Related posts:

1. CP8: Subtle Abuse
2. CP10: Cultural Criticisms
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

Related posts:

1. CP12: Funemployment
2. CP5: Usher and Ethan
3. CP10: Cultural Criticisms

I just got scammed out of a hundred US dollars. And it’s my own idiot, iPhone-loving fault.

It’s a long story…

I was getting off the subway at Yonganli and some weird crackhead Chinese guy kept trying to get me to buy an iPhone. Whatever, though, Yonganli is full of people trying to sell you shit. I ignored him for a little but then I realized it was a real iPhone, so I got a little intrigued. He said 2000 kuai and shoved it into my hand. It was definitely real (retina display!). This shit must be stolen, there’s no way he’d sell it for 2000RMB. I walk away again and he keeps saying “need money need money” and sniffing and looking all crackhead. So I stop and say, “500 kuai.” He says no and walks away, but then turns around to follow me again. He offers me it for 600 kuai and puts it in my hand again.

Now at this point, a couple things are going through my head. 1. How the fuck is this guy selling me a real iPhone 4 for 600 kuai. I have to take that deal. 2. This is definitely stolen, whats the proper moral stance on buying a stolen iPhone from a cracked out Chinese dude? 3. Will, Will, this is too good to be true. Go home.

Now, 3 obviously wasn’t helping. So let’s just ignore that voice. 2 raises some good points. I decided if I bought it, I would call one of the contacts (I already checked, there were 36 in the phone) and try to return it. Surely, the real owner would reimburse me the hundred bucks for returning his phone. And if it didn’t have a real owner, than number 1 was right and I just got a sweet deal on an iPhone.

So we go to an ATM to get the money (we were still in Yongangli with like a bajillion people around, I wasn’t in some dark alley) and this guy is really cracking out bad. He keeps taking the phone out and putting it away and taking it out and playing with it. And creepily looking around him and talking fast in Chinese. He’s freaking me out basically. And right as I’m going to put in my pin he shoves the phone into my hand and points at my pocket. I put the phone in my pocket, get the money from the ATM, hand it to him and start walking away.

Then he calls his friend over to see if I want to buy an iPhone 3Gs. This guy is even more aggressive than the first and keeps trying to get me to buy it until finally I tell him to get lost and duck into a Starbucks. (I wasn’t being cliche by taking my new iPhone to Starbucks, I was headed there already.)

I sit down and try to come down off my adrenaline high and reach into my pocket. This is going to be so sweet. I’m going to call Brett and be like ‘Dude guess who is calling you from his new iPhone.’ It’s going to be hilarious.

I grab the phone but its suspiciously light. “Oh no no no no no.” Calm down, calm down. It’s just you being all excited.

But as soon as I look at the phone I know something is wrong. It’s all cheap and fake and OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!

Then I remember him repeatedly putting it in his pocket and taking it out, and him shoving it into my hands right as I was distracted at the ATM.

FUCK ME. No. This can’t be.

I run out into the street to look for him. Of course they are gone.

I went back into Starbucks, and resentfully glared at all the people on their iPhones, and typed the above status update.

So basically, today I failed China. Big time.

There you have it. Let his 600 kuai be a lesson to you all.

Related posts:

1. Houhai Lake
2. Chinese Night Life – St. Patrick’s Day

Note: It’s forty-eight minutes long. Forty-eight minutes of baller. Don’t hate.

Related posts:

1. CP4: Graduation Day
2. CP8: Subtle Abuse
3. CP11: Jayden and Artists

McCoy and I posted a lot during the first week about some of the crazy stuff going on, but I don’t think it painted a very clear picture, so let’s begin there.

The First Week

The first night we arrived at the airport and were greeted by our contact here. She would later become McCoy’s girlfriend — yes, it was literally the first girl he met in China, go ahead and settle those bets now. We had a 30 minute ride from the airport into the city, and it was pretty uneventful.

The highway seemed a little crazy with everyone speeding and swerving, but it wasn’t too jarring. And as we approached the city is looked like every other city: a lot of bright lights and buildings.

