep squatting in the same position, you have to make sure you don't pee on yourself, you have to make sure you don't poop on your pants, and it's all just too much work. I want to just sit down and wait for it. That's it. Especially since kids use the squat toilets too, and suck at aiming.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Day 21 – 28: May 13th to May 20th - Redemption and Making A Friend
Friday night, we went back to Soho, and I was determined not to make an ass of myself again. We had a lot of excited people greet us again, and since I had my cell phone and camera this time, I got Li Bin Hui's picture and phone number. I told him if he showed me around Wuxi, and taught me some Chinese, I'd help him learn more English (he's pretty decent as he is now). He seemed very excited, and when I text messaged him the next day, he made it clear that he'd like to another time, but this weekend was too busy for him.
Anyway, long story short, the same bottle cost us 250, but I got 4 cokes out of it. It's clear now that, as always, buying bulk gets you better prices. The first bottle will never be as cheap as the second. Even so, we had a good time, and one of the bartenders gave us a bottle of wine. Chinese wine is... interesting. I like red wine, and that's what we happened to get, but it just wasn't right, in some inexplicable way. The Chinese chill their red wines, and if you ask for wine in Chinese, you don't actually get wine. You have to ask for grape wine to get red wine, and there is no white wine here. Asking for wine gets you Chinese liquor, which is apparently very strong, but nasty. I'll try it another time. I did end up redeeming myself, walking out of there responsibly, and very happy since I had gotten the waiter's number. My first Chinese friend! Eat your hearts out, Tommy and Fred! You got nothing on real China.
Anyway, long story short, the same bottle cost us 250, but I got 4 cokes out of it. It's clear now that, as always, buying bulk gets you better prices. The first bottle will never be as cheap as the second. Even so, we had a good time, and one of the bartenders gave us a bottle of wine. Chinese wine is... interesting. I like red wine, and that's what we happened to get, but it just wasn't right, in some inexplicable way. The Chinese chill their red wines, and if you ask for wine in Chinese, you don't actually get wine. You have to ask for grape wine to get red wine, and there is no white wine here. Asking for wine gets you Chinese liquor, which is apparently very strong, but nasty. I'll try it another time. I did end up redeeming myself, walking out of there responsibly, and very happy since I had gotten the waiter's number. My first Chinese friend! Eat your hearts out, Tommy and Fred! You got nothing on real China.
Day 21 – 28: May 13th to May 20th - Shopping
On Alex's days off, we went out to a few places. We went to Nan Chan Se, which is a giant market area, with a lot of crap, for insane markups, but every once in a while you find a gem. Alex noticed the old Tamagotchi games we used to play as a kid. They're the little electronic pets you'd keep on a keychain, and press buttons to feed, pet, etc. These ones could talk to each other through infrared though, so it was pretty cool. We're going back to buy a few, since you get better deals in bulk.
I also saw a few sunglasses shops, but it's hard to tell which ones are good and which aren't. Price is definitely not an indicator, as many will sell theirs with giant markups to make us think they're good, others will be honest and offer prices more realistic to them, and some seem like they're good prices, but are actually crap. I stopped at one shop and tried on a few pairs, and she had a little box you could hold and while wearing the glasses, you could see the circles in the box (meaning they're polarized sunglasses), but I still don't know if they have UV protection, and I'm not partial to cancer. Wearing sunglasses without UV protection is horrible for the eyes, since your pupils actually open more to let in more light, and therefore more cancerous UV. She also wanted 90 yuan for them, which was disgustingly priced, so we walked out on her. I'll go back and get a pair soon enough as well.
The last thing worth mentioning was the pet aisle, which was fun and sad, all at once. It was a small alley way that was covered in shade, and people were selling all sorts of animals, from dogs and cats, to snakes and lizards, to fish of all sorts, to gerbils and mice. None of the animals were stored in a way that any North American would call humane (four or five puppies crammed into a cage meant for maybe one full grown cat). Lots of very hairy dogs meant for cold climates too, which I've noticed is very trendy here in China. The rich people love to have really thick coat dogs. Huskies and the like. It's sad, so the end result of the alley was a “Oh that's terrible, but they're sooooo cute” dilemma.
The next day, Alex and I went out for random chores and got a surprisingly large number of things done, considering how confused and complicated things can be here (China's so inefficient sometimes). She stopped at a little Claire's-like store and bought a few nail polishes, and other random girly crap, and we went out and finally got around to buying me a cell phone. We shopped around at a few stores, and finally found one with one for about 250 yuan, but the one I saw for 195 yuan when I first got to China was nowhere to be seen. It seems it was a clearance price, because this one was the next model up (it looked identical). They also wouldn't haggle, not even a single yuan. I was disappointed, I love the haggling part. We also bought a bunch of these little squishy toys that have to be seen to be believed. They're liquid inside, so you throw them at walls, or floors, and they flatten out, but slowly regain their shape again. I bought a bunch of them, and got a good deal on them (or I think so, it's so hard to tell here). The guy wanted 5 yuan each, I got 6 of them for 20 yuan. I probably could have gotten cheaper, because he agreed quickly, but either way, a lady in Nan Chan Se wanted 10 yuan each so I feel I got a decent deal. It takes so much getting used to just how cheap everything really is. Converting to Canadian prices is a haggler's worst enemy, because when you think “Oh, it's just over three bucks, no problem”, you've just gotten ripped off about 2 bucks. Thinking about how much we pay for the same products in Canada now makes me sick.
Alex and I also took off to the fabric market, which we nicknamed “FabricLand” (after the North American store). It's really cool, there's a bunch of tailors standing around, with huge rolls of different fabrics, of all different colours and patterns (even camouflage green), and you can have whatever you want made from them. I looked around, and it's a bit overwhelming, so I plan on bringing Jessica for her fashion sense, and I'll have one of them make a suit for me. I already asked and the suit jacket should cost around 40 yuan (before haggling) to make. This is a great example of why converting prices is a bad idea in China. 40 yuan is less than 8 bucks, for a custom tailored suit jacket. If the tailor does a good job, I plan on having about 6 more done, and I may get a random colour suit made just for the hell of it (since they're so cheap). I'm thinking camouflage.
I also saw a few sunglasses shops, but it's hard to tell which ones are good and which aren't. Price is definitely not an indicator, as many will sell theirs with giant markups to make us think they're good, others will be honest and offer prices more realistic to them, and some seem like they're good prices, but are actually crap. I stopped at one shop and tried on a few pairs, and she had a little box you could hold and while wearing the glasses, you could see the circles in the box (meaning they're polarized sunglasses), but I still don't know if they have UV protection, and I'm not partial to cancer. Wearing sunglasses without UV protection is horrible for the eyes, since your pupils actually open more to let in more light, and therefore more cancerous UV. She also wanted 90 yuan for them, which was disgustingly priced, so we walked out on her. I'll go back and get a pair soon enough as well.
