Three Days of Halloween

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The festivities began with a trip to Chunxi Lu. We started at the Donut Stop, which is conveniently located right next to the bus station. I had a strawberry jam filled 多拿咝(duonasi) and a pineapple flavored 多拿咝. 很好吃！

We went to the Women's Market to purchase the finishing touches for our costumes before heading back to campus. Ever since Maria discovered the correct return bus station from Chunxi Lu to Dongmen, our trips to Chunxi Lu have been much less stressful.

Back in the dorm I dunked my head in the shower and braided my hair, then shoved it up inside my panda hat so I would look less stupid for the meeting I had set with Adam. He has not been the most reliable site director, and our Tibet class has gone a bit awry, so I texted him a day or so before to set up a meeting to ask him questions about this.

The questions included: How are the Wednesday night lectures relevant to the topic of the class? (The class is about Tibet, but recently we have had lectured about bioenergy in Germany, Daoism, and music...) Can we get more credits for this? (2 credits for a class that often lasts 5 hours a week? I don't think so.) And, can you please be more available? (It is close to impossible to pin Adam down for anything important.) Also, we want to hear our fellow students presentations, which you had them prepare and then never had them present.

He evaded responsibility for most of it. It is Sichuan University's fault. Ask Greg Youtz. I am available. (In Tibet quarter, at the conservatory, 50 miles and 100 dollars away by taxi.) We will see what we can do.

Eggs and tomato, and stir fry with noodles, for dinner. Homemade. Then downstairs to don my Hermione Granger costume.

I went up to Clare and Audrey's room to complete my costume and help others' with theirs. I drew a dark mark on Maria's wrist and a snitch tattoo on Clare's shoulder, as well as her scar. Maria was Draco Malfoy, Clare Harry Potter, Audrey Pansy Parkinson, Mycal Blaise, Clara Ron, and Kristiana Luna Lovegood. We all had bamboo sticks for our wands. Nerdy, I know.

In costume, Clare, Audrey, and I went with Joanna to watch Clare and Joanna's English students perform in some sort of talent show... Not really sure how to explain it. But we saw what we were there for: a dance/song rendition of High School Musical's "We're All in This Together." After that we left to get to Mycal's surprise birthday party in Monica and Emily's room, which had cookies, cake, and pizza. So it was perfect. We snapped some pictures of our costumes, and headed out to the Shamrock. From the Shamrock to Jellyfish and Panam. Then to Muse for dancing. We ran into Adam outside. He was wearing a trucker hat and had a bag full of school books and articles, but was going to meet his friend at a club... only Adam. Then we went to McDonald's, and were back home by three a.m. or so.

On Saturday morning, I woke up at 8:30 and could not get back to sleep, so I did homework, watched Ugly Betty, and did laundry. At 1, Clare and Audrey woke up. We got dressed and went to lunch. We couldn't find the place we were looking for, so we ate at a random restaurant beneath Jellyfish and Panam. We had fried rice, pork that tasted like mushu port in America, tomato and egg, and mapo doufu. It was all good, of course.

We stopped at the tailor so that Clare could pick up a pair of shorts she had ordered, and so that we could all order the same shorts in different colors. (They fit her so well, it was impossible to resist).

We walked back. I dropped a bag of Anderson's pastries off at the dorm, and immediately took my bike to North gate. I found the shop I had ordered my banner from and picked it up. Then went back. I watched "I hope they serve beer in hill" and studied with Clare and Audrey.

As soon as the movie was over, I went downstairs and put on my second costume: 80s thriller-esque zombie. When I went back up to Clare and Audrey's room, Shannon, Cara, Scott, and Maria were all sitting on the couch watching the Tibetan Yeti Project.

I used Maria's massive make-up box to make my face look beat up. Audrey helped me apply fake eyelashes and tease my hair into a chaotic mess... We didn't get out of the dorm until ten or so because it took so long for everyone to get ready.

We went to the Shangri La bar for live music, dancing, and to check out everyone's costumes. You wouldn't believe how many people can dress as panda's for Halloween. The bar tenders performed Thriller on stage, and were surprisingly good.

We had been planning on going to the Hemp Bar, which was having a concert that night, but apparently there was a cover charge, so we didn't go there. We just went straight to KFC for chicken sandwiches and french fries. KFC's fries are a lot better than McDonald's fries, but they didn't have their ice cream machine running.

I woke up the next morning at 10:30. Yay, sleeping in! And I lay and bed and watched Ugly Betty for a long time. Xiyangyang has gone by the wayside since I have been preparing for my midterm. I study so much, I don't want to watch shows in Chinese in my spare time.

Rather than go out to eat, Maria and I hit up the trash heap store for omelette making supplies, and we came back and cooked that up. My omelette had garlic, onion, cheddar and pepper jack cheese, lotus root, tomato, and mushroom. We meant to study, but spent most of the rest of the afternoon looking at each other's pictures on Facebook and Myspace.

Adam's class in the evening was only an hour and ten minutes long. I convinced him to shorten it in light of Halloween.

Maria, Clare, Audrey, and I went to the hostel's Halloween party. Free hotpot and games made this evening amazing. We played a hide and seek type game. The hostel employees had taken close up pics of objects in the rec room and we had to search for them. Our group found all of them first, so we won a Qingdao beer each. Gross.

Clare and Audrey also competed to pop ten balloons between each other in the least amount of time. They lost, but they still got free bottles of Beerlao-- a Tibetan brand.

We sat outside for a while. I had a hot chocolate. And we chatted with the hostel employees (they like to help us with our Chinese) and a French man in Chengdu to renew his visa.

We got home, I took a shower, and went straight to bed. Not very much candy this Halloween, but still tons of fun.

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Photos

Clare's tattoo
Fuck bitches, get yuan.

the hostel party
there were free costume elements on the pool table

an orb donut
white chocolate shavings

Comments

[adam]

holy cow, a bunch of desperate housewives, LOL!