Our contact checked us into a hotel — where we would stay for the next 5 days — and pointed us in the direction of an ATM, a restaurant, and the subway. She told us another employee would meet us at a hospital the next day and asked if we needed help navigating the subway. We told her we didn’t, we hoped we didn’t.

After that we took out some yuan and had our first Chinese meal. We pretty much just pointed at pictures (while the waitress laughed at us) and hoped for the best. It wasn’t bad but we did end up getting some duck feet which McCoy ate. After that we succumbed to the jet-lag and 13 hour time difference and passed out.

In the morning we made our trip to the hospital. The subway ride spawned this post.

There wasn’t much cultural shock happening. Beijing was crowded and nobody really spoke English. But besides that it seemed fine. For sure, Chinese culture is different in many ways than Western culture and I’ll explore that more in later posts.

In any case, we weren’t really given much time to be shocked. From the first day we were being rushed around different places for our jobs. First the hospital, then the main office, then to different schools. By our third day there I had already visited 3 schools and been offered a job by one of them.

Do you know the feeling of starting a new job? You’re starting right in the middle of things and there’s so much going on, you just have to try to learn as fast as possible and get up to speed. It’s stressful but exciting. So imagine that, and then add in being in a new city with a language you don’t speak and 13 million people.

Some of the other teachers didn’t like it so much. One girl quit after being in China for only one day. And most others were stressed and nervous wrecks.

I like to tell myself that I’m really great in those types of situations. The kind where you’re under a lot of pressure but you still keep your head clear and just roll with the punches. It doesn’t matter how fast things are happening and how little explanations I’m getting, I can handle it. Right?

It was definitely easier having someone you can trust with you, but even with that, it was a pretty unsettling few days. I remember having problems effectively accessing and sorting my thoughts and emotions for the first two or three weeks after being here. And I’m sure it was because those first few days drove me into a “survival mode” where I couldn’t really feel relaxed and comfortable. It wasn’t until I started journaling again frequently that I really felt like I was back to normal.

So the first week of being shuffled around ended with us being placed at schools and finding an apartment. Over the next couple weeks we found a third roommate, bought furniture and kitchen stuff, and settled into our routines.

The Routine

The routine since then has pretty much been teaching during the week and hanging out with the other teachers on the weekend. We haven’t been able to see many touristy sites outside of Beijing because the weekends are too short for any real traveling.

And since the first week, the stress has found a new source: teaching. I won’t go to too much into it here, but constantly dealing with aggressive assistants, overbearing administrators, and great kids that you want to protect from everything really leaves me ragged by the end of the day.

Of course, teaching isn’t all bad. It’s actually really great and I love it. But I love it because of the kids and hate it because of pretty much everything else.

Besides working, we did meet a lot of other people that were cool. And a lot that weren’t that great.

I had this misconception before we left. I thought that most foreigners we met in China would be awesome. Just think about it, these are people who have left everything they knew behind to travel to the other side of the world. They must be adventurous and individualistic. They bailed on their countries and cultures and all of that other bullshit to go experience something totally new and to teach kids while they’re doing it. They must be awesome.

Wrong. For sure, there are some really cool people we’ve met. Those are the ones I continue to hang out with. But besides that, you pretty much have the same spectrum you have anywhere. The range from socially awkward and creepy types to annoying douchebag types. It’s inescapable.

So What’s Next?

Not sure. McCoy has a relationship developing. Hopefully he’ll post about that at some point.

And I’m just hanging out. I teach, I blog, I do self-work, I design shit, and I socialize on the weekends. It’s actually pretty fantastic and I really like living here. My Chinese still sucks, but I’m not working on it too much, I just absorb things here and there.

I promised myself I wouldn’t think about what to do after China until I had been here at least 6 months, and I’m sticking to that rule.

As for this website, I’m not sure. I still haven’t figured out the balance between touristy stuff with pictures and humorous anecdotes, the (sometimes heavy) teaching stuff, and the philosophical and psychological ideas and thoughts. It’s something that I’m constantly thinking about and trying to improve. All three are really important to me, and they are related in different ways. If you have feedback on this subject please let me know.