The last thing worth mentioning was the pet aisle, which was fun and sad, all at once. It was a small alley way that was covered in shade, and people were selling all sorts of animals, from dogs and cats, to snakes and lizards, to fish of all sorts, to gerbils and mice. None of the animals were stored in a way that any North American would call humane (four or five puppies crammed into a cage meant for maybe one full grown cat). Lots of very hairy dogs meant for cold climates too, which I've noticed is very trendy here in China. The rich people love to have really thick coat dogs. Huskies and the like. It's sad, so the end result of the alley was a “Oh that's terrible, but they're sooooo cute” dilemma.
The next day, Alex and I went out for random chores and got a surprisingly large number of things done, considering how confused and complicated things can be here (China's so inefficient sometimes). She stopped at a little Claire's-like store and bought a few nail polishes, and other random girly crap, and we went out and finally got around to buying me a cell phone. We shopped around at a few stores, and finally found one with one for about 250 yuan, but the one I saw for 195 yuan when I first got to China was nowhere to be seen. It seems it was a clearance price, because this one was the next model up (it looked identical). They also wouldn't haggle, not even a single yuan. I was disappointed, I love the haggling part. We also bought a bunch of these little squishy toys that have to be seen to be believed. They're liquid inside, so you throw them at walls, or floors, and they flatten out, but slowly regain their shape again. I bought a bunch of them, and got a good deal on them (or I think so, it's so hard to tell here). The guy wanted 5 yuan each, I got 6 of them for 20 yuan. I probably could have gotten cheaper, because he agreed quickly, but either way, a lady in Nan Chan Se wanted 10 yuan each so I feel I got a decent deal. It takes so much getting used to just how cheap everything really is. Converting to Canadian prices is a haggler's worst enemy, because when you think “Oh, it's just over three bucks, no problem”, you've just gotten ripped off about 2 bucks. Thinking about how much we pay for the same products in Canada now makes me sick.
Alex and I also took off to the fabric market, which we nicknamed “FabricLand” (after the North American store). It's really cool, there's a bunch of tailors standing around, with huge rolls of different fabrics, of all different colours and patterns (even camouflage green), and you can have whatever you want made from them. I looked around, and it's a bit overwhelming, so I plan on bringing Jessica for her fashion sense, and I'll have one of them make a suit for me. I already asked and the suit jacket should cost around 40 yuan (before haggling) to make. This is a great example of why converting prices is a bad idea in China. 40 yuan is less than 8 bucks, for a custom tailored suit jacket. If the tailor does a good job, I plan on having about 6 more done, and I may get a random colour suit made just for the hell of it (since they're so cheap). I'm thinking camouflage.
Day 21 – 28: May 13th to May 20th - Drinking
This week had a very different feel to it, since the girls were at work. I never actually went to the electronics market, but did a lot of other things I didn't expect. Mainly, I didn't make it to the electronics market because for 4 of the days, one or the other was on their weekend, so I had company. Since neither of them are geeks, I didn't want to subject them to that. The other days on my own have consisted largely of sleeping in until about anywhere from 10 to noon, then either doing chores and random cleaning around the apartment, or just relaxing. A game called Civilization, revealed to me by Paul and Rob (my housemates) has been a bane to my Chinese experience. I hated it when I started, but it kept calling me back, and has become something I don't want to do, but can't stop playing.
What I have actually accomplished this week has still been noticeable, and quite entertaining for me. Jessica had Monday and Tuesday off. Monday night was nuts. We went to a bar (Soho), which turned out to be pretty good. The music was loud, they had dancing girls with little tops on, and my favourite part: the alcohol. Instead of paying for one drink at a time, we bought a 40 of Absolut Vodka, which was great, because we didn't have to do anything. They reserved a table for us, and we had a personal waiter make drinks, and bring out food (fruit plates and nuts). I definitely went on a power trip, because they treated us way too well. The dancers came over after their shift, and talked to us (Chris got one of their numbers), and people would watch in awe when we danced on stage. The dancers even brought us up on their individual platforms to dance with them.
Unfortunately, the ego booster ended sharply soon enough. We had finished the bottle, and we were all feeling fine, so Chris and I went in the back (literally, we walked into the staff room) and Li Bin Hui (our waiter) tried to sell us another bottle. Well, I was the only one who still wanted to drink, everyone else was satiated, so I just wanted a few glasses of rye and coke. In his sales pitch, Li Bin Hui let it slip that bottles of Absolut cost 150, so my trying to haggle for a more expensive rye didn't make sense (I was trying to get a price around 150). So instead of buying the rye, we bought the Absolut at close to at cost, with some free cans of coke to boot. Chris had paid over 250 for the first bottle of Absolut, and he had talked them down from 400, thinking he got a good deal! So we were ecstatic when we got this bottle for 170 with coke to boot. That was easily part of my downfall.
In the end, I got ridiculously drunk because I was drinking too much, too fast, and due to the power trip I was on, I wouldn't stop drinking. I kept giving cheers to people, especially our waiter, and had more than my fair share. I ended up losing my balance sitting down on a chair, and stumbling backwards into a table and chairs, cutting my head in two places (the back, where I smacked it, and some mysterious cut appeared at the front somehow in the fall as well). Here's the best part of just how eager they were to stroke our egos. Rather than kick me out for being drunk, as they would in Canada, the bouncer picked me up, and helped me sit down so I could drink more. Suffice to say, the night did not end well.
The morning came, and no hangover, surprisingly enough, but I couldn't stomach food until the evening. Jessica went out to settle her tutor job with the Korean lady Sabrina had been pushing on her all week, and I sat at home and finished 1984 (good book!). By night fall, I was finally able to stomach a meal, and Tuesday went out quietly into the night.
What I have actually accomplished this week has still been noticeable, and quite entertaining for me. Jessica had Monday and Tuesday off. Monday night was nuts. We went to a bar (Soho), which turned out to be pretty good. The music was loud, they had dancing girls with little tops on, and my favourite part: the alcohol. Instead of paying for one drink at a time, we bought a 40 of Absolut Vodka, which was great, because we didn't have to do anything. They reserved a table for us, and we had a personal waiter make drinks, and bring out food (fruit plates and nuts). I definitely went on a power trip, because they treated us way too well. The dancers came over after their shift, and talked to us (Chris got one of their numbers), and people would watch in awe when we danced on stage. The dancers even brought us up on their individual platforms to dance with them.
