Good Morning Western World!
Wake…work…”Honey, what’s for dinner?”…sleep
Wake…work…”Honey, what’s for dinner?”…sleep
Wake…work…”Let’s just have pizza tonight”…sleep
I returned to work. Then I spent 8 hours watching Smallville on my laptop. They have nothing for me to do. I ask and they say “we don’t have anything right now.” If you say so. I’ve gone on a Lost hiatus just because I don’t want to finish season 5 and not have season 6 handy until I get home. I’m waiting to get Superman dreams from Smallville, but they have yet to come : (
Friday Cheng & I just ran around town a little bit, ate dinner and watched a horribly bad movie on TV. We get something like 3 channels that speak English.
· HBO; but not really HBO. It’s HBO that plays nothing but the same 3 movies all from the mid-90s that nobody cared to see when they came out.
· Star Movies, which also play very old movies that you’d never bother renting. The Son of Rambow was last night’s choice movie and I just wanted to throw our TV from our 7th floor window.
· “ESPN” which is on a worse loop than ESPN in the states. We only get SportsCenter. No PTIs, No Around The Horn; and on top of all of that when it comes time to commentate on baseball I want to throw myself out of the 7th floor window. They must not see much baseball wherever this is broadcast from- Hong Kong or UK.
I digress, Friday we stayed in because we knew we would be running around all day Saturday with Song, a guy Cheng works with and maybe to the Great Wall on Sunday. I grabbed some ice cream from the supermarket. No Blue Bell, no sherbet, no highly price gouged Dryers, no Kroger brand. There are 3 brands of ice cream here- all of which only sell the same flavors: Green Tea, Vanilla, Chocolate, Strawberry and “Cookie;” none of which hold a torch to any ice cream in the US. When in Rome…
Saturday, we met Song. We went to one of the more popular shopping areas in town. Wang fu jing (Wong fu jeeng), it is another lavish area lined with Omega, Rolex, Nike, Adidas, Armani, etc. We even ventured into a popular shop for the Chinese teens and twenties- where the clothes are made by prisoners. They screen print just about anything onto a t-shirt. Disney infringements galore and plenty of nonsensical English such as “Forever look young, have fun, girls like.”
Every time I see someone walking the streets with a shirt printed with English on it, the English is horrible. Rarely ever does it make sense- but they don’t seem to know any better. Gives me a chuckle- call my selfish. Song told us he’d show us some good food, so we went to lunch in one of the Galleria-esque buildings. There was an entire floor dedicated to eateries. We wandered the floor 4 or 5 times trying to find a restaurant (maybe? Enter language barrier- stage left). We walked past a few bakeries 3 or 4 times and few other places that smelled delicious; finally being led into the food court that had the delectable aroma of dog food.
We wandered the ranks of plastic foods looking for one that looked good enough to try to eat. I got some rice/beef/broccoli & cauliflower/cold mashed potatoes box set. We ate our lackluster meal underneath a dripping A/C, it was great. The saving grace was the dessert which is like a milk shaved ice (pretty good) smeared in red beans (not so good).
All in all, I was very disappointed in the meal. Usually, in the US, anything that smells like dog food is dog food. Here, if it smells like dog food- odds are a bi-ped is eating it. We finally left this joint and hopped a few subways to some shops that the Chinese youth patron. These places are 100% Chinese, they are multi-level buildings that share an entrance with the subway and has a musk and humidity to them.
There was even a girl “performing.” I think she was some pop star here, but there were only about 20 people around her stage. She sang one song and wrapped it up. Not that I cared. We meandered in and out of rows of lighters and watches and combs and hair clips and plastic bracelets. There were shops that had overly priced articles of clothing that probably never would’ve fit me anyways.
Cheng eyed a few hats, but for the most part we just wanted to return to the little oxygen this city provides. We visited 1 or 2 of these bunker-like malls before we decided to hunt down some dinner. A 30 minute subway ride, a few connecting lines and many prayers, hopes and wishes for some hand soap and we arrive in this back alley dirty Korean BBQ joint that, guess what! Lacked soap! Yayyy. Guess how you go about getting your utensils? You fish them out of a bucket, with your hands, touching every other utensil in the bucket.
My stomach lurches thinking about it again. The food here wasn’t real bad, but one of the dishes had an after-taste of the filth I smell around town. All in all, I wasn’t real thrilled with the food on Saturday. Another 20 minute subway ride and 20 minute walk we finally make it home. Cheng & Song surfed the internet looking for knock-off items. I eventually got in the shower once I determined I wasn’t a very integral part of the conversations going on.
When I hopped out the TV was showing a basketball game. FYI, they’ve been playing the NBA Championship games here at least once a week… the season has been over for about 2 months now. Anyway, the game turned out to be a Yao Ming Foundation Charity Basketball game that featured a few Houston Rockets and some other NBA players. I loved it. They were playing in Beijing and I was a little disappointed that I heard nothing of this game. I would have loved to be there. Ads were probably on the radio, but understanding that would’ve involved a higher Chinese proficiency,
Sunday I went to church alone and tagged up with a few with whom I typically mingle and eat lunch. The music was led by a few Africans who could sing pretty well. I really enjoyed the guy’s voice. The music was good, the sermon was there.
I’m not real fond of the pastor’s methods. His sermons are an endless string of quoting people nobody knows and scripture. I think of it as a high school research paper in which I only used other people’s words and misquoted and skewed many quotes to make my points.
After church we went to lunch with a group of about 8 people that are travelling the world for 6 months on mission work. They’ve spent 3 weeks here, 3 in the Philippines, 3 in Korea, 3 months in New Zealand and will spend 3 weeks in Israel. We had lunch at this bamboo hut with play swords, axes and spears decorating the entrance. The staff brings out dish after dish after dish until told to stop.
We had a beef noodle curry dish, sweet potato dish, fish soup, chicken & eggplant dish and a few others. It was delicious and I had a good time chatting with a few white women. It felt like home- going to lunch after church, speaking English, napping after that- it was a great morning. I got home around 2 and fell asleep while watching a smattering of Lost, Smallville and the Pacific. Cheng has been dealing with a stomach bug so got him some soup, bought a few dvds and returned home to watch The Imaginirium of Doctor Parnassus. It was a wild movie, the last one Heath Ledger did, but I greatly enjoyed it. A lot. I’m looking forward to watching it again.
Before I boarded the bus this morning, I was contemplating a tirade I was going to write here; but of course, I don’t remember any of it. I need to keep a notepad handy… I’m sure it was going to start along these lines: These people are driving me crazy because….. and my most immediate point escapes me.
Counting down the days…
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