I know I’m going to keep posting a lot of teaching stuff, I have a few more From Childhood To Statism posts planned. And eventually I’ll be motivated to get into some straight philosophy. I also have posts about Chinese culture, including one called “The Cult of the Chairman”, in the works.

If you’re looking for some more picture posts get excited, I am visiting the Great Wall this weekend and will (hopefully) get some great shots.

For the rest I’m just being patient and working on things as they come up.

Alright, I think that’s pretty much it. I hope you enjoyed your stay in Ramble City and some of this was interesting. If not, I’m sure my next post will have some really bad and immature jokes. Everything will be right with the world!

Until then…

Related posts:

1. Would You Listen To An Audio Post?
2. 150 Fans on Facebook!
3. What’s Been Going On…

You can see it on the Google Map below.

View Larger Map

It’s a nice area and I took a few photos, so here they are:
This is the south side of the lake. There’s a lot of people just hanging out playing hacky sack and walking around. The lake is surrounded by restaurants and bars — most relatively new, from around 2003. If you look at the left side of the second photo, you can see a Starbucks.

Here is a close up: In the far right window (under the glare, sorry) you can see the standard logo. Starbucks is pretty much the same price in China, maybe a buck cheaper, which really sucks because I have a serious caffeine addiction and I pass one every day on my way to work. It’s so tempting, especially the green tea lattes which are amazing. They taste like the green tea ice cream you get at sushi places in America.

Here is a shot from the western side of the lake: It’s kind of pretty, but not the kind you think of when you imagine lakes. It’s not serene, at all. China doesn’t do serene.

For example, here is one of the alleyways leading away from the lake: Oh look, it’s a crowd of people.

Speaking of crowds, I saw a bunch of people gathering around a little bird so I went to check it out. He was the most amazing little guy ever. He would take money from people and drop it in a little birdie bank.

And while we’re on the subject of cute animals. Look at how fluffy and goddamn cute this Chow is: Hey guys, there’s a reason Chinese dogs are called chow. I’m kidding! Well, not really. But I’m pretty sure nobody ate this dog.

Let’s change the subject. I found a little shack along the lakeside selling propaganda posters. A lot of children were depicted in the posters, not really surprising.

I think this set was my favorite: I love the farmer holding the Little Red Book aloft, which is hilarious to me. Look how happy he is to be starving to death! Maybe he’s just happy he found his copy, otherwise Red Guards would be beating him. Next to that we have the red fist smashing some guys, I’m not sure who. If you can figure it out let me know, otherwise I’m just going to assume they are capitalist pigs or members of the liberal bourgeoisie. And finally, a smoking ad! Of course.

Alright, I’m going to wrap this post up on a good capitalist note:

Related posts:

1. Me Scam You Long Time
2. Llama Temple
3. Check Out My Sweet Ride

No related posts.

I want to try to describe their music but it’s really hard. There is definitely some rock or punk rock in there. There is also an Old West folksy feel. You can hear a lot of Asian melody with intense Mongolian throat singing. But there is also a weird American Indian vibe to their songs. I’ve never heard anything like it before.

Wikipedia says:

The members of Hanggai Band come from extremely diverse backgrounds with singer Ilchi having once been the front man of punk band T9.

These eclectic experiences have come together to give Hanggai Band a particularly unique sound blending Mongolian folk music with more popular forms such as punk.

In an interview with Spinner, Ilchi stated that amongst the group’s many influences, Western artists such as, “Pink Floyd, Radiohead, Rage Against the Machine, Secret Machines, Electralane and Neil Diamond…” have played a large role in shaping the band’s music.

I’ve included a couple videos that I uploaded to Facebook so you can get a feel for how they sound. These were parts of their less rock-sounding songs.

Related posts:

1. The Great Wall
2. Chinese Night Life – Part 1

Beijing has been shrouded in orange dust as a strong sandstorm blew hundreds of miles from drought-struck northern China to the nation’s capital.