Unfortunately, the ego booster ended sharply soon enough. We had finished the bottle, and we were all feeling fine, so Chris and I went in the back (literally, we walked into the staff room) and Li Bin Hui (our waiter) tried to sell us another bottle. Well, I was the only one who still wanted to drink, everyone else was satiated, so I just wanted a few glasses of rye and coke. In his sales pitch, Li Bin Hui let it slip that bottles of Absolut cost 150, so my trying to haggle for a more expensive rye didn't make sense (I was trying to get a price around 150). So instead of buying the rye, we bought the Absolut at close to at cost, with some free cans of coke to boot. Chris had paid over 250 for the first bottle of Absolut, and he had talked them down from 400, thinking he got a good deal! So we were ecstatic when we got this bottle for 170 with coke to boot. That was easily part of my downfall.
In the end, I got ridiculously drunk because I was drinking too much, too fast, and due to the power trip I was on, I wouldn't stop drinking. I kept giving cheers to people, especially our waiter, and had more than my fair share. I ended up losing my balance sitting down on a chair, and stumbling backwards into a table and chairs, cutting my head in two places (the back, where I smacked it, and some mysterious cut appeared at the front somehow in the fall as well). Here's the best part of just how eager they were to stroke our egos. Rather than kick me out for being drunk, as they would in Canada, the bouncer picked me up, and helped me sit down so I could drink more. Suffice to say, the night did not end well.
The morning came, and no hangover, surprisingly enough, but I couldn't stomach food until the evening. Jessica went out to settle her tutor job with the Korean lady Sabrina had been pushing on her all week, and I sat at home and finished 1984 (good book!). By night fall, I was finally able to stomach a meal, and Tuesday went out quietly into the night.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
Day 14 - 20: May 6th to May 12th - Finally Relaxing
This last week has been very mellow, since we've finally gotten a chance to relax. Basically, we've spent the time slowly exploring Wuxi, sleeping, figuring out how we're going to cook with only a kettle (lots of boiled eggs and coffee). The girls will be working starting tomorrow or Monday, so tomorrow will be the first real day I'll be on my own. I figure I'll just be out walking around trying to chat up some natives (the reverse foreigner effect) and picking up Mandarin. The Muslim restaurant down the street is very friendly towards me, so I'm sure I'll be able to chat with them a bit.
I also plan on going to the electronics market when the girls aren't around, so they don't have to deal with the geekiness. I'll have to keep my eye open for a glare filter and a battery for my laptop. I consider the tourist vacation over as of tomorrow, and my real experiences living in China will begin. The honeymoon phase ends here.
I also plan on going to the electronics market when the girls aren't around, so they don't have to deal with the geekiness. I'll have to keep my eye open for a glare filter and a battery for my laptop. I consider the tourist vacation over as of tomorrow, and my real experiences living in China will begin. The honeymoon phase ends here.
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Day 13: May 5th - Standing Tickets
I now think standing tickets are awesome. The train ride was really fun, and we wouldn't have met nearly as many people if we were sitting. By standing, the foreigner effect was at full power, because everyone could see us. There wasn't a set of eyes in our car that weren't gawking at us at one time or another. It all started with a lady coming through selling shoe soles and socks. Trains in China are always full of people going up and down the aisle selling random shit. She saw us, and immediately tried to push these things on us. Chris was bored, so he started acting like he was interested, and because he loves to haggle, kept trying to get a better price. He offered 5, then 6, and she wouldn't budge, but she wouldn't leave either, because she had a sale lined up. Chris did it all so vocally, that most of the car was standing up and watching the transaction. We even had someone jump in and translate for us. When all was said and done (and pictures taken), Chris had gotten two packs for 10 yuan, which is funny, because it was equivalent to her selling them for the original offer of 5 yuan. She would've been better off selling them for 6. Oh well, it was a great laugh, and Chris actually wore them for the train ride. After all, we were standing.
I think it was mainly that act that really popularized us, since after that, many of them saw we were nice, and fun, so they tried chatting with us, even if they didn't speak English. We met a really nice guy from Beijing, who Jessica got a cell phone number from, so when we go to Beijing, we'll be able to coordinate with him. We also met someone from the Chinese Army, who spoke decent enough English, and there were a few other guys who didn't know any English, but were awesome anyway. People lent us seats when they felt like standing, or went for a smoke, and were so friendly and hospitable, it was incredible. This was a genuine experience I don't think I would've gotten in Canada. In Canada, if you get up to go to the bathroom, and come back to someone else in your seat, it's rude, and you'll probably kick them out. In China, it's a war to give the guy his own seat back. “No really, YOU sit down” until eventually no one sits in the seat at all, or someone else grabs the seat. The army guy also pulled a stool out from nowhere, so we actually get to sit down.
Once we arrived in Nanjing, we booted it to the ticket office, and Jessica managed to get us 4 standing tickets on the train to Wuxi. This one was a lot more mellow, since at this time, it was about 2 or 3 AM, and everyone was asleep. We eventually managed to squeeze into some seats, and fall asleep until we got to our station, and made a quiet re-entrance to Wuxi, finally getting home just before sunrise. It was unusual to see the streets so quiet, but what's interesting about China is that everyone seems to follow the same basic schedule, so after a certain time, there's almost no one on the streets at all.
I think it was mainly that act that really popularized us, since after that, many of them saw we were nice, and fun, so they tried chatting with us, even if they didn't speak English. We met a really nice guy from Beijing, who Jessica got a cell phone number from, so when we go to Beijing, we'll be able to coordinate with him. We also met someone from the Chinese Army, who spoke decent enough English, and there were a few other guys who didn't know any English, but were awesome anyway. People lent us seats when they felt like standing, or went for a smoke, and were so friendly and hospitable, it was incredible. This was a genuine experience I don't think I would've gotten in Canada. In Canada, if you get up to go to the bathroom, and come back to someone else in your seat, it's rude, and you'll probably kick them out. In China, it's a war to give the guy his own seat back. “No really, YOU sit down” until eventually no one sits in the seat at all, or someone else grabs the seat. The army guy also pulled a stool out from nowhere, so we actually get to sit down.
Once we arrived in Nanjing, we booted it to the ticket office, and Jessica managed to get us 4 standing tickets on the train to Wuxi. This one was a lot more mellow, since at this time, it was about 2 or 3 AM, and everyone was asleep. We eventually managed to squeeze into some seats, and fall asleep until we got to our station, and made a quiet re-entrance to Wuxi, finally getting home just before sunrise. It was unusual to see the streets so quiet, but what's interesting about China is that everyone seems to follow the same basic schedule, so after a certain time, there's almost no one on the streets at all.
