China Update 2

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Captain's Log
Stardate 11:53:00::06:10:2010
Location Shanghai China

So when i left off last time, the battery was dying on my laptop in Seoul, South Korea and i was searching for an outlet. i only went about 40 feet before i found an outlet and realized that South Korean outlets are two circular prongs and i couldn't use them. i progressed to fill my water bottles when i ran into a guy from my flight. we walked the whole terminal. it took a while, it was a curve with two lines coming off. nothing was opened at five in the morning. ha ha ha. eventually we walked down one of the lines and found a free internet cafe payed for my naver (the google of china). it was closed but in an open area so we sat down. all of the chairs had internet cables and power cords but not the one for my laptop. after a while i found laptop battery thing that was not locked under the chair. i switched cables and was online. i spoke to a few people particularly Lizangela & Jeanelle. :-) i also spoke with Christian from International Internship and got the number for Abroad China in case they did not appear at the airport. i had a feeling that they weren't going to come. I hired International Internships and they outsourced me to Abroad China. a man came by and kicked us out for 5 minutes to set up the official computers and then let us back in. before the guy left, i got his name and contact information this time. ha ha ha. His name was You. i left for the air plane a little early because i had to use the bathroom. i decided to buy some sushi because it was cheap. a sandwich in the seoul airport was $8 instead of the $10 for the same brand in LAX. a roll of tuna sushi was $4. the sushi had no taste and they didn't have hot sauce. i didn't know how ask for it because the lady only spoke korean. the chop sticks were metal, not aluminum and had rings at the bottom, i guess to grip the food better.

on the flight to shanghai, i met a guy from shanghai. he looked older than me but was only 17. he's in between his junior and senior year at a boarding school in pennsylvania. i also watched almost all of Alice in Wonderland in English this time. i had never seen it in english before even though i had watched it in german or listen to it in german in the car around four times. i still didn't make it to the end before we arrived. :-)

abroad china was not at the airport so i wondered around for a while. i found a pay phone computer that only worked with a calling card. i eventually found a very nice girl named Vivian who gave me her phone card. i spoke with the abroad china girl, zoey, who told me to take a cab to a certain hotel and she would pay me back. i had her speak to vivian to write down the directions. vivian then took me to a specific cab driver who we waited 10 minutes for. a cab driver drove in circles a week ago so they didn't want me to take just anyone. Vivian my first friend in china. she has a really strong british accent. she is volunteering or working for free as a intern at the airport helping foreigners. a cell phone company has them doing that for free for public relations. i offered to purchase a cell phone from them because of all the help they gave me, but they didn't even know about the different phones or anything. there were tons of really nice house along the road to were the hotel was. the hotel called the girl from Abroad china when i arrived, and we spoke on the phone. the hotel didn't have any more rooms so i waited there for about twenty minutes before the girl showed up. i called the two number that Dr. Fong gave me using the area code and not using the area code and forgetting to dial '9' to get out of the hotel's directory. after a long time, i finally got her house, but she wasn't there. someone said she might be there tomorrow (today). she had already called over 10 hotels and everywhere was full due the expo. she had no idea i was coming because christian didn't send her my flight information. i also found out that a girl named Jackie had arranged everything and had quiet either this week or last week. so she was scrambling to pick up the pieces and had just hired a new girl, sofie. the office here in shanghai only has two people. the many office in beijing has tons of people. i don't have an apartment either because of the transition. the fault lies with christian or jackie or zoey. after a few minutes of talking, another girl, sofie arrived. she was very cute and closer to my age. :-) they gave me a cell phone. i'm really worried about it running out of minutes because i can't recharge it without help. i really appreciate the Chilean way of recharging cell phones. ;-)

we went to their office and they told me that i could stay there. it was a mess but look much better after i had thrown four large cardboard boxes into the trashcan. the apartment had been converted into their office. it has no closets, but it does have a kitchen and shower. i swept the apartment which had a very thick layer of dust covering everything except for the walk ways. the bathroom was also dreadful. i the floor with water and a rag which i threw away afterward. the dust was so thick it laughed at the broom. Ha ha ha! i can sell her the laughter. :-P i emptied the trash cans and re-sprayed for cockroaches. there was some larva behind the toilet. i also used my hand and water to rub most of the dirt off the inside of the sink. there is toilet cleaner and two toilet brushes but not 409 or windex. the kitchen is my next job the counters have layers of grim on them. dust seems to stick to the bathroom and floor. i have to wipe it down three times a day (the bathroom floor). i can't stay here permanently but i can stay for a long time. the big boss won't ever come here because it's really far away. they are saving money by having me here so they took me to lunch. zoey said she will try to give me some of the money back because i'm not staying in a hotel. she looking for an apartment for me.

the three of us went out to eat for dinner. they ordered me a noodle soup. zoey had one too and sofie got white rice. we had a place of scrambled eggs and tomatoes in tomato sauce and a plate of orange chicken. me and zoey also got small plates of beef in brown sauce which we dumped into our soup. i had to add hot sauce for some flavor. the meat was really 'good' because it was small and had bones in it. the girls were eating and spitting the bones onto the table which i found very disgusting and instead used an old plate. zoey was actually sucking on the bones for their flavor. no one gets a drink with their meal, ever. eat meat makes you fat, give you pimples, and something else. there is tons of common knowledge in china about different cure and remedies that i have never heard of. pig feet make you beautiful because of some vitamins. we also went to an indoor food market with lots of vendors. i was about the size of a savemart and right across the street. it's only one story because the building are all really tall. here are some things to note about the food market in china...