The authorities have issued a level-five pollution warning and urged people to stay indoors. In Tiananmen Square, clouds of dust obscured monuments and visitors wore masks to avoid the dust and soil.

The storm has already caused havoc in Xinjiang, Shanxi, Shaanxi and Hebei regions and is heading to South Korea.

It would have been awesome to go out and take some photos and really experience the sandstorm first hand. I probably would’ve written a very descriptive (but hilarious) post about what it really feels like to be in the middle of a sandstorm. Unfortunately, I totally slept through it. But I’m pretty sure this video captures the total experience.

No related posts.

As soon as we got there it was obvious that no Chinese people knew what was up. The bar was packed with Westerners. It was seriously all white people. It totally killed the novelty of seeing another Westerner in Beijing. These people are everywhere now! I think it made me a tiny bit racist. [Reverse racist. Technically. Something I learned in college.]

Anyway, the white people weren’t the only problem. It was also the Jews. Kidding. Jeesh. The other problem was paying 55 kuai for a Guinness that tasted like shit. So we packed up and moved to a bar called Smugglers — which I love.

At Smuggler’s I got six Tsingtao’s for 60 kuai. I think we did what any real Irish person would’ve done. (Except a real Irish person would have bitched about having to drink this “cheap Chinamen piss water,” but done it anyway.)

[Pretty sure this post is the most racist thing I've ever written.]

Related posts:

1. Chinese Night Life – Part 1
2. Me Scam You Long Time
3. Check Out My Sweet Ride

Until that day comes I’ll just have to post pictures here and ask: Does anyone know what the hell this fruit is?

It looks like some kind of alien pod. I was scared to get closer because of my life-long fear of facehuggers.

Update: Apparently it’s a Durian. But even after reading that Wikipedia page I’m still not convinced it won’t kill me.

Related posts:

1. Check Out My Sweet Ride
2. Uncensored Google Results!
3. McCoy’s Food Corner: Cafeteria Food

In this post I’m only going to talk about bars. There are three main types — as far as I can tell — so let’s go through them one by one.

1. The Chinese Bars

Also known as the “weird bars” these are the bars try to appeal to foreigners, but are really only full of Chinese people. For the record, I haven’t actually been inside of these bars. All I can go on is my impression from walking by, which is enough to deter me from actually going in.

There is one main strip (that I’ve been to) that is full of these bars. And they actually look really cool and fun as you approach. The whole street is lit up with all kinds of lights. The trees along the street are decorated with Christmas-style lights and the bar windows are flashing. As you look down the sidewalk you see a lot of people. “Hey, this is the happening place,” you say in an old-person-trying-to-sound-cool voice.

But as you walk down the street things begin to change. A lot of people on the sidewalk are weird guys hired by the bars to reel you in. “Happy hour special, just for you.” Happy hour? It’s 11 PM. And just for us? Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a lie at all.

“Two for one special. Good deal!” Bu Yao buddy. Do not want.

In addition to the Chinese bar salesman [Get it? Bar salesman? Like car salesman. They act like car salesman but they are trying to get you into a bar. It's funny guys. Never mind.] there are also the street peddlers. They have little tables and stands set up and you walk past they encourage you to buy some cheap cigarettes and abnormally huge lighters.

And while all this is going on, you’re trying to get glimpses inside these bars. They are dark but have very bright lights shining on stages. Stages where someone is singing terribly. Really, not good singing. And they are full of Chinese people.

Seeing no foreigners in a place doesn’t automatically make it bad, but it does make you think twice. For some reason no other Westerner in the whole city is at this bar. Why?

“Cheap beer! Ladies get special deal.” Okay. You’ve had enough of these guys. And, if you’re like me, you decide that one day you’ll try out one of these places. But not now. You’re far too sober for it now. One day when you’re good and drunk. That’s the only way you’ll be able to handle this situation. So, you move on.

2. The Night Clubs

These are essentially the same as the American night clubs I’ve been to, but bigger. I’ve been to two big clubs and they are both in the same place: Vics and Mics. Yeah, I don’t understand why they are named that. But I know that I hated Mics and I found Vics tolerable. Tolerable is about the most a night club could ever get out of me.