Day 13: May 5th - Mountains in Xuzhou
We eventually got out of the museum, way earlier than expected, and still had about 4-5 hours to kill. We were too indecisive to know which of the other two attractions we wanted to see, so we walked way down the street to find a restaurant. It took forever to find a restaurant, which was weird because the whole street smelled of food. We sat down and had some soup, then started heading back. This is when I found out how cheap ice cream was. We got back in front of the museum, and couldn't decide if we wanted to cross the road to walk along the mountain and/or take the lift to the top, or if we wanted to do something else.
In our indecisiveness, and Jessica's slow progress on her ice cream, the rest of us wandered into a nearby souvenir shop. Chris was snapping pictures of everything, which I gather pissed them off, but the ladies running the shop never actually confronted him, so he got away with it. There was some cool stuff in there, as well as a lot of jade stuff, but I wouldn't dare buy jade from a souvenir shop because it's easy to fake, and I wouldn't want to buy some expensive jade piece and find out it was, like everything else, pirated, and therefore worthless.
However, a nice yellow candle holder thingy (I have no idea what to actually call it, but I know its purpose) caught my eye. It was tall, and hollow on the inside to hold candles, and since the piece was translucent, it would glow if the candle was lit. It was covered in Chinese dragons, and anyone who knows me, knows I'm engrossed with dragons, so I was immediately drawn to it. It was 135 yuan, though. Now, I know I'm getting used to the Chinese values, because I considered that “expensive”, when it's still only 20 bucks CAD. I managed to talk her down to 100 yuan, thanks in part to Alex helping me by acting as the "Don't pay that, let's leave" cheapskate woman (A classic negotiation ploy), but I think I still got taken for a bit. I would've like to have paid about 80 yuan, but I still consider it a victory for my first Chinese haggle.
Finally, after all was said and done, we finally decided to go up to the mountain. This was interesting, because the majority of the entrance was nothing but cheap crap and beggars trying to get more money out of us. Alex and Chris got pulled into some shooting competition, where you had an air rifle and tried to shoot balloons, which was fun, but afterwards, despite both of them popping 4/5 balloons, there was no prize. Mildly disappointing, but whatever.
More cheap crap for sale as we went up the mountain along the stairs, and we stopped, both for Jessica being lazy, and so Alex and Chris could have a smoke. At this point, some other Chinese tourists on the mountain started yelling and pointing at us, and took a billion pictures with us, just for being white. It was mildly irritating, but they were funny in their ecstasy anyway, so I went with it. As we progressed through the paths, we saw them again, and once again, they took a million pictures of us, posing with us, etc. Chris and I started taking pictures of them taking pictures to make fun of them, but they completely misunderstood, and started posing with the girls. I laughed and just kept taking pictures, because of how unusual this all was.
We ended up not taking the lift, or going terribly far, and left out of a different exit, since half of us were exhausted, and the other half had to pee. We went back to the train station and killed the rest of the time waiting at McDonalds. We caught more people trying to take pictures of us, and we're starting to think of starting a Facebook group dedicated to pictures of other people taking pictures of you. It's hard to catch, because they're always trying to sneak pictures of us, rather than ask. By the time my camera gets out, they've already snuck a few, and go back to pretending they're not looking at us.
I also had a weird experience in the washroom. The smaller the town, the less exposure these people get to white people, so overall, the foreigner effect was higher in Xuzhou. They were much more excited to see us, and we had many more people approach us. Unfortunately, I got this in the washroom. While waiting for a stall, someone else (also waiting for a stall) starting chatting with me. This was just plain awkward, and I think he knew it, but the foreigner effect was too strong for him to resist. He just had to have a conversation with me. It was easily the most awkward, and bizarre conversation I had in Xuzhou.
In our indecisiveness, and Jessica's slow progress on her ice cream, the rest of us wandered into a nearby souvenir shop. Chris was snapping pictures of everything, which I gather pissed them off, but the ladies running the shop never actually confronted him, so he got away with it. There was some cool stuff in there, as well as a lot of jade stuff, but I wouldn't dare buy jade from a souvenir shop because it's easy to fake, and I wouldn't want to buy some expensive jade piece and find out it was, like everything else, pirated, and therefore worthless.
However, a nice yellow candle holder thingy (I have no idea what to actually call it, but I know its purpose) caught my eye. It was tall, and hollow on the inside to hold candles, and since the piece was translucent, it would glow if the candle was lit. It was covered in Chinese dragons, and anyone who knows me, knows I'm engrossed with dragons, so I was immediately drawn to it. It was 135 yuan, though. Now, I know I'm getting used to the Chinese values, because I considered that “expensive”, when it's still only 20 bucks CAD. I managed to talk her down to 100 yuan, thanks in part to Alex helping me by acting as the "Don't pay that, let's leave" cheapskate woman (A classic negotiation ploy), but I think I still got taken for a bit. I would've like to have paid about 80 yuan, but I still consider it a victory for my first Chinese haggle.
Finally, after all was said and done, we finally decided to go up to the mountain. This was interesting, because the majority of the entrance was nothing but cheap crap and beggars trying to get more money out of us. Alex and Chris got pulled into some shooting competition, where you had an air rifle and tried to shoot balloons, which was fun, but afterwards, despite both of them popping 4/5 balloons, there was no prize. Mildly disappointing, but whatever.
More cheap crap for sale as we went up the mountain along the stairs, and we stopped, both for Jessica being lazy, and so Alex and Chris could have a smoke. At this point, some other Chinese tourists on the mountain started yelling and pointing at us, and took a billion pictures with us, just for being white. It was mildly irritating, but they were funny in their ecstasy anyway, so I went with it. As we progressed through the paths, we saw them again, and once again, they took a million pictures of us, posing with us, etc. Chris and I started taking pictures of them taking pictures to make fun of them, but they completely misunderstood, and started posing with the girls. I laughed and just kept taking pictures, because of how unusual this all was.
We ended up not taking the lift, or going terribly far, and left out of a different exit, since half of us were exhausted, and the other half had to pee. We went back to the train station and killed the rest of the time waiting at McDonalds. We caught more people trying to take pictures of us, and we're starting to think of starting a Facebook group dedicated to pictures of other people taking pictures of you. It's hard to catch, because they're always trying to sneak pictures of us, rather than ask. By the time my camera gets out, they've already snuck a few, and go back to pretending they're not looking at us.
