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Published: August 25th 2005
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Cinderellas
Me, Duncan, and Melissa at Cinderellas the night before Duncan left for Shenzhen. And it's time for the weekly news report.
Today's been frustrating.. figuring out schedules and hours, etc. I taught my last "After School Activities" class at the JAC to the class I love so much. I was sad to see them go.. I might see some of them again in other classes, but a lot of them I won't and they are such sweet kids, always giving me little gifts and watching my face turn upside down when they give me sour candies. Though today they picked on me a bit, told me I have a bastketball belly (!!), a long nose, and thick fingers. All very attractive features (haha hello self-consciousness!). I'm done for today (thank god) and tomorrow was supposed to be a full day off, but because of the way my hours worked out this week, I took a class tomorrow afternoon, and will not get a full day off for another week.
Daphne left yesterday night. After school yesterday, we had appointments to get massages and facials at 5. Due to pay/reimbursement difficulties, we didn't get out of the school until 6, but got to the place in time for Daphne to have a facial
and for me to have a massage (just what we each needed). My massage was very relaxing, except for when she pounded on me like I was a piece of meat and her fist was a meat cleaver. Not so pleasant. I think I scared the girl when she saw my belly button rings, which I had to take out to get my stomach massaged. Daphne's Chinese friend Yue (you-eh) met us there and had a facial as well, and then we all went to the Edson Brazilian BBQ (all you can eat for 58 kaui!). The owner of that BBQ is the guy I met on the plane from Beijing to Jinan! But the food was good, I had a ton of salad and veggies, corn and beans, and tried some tempura lotus flower (not bad!), some tomato egg soup, and had some real juice. For the carnivores in the group (Daphne and Yue) it was neat because they would bring around different kinds of meats on huge scewers and cut pieces off for you at the table. There was beef, pork, chicken, ox tail, chicken kidneys, duck, etc. We took a cab to the train station and saw
Hot Pot!
This is our hot pot, like a little volcano on the table. You drop your veggies in the pot and let them cook, then take them out and eat 'em up! Unless you have a little shrimp floating around in your pot and your veggies taste like dirt. Then you leave. Daphne off around 9:30.
On Tuesday night Daphne and I went down to the massage place to see if we could get massages, but they had no time so we booked them for Wednesday night. We wandered around, looking for something to eat, and passed what smelled like a great hot pot. I hadn't been to a hot pot yet, so we decided to check it out. A hot pot is basically a pot of hot water in the middle of the table that you cook vegetables and meat in. Like a fondue, but with water instead of oil and the water is usually spiced really well. Everyone had raved about hot pots but this one, just our luck, was the shits. The water wasn't spiced at all, and because I don't do meat, we had veggies. There was somethign that tasted just like dirt. The potatoes weren't bad, but it's when we found the little shrimp floating around that I was totally turned off and we split pretty quickly from there on a mission to find some GOOD food. And of course we ended up at the Spring Cafe. We left in the pouring rain and picked up
Hot Pot!
Miss Daphne some tiramisu at Pizza Hut. We waited for a taxi in the pouring rain, and just imagine the scene in a movie where there's a girl standing on the sidewalk in the rain and a car drives by and soaks her with puddle water. That was me. My pants and shoes got wet and all I could do was stamp my foot and say, "Oh Damn!" A bunch of Chinese people just laughed at me.
Monday was my day off, and a rough day to start with. I called Court and we used an entire phone card (41 minutes!), but she cheered me up with the thought of Christmas! I caugh a cab to Walmart around 2 and found my way to the DVD place where I found some good ones. Walked down along the springs by Quan Cheng Square and decided to have my portrait drawn. There were two guys doing portaits, so I sat down for one of them and he started to draw. Then the other guy started. It turned into a draw-off, with a huge crowd of Chinese gathering around to judge. In the end, I was suckered into buying both. Went to UBC for
Hot Pot Buddy
Here's our little shrimp buddy. Kind of glad he showed up or we probably would have stuck it out and finished the hot pot, despite the taste of dirt. a coffee and some "bookachees" then home. At the UBC cafe (and some other places) if you say thank-you or "shie shie", the girls will respond with "bookachee" which translates roughly to "don't worry". You can make a game of it and see how many bookachees you can get!
In some other random news that fits somwhere into the last week:
. I spent an afternoon at Melissa's to wish Megan off, as she missed her original flight from Jinan to Beijing and had to catch a train.
. Daphne and I made brownies, burnt them slightly, but they still tasted great with ice cream.
. I found a little spider in my fries at Jenny's, but just pushed it aside and kept eating (you know you've been in China too long when...)
. I now have the internet hooked up in my apartment, but have no computer until sometime next week when I hope I can get a laptop.
. I got mail from Lynne/Earl and Sheila/Randy (THANK YOU!!!)
That's it for now... I'll update again when something interesting happens, promise.
Xes and Oes,
Laur
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Matticus
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I leave in Seven days, wish me luck!