I’m not really a club person, so for someone else these bars might be the best thing in China. I’ll go if that’s what the rest of the group wants to do, but I’m never really excited for a club.

So anyway, I’ll get to the narration. You walk into the club. There is free coat check. Nice. But there is also a cover. Goddammit. Don’t worry though. Covers are negotiable. We got in for free at Vics — maybe that’s why I liked it more. And at a different club-like bar I was able to haggle a two-for-one deal on the covers. And I convinced the girls to pay. (“Chivalry is dead in China.” Didn’t Mao say something like that? Or was it “chivalry is dead in bed.” I read it on a fortune cookie.)

Alright so you’re past the cover line and you walk into the club proper. (“Proper” is how I like to describe the big dance floor where everyone is grinding their ass on everyone else.) The place is huge; it’s a giant room. And there’s a balcony running around the top of it. Up there are tables for bottle service and private parties. That’s where the rich look down on the silly peasants forced to buy their vodka redbulls from a bartender.

Since this is a night club the music is super loud and you can feel the bass in your chest. I don’t actually mind this that much, until I wake up the next day and not only do I have a hangover but my ears are ringing from the music. Hangover plus ringing ears is a recipe for grouchiness. What? It is.

Like I said, I hated Mics but I loved Vics. I’m not really sure why. Vics, despite the crowd and the overpriced drinks, felt like a fun place. I had fun there. Mics was the most boring night club I’ve ever been to. It was just not fun. I can’t really put my finger on what about the atmosphere was different, but it was.

I realize none of this is giving a picture of what a Chinese night club looks like. It’s crowded and loud and dark but with lots of flashing lights. Not really any different from a night club somewhere else. But here, I found this video of some people at Vics:

It’s a night club. What did you expect? The only really positive thing I can say about the club scene is that it’s where you will find the most attractive Chinese girls. If you’re into that sort of thing, pervert.

3. The Foreigner Bars

These are my favorite places.

A lot of these bars are located in one area too. And there are the familiar street peddlers, but this time they are selling food. There’s food every where along this street. Which is perfect because you can leave a bar at any time and go have a snack.

Also, the street and bars are packed with Westerners. I’ve seen more Westerners in these types of bars than anywhere else in the city. Not just Americans. A lot of Euros. In fact, the inside of the bars remind me of Czech bars. They have a very hole-in-the-wall feel. And those are my favorite types of bars.

There’s a good range of selection. Some of these bars have music and areas to dance. Some are quieter and have a lot of places to sit around. I enjoyed them all. (Some a little too much. McCoy and I ended up dancing on the bar in the middle of one of these places. We made a lot of friends that night.)

Another huge selling point for these bars: They are cheap. We were getting most drinks for under 20 kuai — which is awesome compared to the tiny, 40 kuai drinks I’ve gotten other places. And I was able to go out in this area on Saturday night and spend absolutely no money on alcohol. Now that is a feat.

For me, there is really no contest here. The foreigner bars have a good mix of Chinese and Westerners. They are cheap. The music is decent but not loud enough to make speech impossible. There’s a lot of different sizes and shapes and different rooms to hang out in, depending on your mood. They are like the perfect bars.

Am I Biased?

Yeah, probably a little. If any of you readers come visit I will take you out to all three and you can decide for yourself. And if you’re better at describing settings, I’ll let you rewrite this post.

Alright so that’s it. Were my descriptions terrible? Do you love clubs? Is fortune cookie humor the lowest of the low? If you answer yes to all three then congratulations, I hate you. Just kidding.

Related posts:

1. Chinese Night Life – St. Patrick’s Day
2. Beijing: Australian For “Crowded”
3. Me Scam You Long Time

I’m pretty sure it only snows the Chinese government makes it. They blow a huge horn and the ghost of Mao appears and if they sacrificed enough virgin rice paddy peasant girls to please the ethereal chairman he grants them 3 weather related wishes.