I also had a weird experience in the washroom. The smaller the town, the less exposure these people get to white people, so overall, the foreigner effect was higher in Xuzhou. They were much more excited to see us, and we had many more people approach us. Unfortunately, I got this in the washroom. While waiting for a stall, someone else (also waiting for a stall) starting chatting with me. This was just plain awkward, and I think he knew it, but the foreigner effect was too strong for him to resist. He just had to have a conversation with me. It was easily the most awkward, and bizarre conversation I had in Xuzhou.
Day 13: May 5th - So What DOES Xuzhou Have?
We went out, primarily to find out if we could get train tickets back to Wuxi, which was interesting on its own. You can't get return tickets in China, apparently. You have to arrive at your destination, and then buy tickets back to your starting point from there, and hopefully it will be sometime around convenient o'clock.
In our case, there were no tickets back to Wuxi at any time, let alone convenient times, so we got tickets to Nanjing, which is about halfway. The best part is this: They're standing tickets. At 9:30 PM. It was likely going to keep us up all night through, all while standing. We shrugged it off, and checked out of the hotel. We now only had 7 hours until the train left, so we decided on picking one attraction, and going there. Turns out Chris had a convenient list, written in Pinyin (Roman letter equivalents of Chinese characters), and in Mandarin. Thank God he had done his homework.
We took a cab ride to the museum (see: Billions of pictures), and the cab driver was really cool. He was uber chatty, and actually pointed out to us that three of our four attractions were in the same area, so that was handy to know. He also never stopped talking, trying to teach us more Mandarin along the way. Really friendly guy, and he showed us where all the locations were, too. Another bonus was that since Xuzhou is a “small town” with a mere 1.5 million, the cab was cheap too. I didn't think things could get much cheaper than Wuxi had them, but there was a big difference. In Wuxi, cabs start at 8 yuan, and in Xuzhou, they start at 5 yuan. Also, in Xuzhou, ice cream, drinks, meals, are all about half as much as in Wuxi. It makes me wonder what kind of markup they really have in Wuxi. Regardless, Wuxi is still really cheap compared to back home (it's only 3 yuan for a bottle of beer, about twice the size of one back home!).
Anyway, we went into the museum, and I took pictures of just about everything, as did Chris. Some stuff got repetitive, but there were some cool displays, like pillows made out of jade, and jade armor-like mail that the corpses wore. But if I see another random pot on display with more restorative plaster than actual historical pot, I'm going to lose it. It was funny, some of the pots would consist largely of plaster, and just have a few pieces of the actual pot in it, but they'd reconstruct in the plaster certain designs. How they knew the designs were there, when it was entirely plaster, is either a Chinese secret, or some form of piracy I don't know of.
In our case, there were no tickets back to Wuxi at any time, let alone convenient times, so we got tickets to Nanjing, which is about halfway. The best part is this: They're standing tickets. At 9:30 PM. It was likely going to keep us up all night through, all while standing. We shrugged it off, and checked out of the hotel. We now only had 7 hours until the train left, so we decided on picking one attraction, and going there. Turns out Chris had a convenient list, written in Pinyin (Roman letter equivalents of Chinese characters), and in Mandarin. Thank God he had done his homework.
We took a cab ride to the museum (see: Billions of pictures), and the cab driver was really cool. He was uber chatty, and actually pointed out to us that three of our four attractions were in the same area, so that was handy to know. He also never stopped talking, trying to teach us more Mandarin along the way. Really friendly guy, and he showed us where all the locations were, too. Another bonus was that since Xuzhou is a “small town” with a mere 1.5 million, the cab was cheap too. I didn't think things could get much cheaper than Wuxi had them, but there was a big difference. In Wuxi, cabs start at 8 yuan, and in Xuzhou, they start at 5 yuan. Also, in Xuzhou, ice cream, drinks, meals, are all about half as much as in Wuxi. It makes me wonder what kind of markup they really have in Wuxi. Regardless, Wuxi is still really cheap compared to back home (it's only 3 yuan for a bottle of beer, about twice the size of one back home!).
Anyway, we went into the museum, and I took pictures of just about everything, as did Chris. Some stuff got repetitive, but there were some cool displays, like pillows made out of jade, and jade armor-like mail that the corpses wore. But if I see another random pot on display with more restorative plaster than actual historical pot, I'm going to lose it. It was funny, some of the pots would consist largely of plaster, and just have a few pieces of the actual pot in it, but they'd reconstruct in the plaster certain designs. How they knew the designs were there, when it was entirely plaster, is either a Chinese secret, or some form of piracy I don't know of.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Day 12: May 4th - Xuzhou
So much for quiet Wuxi life... I forgot we bought tickets to go out to Xuzhou. Chris bought the tickets for the hell of it, since his friends at the Kindergarten he works in used to live there. Every Chinese person we've mentioned it to keeps telling us not to go there, that there's nothing to see... We'll see. Chris is convinced there are terracotta warriors there, but I'm not so sure.
The train ride there took 10 fucking hours, despite it only being a 4 hour trip. We apparently caught a cheap train, which will pull over and stop every time another train is coming. My knees were killing me by the time we got off the train, but along the way, I finished Rant, which was excellent, and we made some friends who spoke surprisingly good English. I also managed to get everyone else excited about Rant, so they're passing the book around.
We arrived in Xuzhou at 1:30 AM. Our new friends helped us not only get a hotel room, but took us to the rooms, and made sure we got in OK. Score one for Chinese hospitality! They went way over the top, and we were very thankful.
The key for the hotel rooms deserves a paragraph of its own. The key was just a flat metal slab with a ball bearing near the base. It was rectangular, with curved corners, and there were no distinguishable marks on it. How each key was unique, I have no idea. Our key was stubborn as all's hell, and every time we needed into our room, someone had to come help us. They never had much of an issue, but never revealed the secret of opening the door to us. Even our nice train friends didn't know how to open it, so it couldn't have been a stupid foreigner moment.
The train ride there took 10 fucking hours, despite it only being a 4 hour trip. We apparently caught a cheap train, which will pull over and stop every time another train is coming. My knees were killing me by the time we got off the train, but along the way, I finished Rant, which was excellent, and we made some friends who spoke surprisingly good English. I also managed to get everyone else excited about Rant, so they're passing the book around.
We arrived in Xuzhou at 1:30 AM. Our new friends helped us not only get a hotel room, but took us to the rooms, and made sure we got in OK. Score one for Chinese hospitality! They went way over the top, and we were very thankful.