about 90% of the meat here is living in the supermarket. they eat NO beef. the only dead meat is pork. there are tons and tons of fish, eel, lobster, shrimp, and if you want it, just tell them and they put it in a plastic bag still moving. it dies as you walk around the store. some ocean fish is dead and on ice, but that's rare. there are at least 10 different kinds of fish and three different kinds of eel. you can buy bags of living frogs on the street if you buy a chicken, a pigeon, or a dove, they kill it in front of you if you buy an eel, they put a nail through it's head and use a knife to cut it long ways and take out the guts. i don't mind about fish or birds. the only thing that really upset me was the frogs. i used to play with frogs all the time a kid in the mountains; they were like my pets. they they are pretty and i had a curtain and blanket of poison dart frogs from the amazon when we first lived in fresno.

when we got back i decided to take a shower or maybe i took one before we went out, either way, i smelled terrible. the night before i left to china, i didn't shower because i was awake all night. i was on the plane the next night and didn't shower then. now was my time to shower. showering was an interesting experience. the water pressure was fine, but i found that there was one temperature if the nozzle was not on Cold. the temperature was not my choice either. it would be boiling hot water for about 30 seconds and then freezing cold water for about thirty seconds. this means i only have the transition parts to wash my body as fast as i could here's is my method of showers.
1st hot water rush - discover that the water is not adjustable
cold water - wait at the back of the shower
2nd hot water rush - wet body and start wetting hair
cold water - wait at the back of the shower
3rd hot water rush - finish wetting hair and re-wet body
cold water - wait at the back of the shower and soap body
4th hot water rush - rinse off body
cold water - wait at the back of the shower
5th hot water rush - re-wet hair
cold water - wait at the back of the shower and shampoo hair
6th hot water rush - begin rinsing hair
cold water - wait at the back of the shower
7th hot water rush - finish rinsing hair
there was no shampoo so i used hand soap for shampoo it worked fine. i'm going to try dish soap if they have any tonight. there was no towel either so i used my hands to whisk the water off my body which made me feel very fat. i've used this before. then i used my dirty t-shirt to finish drying myself. i left my hair mostly wet because it brushes easier that way. not to self: do not use three-day-old dirty boxers to dry face.

i spent last night on the internet going through people's profiles in shanghai who are learning english and sending them messages. i already received a message back from a girl named peggy. we are going to meet up this saturday. i felt fine and really want to go out, but at 10pm i suddenly got really tired. that was around 4 or 5am in fresno which is when i go to bed. i slept all night. i woke up at 4am and downloaded a program to fix my registry and a good program to change my wallpaper. i good one is out now. it's called BioniX Wallpaper. i went back to bed at 5:30am and was woken up at 9am when my cell phone went off. zoey asked me if i wanted to work today for a different company. i immediately said yes, but i needed to wear a suit. i forgot to pack a suit jacket, but had the rest. :-( i don't think that 20 minutes isn't enough notice. i went to the bathroom. vivian and peggy have been texting me all day for no reason at all. i told them both that they are the only people i know so i'm almost forced to be friends with them, but they still feel the need to text me all the time. it's weird. we left the apartment twice today. once to get some business cards printed and then for lunch.
on the way back from getting the business cards printed, we decided to get my hair cut. we went to the beauty salon in the bottom of our building. we are on the 22 floor. she said it was a more expensive than the one around the corner but i said that was okay. i payed 20 RBM and the exchange rate is 7 RMB=$1, we call that a $3 hair cut, but i decided to tip the guy 5 RMB to be nice. one of the americans, Dennis, is leaving in two weeks and will return two weeks before i leave so i can stay in his apartment. it's going to be $400 per month normally (really expensive in china). i don't know how much he is going to charge me. less because by me staying there, he saves money. i could also stay with a family for cheaper if i can find one, but just going to an apartment building and renting an apartment won't happen. i emailed my cousin leslie because Aunt Lanie told me that she has a friend here who might have a sofa available. and if she's mexican i might be able to hear some spanish! ha ha ha. i've also hit up vivian and peggy for an apartment or family who wants to have an american live with them. this afternoon dennis is going to invite me to go out with him and meet some americans. sofie isn't in today. she's with all the students in the hotel. it's normal for abroad chines students to say in the very nice hotel for the whole time they are here. they also pay $5000 and the hotel is $1000 per month! tomorrow zoey said that sofie can tour me around shanghai.
something very important to note is that zoey told me that i have to buy a washing machine. i couldn't believe it, but she said that laundry mats (which she calls laundry stores) do not exist in china. if i want, i can take my clothes to get washed and it will be around $1.50 for every piece of clothes they wash. i asked her how the poor people wash their clothes and she said they buy washing machines, they aren't expensive only $50 used. washing machines here are the size of a short file cabinet or a blue jug or water. it's also very popular to hand wash clothes here. she said i should do that because i don't like to spend money, and she will show me how. i'm a little nervous. i still need to buy an iron and suit jacket.
all chinese people say the word 'nigger' all the time. i haven't asked what it means, but Marci told me in chile that it means 'uhhh' they are shuddering.

My current address is
Room 2204, No 7 Bldg,
Xin Feng Cheng Yin Zuo,
51 Nong Feng Cheng Road,
Yang Pu District
Shanghai 200093

My chinese phone number is: 1582-1596-045

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