Just kidding, that would be stupid. Really they just pass a law demanding that the weather obey them. It works!

Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took. As usual, click them to get a bigger version.

Here is some random Beijing lady who was shoveling snow. She didn’t really seem like she knew what she was doing.

Here is a snowy road leading away from our apartment. I don’t have any jokes to make about this one or the next couple. So I’ll just post them without comments and you guys pretend I said something really funny.

I don’t know if this is a good picture or not, but I was trying to show how the fat snow flakes were just sort of hanging in the air around the apartment and falling really slowly.

The courtyard outside our building looked really cool with the snow all swirling around.

Guards like this are all over the city. We can’t tell if they are like real government guards or the housing communities hire them. Normally they are much more menacing. But not this guy. He is just enjoying the snow.

These girls didn’t really seem to be enjoying the snow so much. But the next girl that walked by was loving it. Look below.

Look at how happy she is! I never actually saw her face but I’m definitely in love with her. She’s such a free spirit. Maybe we could star in a romantic comedy together. I’ll be all stuffy and upright and well-mannered and she’ll be the free spirited hippie girl who teaches me to enjoy the simple things. That hasn’t been done before, right? I bet her name is Dharma. (For the record, I prefer Simon and Kaylee as my stereotypical-uptight-guy-with-free-spirit-girl couple.)

Alright so that’s what snow looks like in Beijing. Any questions or should I keep making jokes about Mao’s ghost? Fine, I was leaving anyway.

Related posts:

1. Beijing: Australian For “Crowded”
2. What’s Been Going On…
3. Hello From McCoy

Every week I alternate between teaching in the morning or the afternoon. Whatever period I don’t teach during I usually spend doing paper work, lesson planning, important Facebook procrastination, writing articles, or just going to play with the kids anyway.

So for those of you that care here is a timeline of my day (during a week when I work mornings.)

6:30 AM: Wake up tired, snooze the alarm a few times, hate the whole world, burn off my first 3 layers of skin in a hot shower

7:30 AM: Ride my bike for about 15 minutes (through a crowded maze of lunatics) to get to school, then hang out and eat breakfast

8:30 AM: Go to the classroom and hang out with the kids while they play and get situated

9:00 AM: Begin my English lesson. This usually involves getting all the kids to sit around in a circle and doing some introductory sentence practice (“Hello, my name is Roxy and I’m from Australia”) and then singing a song or playing a game and then some flash cards to help them learn new vocabulary words. Occasionally, I have them do English work books.

10:00 AM: The kids have a short snack and then go outside to exercise and play.

11:00 AM: Kids have about 20 minutes of free time, eat lunch then nap. I’m there assisting and organizing.

12:00 PM: My lunch starts and I have until about 2:30

2:30 PM: The kids morning schedule basically repeats but with a Chinese lesson, outside, inside free time, then parents pick them up. I usually join them unless I have some work to do.

5:00 PM: Ride my bike back to the apartment, crash on couch exhausted

I know it doesn’t sound too rough, and it isn’t as bad as McCoys schedule, but it is still pretty tiring. Even though I only teach for an hour I spend all day with them and I constantly have to organize activities and games or break up arguments or fights. It goes really fast, but at the end you feel totally drained. After a few weeks though I bet I will be adjusted and it’ll be easier. Still, it’s nothing to complain about; it’s a pretty amazing job.

So there you have it. That’s my day.

Related posts:

1. My Kids’ Day (Or At Least How I Imagine Their Day Is)
2. My Day
3. Things My Chinese Assistant Emails Me

Inside the furniture market looks like this:

Room after room just packed to the walls with whatever you might need. They even have the kitchen sink (har har okay I’ll stop).

If you’re interested in a shower that can also travel through time, you’ve come to the right place.

If you’re not so into the luxury of using space technology to shower, don’t worry, they have alternatives.

Who is using these things? My theory is that someone used the time travel shower to bring these things back from around 400 A.D. But what do I know? I’m just a guy who takes pictures of bathtubs.