The key for the hotel rooms deserves a paragraph of its own. The key was just a flat metal slab with a ball bearing near the base. It was rectangular, with curved corners, and there were no distinguishable marks on it. How each key was unique, I have no idea. Our key was stubborn as all's hell, and every time we needed into our room, someone had to come help us. They never had much of an issue, but never revealed the secret of opening the door to us. Even our nice train friends didn't know how to open it, so it couldn't have been a stupid foreigner moment.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Day 11: May 3rd - Locked Out
The wakeup call and train ride back to Wuxi was all fine, and it turned out we had soft seats (like a higher class ticket, with more comfortable train cars). Getting back to Wuxi, we actually got here early, and Jessica led us to McDonalds, because she wanted a real breakfast. Chinese breakfasts suck. Since they like to cook with a lot of oil, and bread a lot of stuff, it's often very heavy, and/or tastes like shit. Once Jessica was satiated, and I finished my coffee, we split up. Since I was so engrossed in my Palahniuk book, I volunteered to go sit by the apartment and wait for the landlady. She and Alex went off to Hylite to see if they could get Internet. I don't think they ever did, but they were gone for about 2 or 3 hours. Also, no landlady showed up. We did discover we had new neighbours, however, and they let us sit in their apartment and they interpreted (or spoke for us, rather) over the phone, since even Jessica's Chinese is broken, at best.
Finally, the landlady and her son showed up, and said we had TWO keys. This was flat out wrong, so we insisted we only had one key, and her son called the locksmith. The locksmith had the door open in under 2 minutes, which was relieving. The landlord was busy paying attention to the new neighbours and nagging them, so the son paid the locksmith (it was either 20 or 70 yuan, we couldn't tell) before she noticed. When she realized he paid, despite my not knowing Chinese, the context was clear. It went something like this:
Landlady: "Did you pay for it?!"
Son: "Yes."
Landlady: "Why would you do that?! The stupid foreigners should have to pay!"
Son: "Shush, mother."
It's clear she hates us, and her body language tells me everything, but the son is reasonable, and I prefer him, despite his lack of handy-man-ness. She is constantly clucking on about something, and stresses everyone out. Anyway, he eventually took our key, and had a bunch of copies made. Now each of us have a key, and we'll be giving another copy to the school (Hylite).
We cleaned up the apartment, again. This place accumulates dust so fucking fast, I can't believe it. Alex and I went out for lunch, Jessica still being full from her McD's breakfast. We found an Internet Cafe, and ate at a Muslim restaurant. It's back to quiet Wuxi life, and I'm thankful for it, since Shanghai was both expensive, and somewhat stressful. It's too bad we can't bring the Shanghai night life here though, that was a lot of fun.
Finally, the landlady and her son showed up, and said we had TWO keys. This was flat out wrong, so we insisted we only had one key, and her son called the locksmith. The locksmith had the door open in under 2 minutes, which was relieving. The landlord was busy paying attention to the new neighbours and nagging them, so the son paid the locksmith (it was either 20 or 70 yuan, we couldn't tell) before she noticed. When she realized he paid, despite my not knowing Chinese, the context was clear. It went something like this:
Landlady: "Did you pay for it?!"
Son: "Yes."
Landlady: "Why would you do that?! The stupid foreigners should have to pay!"
Son: "Shush, mother."
It's clear she hates us, and her body language tells me everything, but the son is reasonable, and I prefer him, despite his lack of handy-man-ness. She is constantly clucking on about something, and stresses everyone out. Anyway, he eventually took our key, and had a bunch of copies made. Now each of us have a key, and we'll be giving another copy to the school (Hylite).
We cleaned up the apartment, again. This place accumulates dust so fucking fast, I can't believe it. Alex and I went out for lunch, Jessica still being full from her McD's breakfast. We found an Internet Cafe, and ate at a Muslim restaurant. It's back to quiet Wuxi life, and I'm thankful for it, since Shanghai was both expensive, and somewhat stressful. It's too bad we can't bring the Shanghai night life here though, that was a lot of fun.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Day 10: May 2nd - Day 2 in Shanghai
Heading home at dawn was a new phenomenon, considering how relatively early Canadian bars close (Last call typically at 1 AM). Again, just by approaching a cab, beggars came a-running. One guy kept knocking on the window and yelling for cash, but I thought was hilarious, because he kept smiling and giving us the thumbs up. He was begging for money, but at the same time, just happy to see foreigners. We got back to the hotel and crashed until about 2 PM.
We had a (very) late breakfast, and around the time the sun went down (around 6PM), we headed out to the Bund. It's a waterfront area, with a few sights to see. We went at night because it's prettier, basically. This was crazy busy, again because of the holiday, and the sidewalks were so full, people were walking out on the street. Taking a car anywhere was useless because of all the people walking. We got to the waterfront, and took a look around the area. Some deaf Chinese people approached me and asked if they could have a picture with me and Jessica. I took the opportunity to get my picture taken with them as well, and try to sign to them. I don't think they understood much, but I got a lot of what they said. The more I stay, the more I notice that Chinese people suck at Charades. Acting anything out, or using body language is often useless.
Eventually, we ventured back to the hotel, and stopped for barbeque. Jessica also ordered what she thought was going to be one fruit smoothie, and it turned out they made a smoothie for each fruit she ordered. Seems the Chinese don't like to mix their fruits together. We just drank a little bit of each of the three, and it still turned out quite good. We turned in, and prepared for the 5 AM wakeup call the next morning, since our train headed back to Wuxi at 7 AM.
We had a (very) late breakfast, and around the time the sun went down (around 6PM), we headed out to the Bund. It's a waterfront area, with a few sights to see. We went at night because it's prettier, basically. This was crazy busy, again because of the holiday, and the sidewalks were so full, people were walking out on the street. Taking a car anywhere was useless because of all the people walking. We got to the waterfront, and took a look around the area. Some deaf Chinese people approached me and asked if they could have a picture with me and Jessica. I took the opportunity to get my picture taken with them as well, and try to sign to them. I don't think they understood much, but I got a lot of what they said. The more I stay, the more I notice that Chinese people suck at Charades. Acting anything out, or using body language is often useless.
Eventually, we ventured back to the hotel, and stopped for barbeque. Jessica also ordered what she thought was going to be one fruit smoothie, and it turned out they made a smoothie for each fruit she ordered. Seems the Chinese don't like to mix their fruits together. We just drank a little bit of each of the three, and it still turned out quite good. We turned in, and prepared for the 5 AM wakeup call the next morning, since our train headed back to Wuxi at 7 AM.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Day 9: May 1st - The Bar Scene in Shanghai
Holy shit, the beggars there were determined. Before we even got out of the cab, someone was at the window, asking for cash. These beggars get more clever by the day. When I first got to China, I only had to deal with beggars along the train station. They just sat there, or at worst, stood by me asking for cash for a few minutes, then left. These bar beggars KNOW I have cash, because I'm getting out of a cab, they see the change exchange hands, and they know I'm entering a bar, which obviously requires money. They'd follow you up and down the street, literally blocks away, and grab at you and pull at you to get you to look at them. They had kids chasing you yelling "Money! Money!" in crap English. I couldn't believe how persistent these people were. The Shanghai subway trains have the same thing. On the train itself, there's beggars, again with kids to evoke pity, demanding change. There's nowhere to run on a frigging train, and again, because of the nature of a subway, they know you have change.