This isn’t really related to furniture but one of the vendors had it on her desk for good luck. It’s pretty ridiculous.

It’s a golden frog surrounded by a bunch of coins. I’m assuming all of this nonsense is used to increase luck. With a high enough luck rating the vendor will receive +3 to their Ripping Off Foreigners skill.

Related posts:

1. Dogs of Chende
2. Beijing: Australian For “Crowded”
3. Hot Water, Still No Internet

Anyway, after having them tighten up all the bolts, I rode it right out of the store and back home. By the way, the store I bought it from is called Carrefour (spelling?). I don’t know if they are in other countries or not. I would describe it as a store trying to be the way the Chinese imagine an American supermarket.

It’s laid out like a western store, so it seems very familiar. The biggest difference is that it’s like a combination of every store ever. The top floor is massive grocery store with tons of fresh fruit and vegetables and all kinds of weirdo meat. It also has all of the standard food like cereal and soda and cookies and snacks. But then you take the escalator downstairs and thats where you can find pretty much everything in the world. It has furniture, bedding, toiletries, motorized scooters, bikes, electronics, clothing, jewelry, school supplies, like really, everything. I could keep listing forever.

Maybe I’ll go back and take some pictures. I also need to take some pictures of the traffic that I’ll be riding in. Until then just trust me that Chinese traffic is such a retarded clusterfuck it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. There’s 13 million people living in this city and none of them can walk, ride, or drive without getting in each other’s way.

I have a friend who would love it though because he could ride over pedestrians on his bike and nobody would give a shit. Pedestrians have 0% right of way. Buses and cars are king. Bikers are like wiley jesters switching from highway to sidewalk swerving in and out of cars and running down pedestrians. And that’s what I’ll be now.

Update: Apparently Carrefour is a pretty huge and well-known hypermarket chain run by the French. I probably should have just Googled it. But anyway, it’s still an amazing store.

Related posts:

1. Your Mom Stops Traffic in Xian

Monday was supposed to be the day we got everything set up and that pretty much happened except for the internet. Hopefully tonight we will finally get it working and McCoy and I can start pumping out some new posts.

Just as a side note, we went from Friday night to Monday night without a real shower. It was torture to try to take cold showers. The water was like freezing sheets of ice rain. And what made it even worse was that we had a perfectly working water cooler that could give us boiling hot water for tea and coffee. It just taunted us.

I actually tried filling up a Nalgene bottle with the near-boiling water and taking it into the shower. So I was in there like jumping under the ice water and then jumping back and splashing myself with scalding water. I also tried mixing them in little glass drinking cups and lining them up on my shower shelves and pouring them over my head one at a time.

Anyway, this is what becomes of you when you lose some basic amenities. Just so you know…

Related posts:

1. McCoy’s Food Corner: Cafeteria Food

Anyway, hopefully these pictures will help explain. (Click on them for a bigger version.)

This is a group of people lining up to get on a subway train. Notice how there are infinite of them.

Being on the subway is like an endless hall of mirrors. Except everyone is way too close and people are giving me dirty looks for taking pictures.

This is a packed wall-to-wall food court. Oh, by the way, below is an amazingly cheap and delicious meal that I bought in said food court.

This cost me 2 US dollars. Yup.

Speaking of food, there are so many street vendors (like the one above) that serve pretty legit food. I had one of those burrito-style wrap things. It was full of duck and veggies and really good. But not all street meat is legit.

This guy is cooking meat on top of a bucket. I passed at least a dozen other people doing the same thing. What the fuck? To his credit the meat smelled pretty good. (Also, I’m not sure why his face looks like that. Maybe he’s some sort of vampire shape-shifting meat cooker. I know it’s not because I fucked up the photo.)

One last thing. When we were at the hospital to take some medical exams we had to wait in line forever — which is typical — but for some reason the lines are labelled so strangely.

Why are there IP addresses labeling these lines? And why are they scrolling past on a stock ticker screen? Honestly, someone explain this to me.

Related posts:

1. Check Out My Sweet Ride
2. Snow In Beijing
3. Jade Factory and Badaling