Anyway, we decided we didn't like any of the bars there, so Angie took us to another area where her preferred bar was. So Angie, Jessica, Alex, Chris and I (and our band of beggars) all walked down to the bar, to the soundtrack of "Money! Money!" and "Buy this flower! Buy this flower!". The bar was called Windows, and was actually pretty sweet. It had a dance floor, platform, as well as a pool table, tv's, so whether you wanted to dance, or sit and chat, it was a good place. I liked the balance. Even further, there were tons of foreigners there, so I met people from all over the world. I met one guy from England, who lives in Japan. I met three guys from Nepal, one of which was trashed, and kept slurring loudly into my ear, and seemed to have the notion that I could get him into Canada with citizenship for 300 000 bucks. I also met another guy who decided he was drunk enough to give me a massage and tell me he loves me, both in English and Chinese. I got a picture of that guy.
It was an impressive mix between really smashed people, and people who could handle their drink, but surprisingly, very few problems. For a bar with no last call (we left at dawn), it wasn't sloppy. I didn't see anyone puke, and there was one mild fight, but the guy picking it would've been doomed if the other guy decided to fight back, as he was drunk off his ass. I and a few other foreigners (and eventually, a big black guy who I assume is a bouncer) broke up the fight. The angry drunk threw a few punches, and one of them missed and got me in the shoulder, and I gotta say... he would've gotten his ass whupped. I've had friends slap me in the arm harder when they're joking around.
Anyway, we decided we didn't like any of the bars there, so Angie took us to another area where her preferred bar was. So Angie, Jessica, Alex, Chris and I (and our band of beggars) all walked down to the bar, to the soundtrack of "Money! Money!" and "Buy this flower! Buy this flower!". The bar was called Windows, and was actually pretty sweet. It had a dance floor, platform, as well as a pool table, tv's, so whether you wanted to dance, or sit and chat, it was a good place. I liked the balance. Even further, there were tons of foreigners there, so I met people from all over the world. I met one guy from England, who lives in Japan. I met three guys from Nepal, one of which was trashed, and kept slurring loudly into my ear, and seemed to have the notion that I could get him into Canada with citizenship for 300 000 bucks. I also met another guy who decided he was drunk enough to give me a massage and tell me he loves me, both in English and Chinese. I got a picture of that guy.
It was an impressive mix between really smashed people, and people who could handle their drink, but surprisingly, very few problems. For a bar with no last call (we left at dawn), it wasn't sloppy. I didn't see anyone puke, and there was one mild fight, but the guy picking it would've been doomed if the other guy decided to fight back, as he was drunk off his ass. I and a few other foreigners (and eventually, a big black guy who I assume is a bouncer) broke up the fight. The angry drunk threw a few punches, and one of them missed and got me in the shoulder, and I gotta say... he would've gotten his ass whupped. I've had friends slap me in the arm harder when they're joking around.
Day 9: May 1st - Success... Sweet, Stressful Success!
Fortunately, we caught this one. I started reading Rant (Chuck Palahniuk's latest book), which has so far been awesome. I made quite a dent in it, because for no apparent reason at all, the train stopped just outside of Shanghai for two hours. Jessica's original explanation was that they were waiting for the express trains to go by, but there were no trains for at least 30 minutes at some times, and the train station was only about 10 minutes away. It sucked. No wonder everyone prefers express trains over the regular ones. Two fucking hours for no apparent reason.
We got there way behind schedule, and had only 30 minutes to get to the hotel room that we booked before we lost our reservation. This was a problem, because we didn't really know where the hotel was, and because it is the holiday, hotel rooms run out fast. It took Jessica's friend over 30 minutes of phone calls to find us this room, and she's not even a foreigner. So Jessica and I booted it through the subway as quickly as we could, but even as fast as we were going, 8 PM hit before we even exited the subway. We were getting stressed. Now it was possible we could find this hotel, and not even have a room.
Jessica wasn't even sure where the hotel was, and we had two possible stops where the hotel might be. We got off the second one, and just started asking directions to the road the hotel was supposed to be on. Turns out we did indeed get off at the right stop, and we found the street. Presented with a choice of left or right, I said right, she said left. We ended up going left, which lead absolutely no where. She then led us even further off track by taking a side street away from the street we were supposed to be on, because she was uncomfortable with how dark it was. We ended up stopping at a Kude, buying a map, and getting directions from two clueless women (who couldn't even find where they were), a drunk guy, and eventually a cab driver. The cab driver knew where it was, and drove us there. Lo and behold, my sense of direction wins again, it was literally about a 2 minute walk to the right of our original left/right choice. Oh well.
Turns out they still honoured our reservation, thankfully, and we booked our two rooms, and I slapped down the 700 yuan deposit. Eventually, we got Chris and Alex to catch up and join us at the hotel (although we had to walk them from the subway due to a mix of bad directions and them not listening to the directions in the first place). We all dropped off our stuff, and got something to eat. Finally, we were ready to catch up with Jessica's friend, Angie. Angie was the one who made the reservations in the first place. We met Angie at a row of bars (literally, just a street lined with one after another) around 1 AM.
We got there way behind schedule, and had only 30 minutes to get to the hotel room that we booked before we lost our reservation. This was a problem, because we didn't really know where the hotel was, and because it is the holiday, hotel rooms run out fast. It took Jessica's friend over 30 minutes of phone calls to find us this room, and she's not even a foreigner. So Jessica and I booted it through the subway as quickly as we could, but even as fast as we were going, 8 PM hit before we even exited the subway. We were getting stressed. Now it was possible we could find this hotel, and not even have a room.
Jessica wasn't even sure where the hotel was, and we had two possible stops where the hotel might be. We got off the second one, and just started asking directions to the road the hotel was supposed to be on. Turns out we did indeed get off at the right stop, and we found the street. Presented with a choice of left or right, I said right, she said left. We ended up going left, which lead absolutely no where. She then led us even further off track by taking a side street away from the street we were supposed to be on, because she was uncomfortable with how dark it was. We ended up stopping at a Kude, buying a map, and getting directions from two clueless women (who couldn't even find where they were), a drunk guy, and eventually a cab driver. The cab driver knew where it was, and drove us there. Lo and behold, my sense of direction wins again, it was literally about a 2 minute walk to the right of our original left/right choice. Oh well.
Turns out they still honoured our reservation, thankfully, and we booked our two rooms, and I slapped down the 700 yuan deposit. Eventually, we got Chris and Alex to catch up and join us at the hotel (although we had to walk them from the subway due to a mix of bad directions and them not listening to the directions in the first place). We all dropped off our stuff, and got something to eat. Finally, we were ready to catch up with Jessica's friend, Angie. Angie was the one who made the reservations in the first place. We met Angie at a row of bars (literally, just a street lined with one after another) around 1 AM.
Day 9: May 1st - Attempt One for Shanghai
I'm actually writing this the night before. This is because at 8:30 tomorrow, I'll be on a train to Shanghai. Just after getting coffee at McDonalds, we went to the train station and bought tickets to Shanghai. We'll be there for at least a day, likely two or three, and will be shopping and barhopping. It'll be sweet, but I'll have to keep an eye out for beggars/pickpockets. I'll summarize the trip when I get back.
[ Next Day... ]
Well, we missed the train. Even better, we locked ourselves out of the apartment, so we had nothing to do for the day. We reschedules our tickets for 4:30 that afternoon, since it was the earliest we could leave for Shanghai, then set off to figure out what to do for the day. We sat at the train station outside and made fun of people walking by, for about 2 hours. It was actually fairly entertaining. Games like "Find the worst dressed child" and "Find the Asian version of a celebrity". Eventually, I started noting Chinglish on T-shirts, and started a list. Within an hour, I decided I was going to have to be pickier, since my list was growing fast.
Later, we went out for lunch at some multicultural (mostly Japanese) restaurant. I saw deaf people there, which was exciting for me. Jessica kept telling me to approach them, but I didn't want to be the weird foreigner, and as I observed them more, I realized their sign language was considerably different from mine. Still fun to watch though, and I picked up a few signs.
Afterwards, we went to Starbucks, and basically sat around doing crosswords and chilling. I was getting a bit perturbed there, however, since people walking by outside were doing their typical staring and pointing at the white people. The reason it bothered me here was because the windows/walls of Starbucks were giving a fish tank experience. I felt like I was one of the attractions at the zoo, and it was irritating.
At some point, I went out for ice cream, which was in itself boring, but along the way I walked past what I originally thought was an energy drink display. Here, almost every day holds a new giant promotion of some product. As of the day of this writing (May 3rd), it's the Sony Ericcson, a cell phone. May 1st was this drink, which turned out to be a cold green tea (go figure) canned drink. They had stands beside stands along the entire sidewalk, and girls in short skirts giving away free samples. It was quite visually stimulating, but the best part was the music. They were playing Devo's "Whip it" in Chinese. It sounded hilarious.
On the way back from ice cream was the other cool Chinese promotion thing. I spotted a wading pool filled with water, and giant bubbles on it. I got a video of it on my camera, because this was the sweetest thing ever, and I wish they had it when I was a kid. Kids would get into the bubbles, which were leashed to the edge of the pool, and could run around inside the bubbles, or crawl, and the ball would roll. It was near impossible to walk, since it was in water, and nearly frictionless. The whole thing was so simple, but so fun. These kids kept faceplanting inside the bubble, and trying to move around, without much success. Any time a kid falls on their face is a good time to laugh, so this was awesome.
Finally, we killed enough time to go back to the train station. Getting a cab was damn near impossible at this time, as the streets were crammed full of people (thanks to the holiday). There were lines of people in uniforms looking like they were picketing, but it was actually an advertisement for a cellphone. Alex got a picture of part of one of the signs, showing that the cell phone ran Linux, which excited me as a geek. Finally, we caught a cab and made our way to the train station.
[ Next Day... ]
Well, we missed the train. Even better, we locked ourselves out of the apartment, so we had nothing to do for the day. We reschedules our tickets for 4:30 that afternoon, since it was the earliest we could leave for Shanghai, then set off to figure out what to do for the day. We sat at the train station outside and made fun of people walking by, for about 2 hours. It was actually fairly entertaining. Games like "Find the worst dressed child" and "Find the Asian version of a celebrity". Eventually, I started noting Chinglish on T-shirts, and started a list. Within an hour, I decided I was going to have to be pickier, since my list was growing fast.
Later, we went out for lunch at some multicultural (mostly Japanese) restaurant. I saw deaf people there, which was exciting for me. Jessica kept telling me to approach them, but I didn't want to be the weird foreigner, and as I observed them more, I realized their sign language was considerably different from mine. Still fun to watch though, and I picked up a few signs.
Afterwards, we went to Starbucks, and basically sat around doing crosswords and chilling. I was getting a bit perturbed there, however, since people walking by outside were doing their typical staring and pointing at the white people. The reason it bothered me here was because the windows/walls of Starbucks were giving a fish tank experience. I felt like I was one of the attractions at the zoo, and it was irritating.
At some point, I went out for ice cream, which was in itself boring, but along the way I walked past what I originally thought was an energy drink display. Here, almost every day holds a new giant promotion of some product. As of the day of this writing (May 3rd), it's the Sony Ericcson, a cell phone. May 1st was this drink, which turned out to be a cold green tea (go figure) canned drink. They had stands beside stands along the entire sidewalk, and girls in short skirts giving away free samples. It was quite visually stimulating, but the best part was the music. They were playing Devo's "Whip it" in Chinese. It sounded hilarious.
On the way back from ice cream was the other cool Chinese promotion thing. I spotted a wading pool filled with water, and giant bubbles on it. I got a video of it on my camera, because this was the sweetest thing ever, and I wish they had it when I was a kid. Kids would get into the bubbles, which were leashed to the edge of the pool, and could run around inside the bubbles, or crawl, and the ball would roll. It was near impossible to walk, since it was in water, and nearly frictionless. The whole thing was so simple, but so fun. These kids kept faceplanting inside the bubble, and trying to move around, without much success. Any time a kid falls on their face is a good time to laugh, so this was awesome.
Finally, we killed enough time to go back to the train station. Getting a cab was damn near impossible at this time, as the streets were crammed full of people (thanks to the holiday). There were lines of people in uniforms looking like they were picketing, but it was actually an advertisement for a cellphone. Alex got a picture of part of one of the signs, showing that the cell phone ran Linux, which excited me as a geek. Finally, we caught a cab and made our way to the train station.
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