Saturday, September 29, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Day I Fainted On The Bus
Riding the bus/public transportation in China can be a pleasure:
or a pain:
Today is Saturday and the first day of the week-long Chinese National holiday, meaning streets, buses, trains, stores, etc are packed, furthermore, schools and offices are still in session on Saturday to compensate for the loss of next week. In short, meaning I had to go to school today, on a Saturday.
Weekends are already especially busy and crowded, and as I walked to the bus stop I realized this would be no exception. I waited for my bus (bus #810: red, shiny, new) and piled with the other people waiting on to the already packed bus. I made my way to the back, because as any smart person knows, you have two choices: #1 standy by a kid until he gets off at the next stop, or #2 find a seat in the back. If you find a seat in the back, you will never feel obligated to give up your seat to any "lao, ruo, bing, huan,yun, huo bao xiaohai de qingke." Alas, all the seats in the back were taken too and all the kids already had grownups hovering over their seats, so I found a nice little standing place on the left behind the last row of single chairs. I put my backpack on the floor between my legs and squeezed in. It was a good little spot, maybe a foot wide between the chair in front and the back barrier I could lean on in back. This spot:
No one was really touching me and I was able to crack the window and have a nice cool morning breeze play upon my face.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, about thirty minutes into the trip I started getting hot. Cracked open the window wider. Then I started feeling weak in my legs and my hearing and sight started getting muffled and I knew something was wrong. Very quickly it got worse and worse and as I looked around for a place to sit, realizing there were people everywhere and I had nowhere to go, I got a little worried. I started shaking my previously locked legs out to get the blood moving more and hopped from one foot to the other, but it wasn't working so as it got worse and I got weaker and weaker and my legs started giving out, I finally just slumped down on the floor in my tiny standing place behind the chair. I wasn't totally out of it, and looking over to my right and through legs of people, realized that the bus door was open. I quickly grabbed my bag and said loudly "Wo yao xia che! xia che!" and pushed through people until I got out into the fresh air, made my way over to the side of the road, and plopped down in the dirt and bushes until I felt better, could hear and see again, stopped sweating, all that good stuff. I sat there (amidst strange looks from passerbys) until I was good and then hopped on the next less-packed bus going the same way and finally made it to class, only 5 minutes late. you banfa.
*Tune in next time for a comedic video clip of my mom riding the bus!
or a pain:
Today is Saturday and the first day of the week-long Chinese National holiday, meaning streets, buses, trains, stores, etc are packed, furthermore, schools and offices are still in session on Saturday to compensate for the loss of next week. In short, meaning I had to go to school today, on a Saturday.
Weekends are already especially busy and crowded, and as I walked to the bus stop I realized this would be no exception. I waited for my bus (bus #810: red, shiny, new) and piled with the other people waiting on to the already packed bus. I made my way to the back, because as any smart person knows, you have two choices: #1 standy by a kid until he gets off at the next stop, or #2 find a seat in the back. If you find a seat in the back, you will never feel obligated to give up your seat to any "lao, ruo, bing, huan,yun, huo bao xiaohai de qingke." Alas, all the seats in the back were taken too and all the kids already had grownups hovering over their seats, so I found a nice little standing place on the left behind the last row of single chairs. I put my backpack on the floor between my legs and squeezed in. It was a good little spot, maybe a foot wide between the chair in front and the back barrier I could lean on in back. This spot:
No one was really touching me and I was able to crack the window and have a nice cool morning breeze play upon my face.
Ten minutes, twenty minutes, about thirty minutes into the trip I started getting hot. Cracked open the window wider. Then I started feeling weak in my legs and my hearing and sight started getting muffled and I knew something was wrong. Very quickly it got worse and worse and as I looked around for a place to sit, realizing there were people everywhere and I had nowhere to go, I got a little worried. I started shaking my previously locked legs out to get the blood moving more and hopped from one foot to the other, but it wasn't working so as it got worse and I got weaker and weaker and my legs started giving out, I finally just slumped down on the floor in my tiny standing place behind the chair. I wasn't totally out of it, and looking over to my right and through legs of people, realized that the bus door was open. I quickly grabbed my bag and said loudly "Wo yao xia che! xia che!" and pushed through people until I got out into the fresh air, made my way over to the side of the road, and plopped down in the dirt and bushes until I felt better, could hear and see again, stopped sweating, all that good stuff. I sat there (amidst strange looks from passerbys) until I was good and then hopped on the next less-packed bus going the same way and finally made it to class, only 5 minutes late. you banfa.
*Tune in next time for a comedic video clip of my mom riding the bus!
Sunday, September 16, 2012
Chinese Class
My dad started a beginning Chinese class for the other members living in Wuhan. If you're of the non-Chinese speaking variety and live in Wuhan, come on over. Wed nights. Free.
Touring parts of China
When we got to China we spent about a week travelling with another family in Beijing and Xian.
Terracotta Warriors
Me in Xian. with this cool guy.
What you get when you give Danny the camera.
My mom on a boat at the Summer Palace.
Us at a tourist trap.
Sam, trying to be sexy.
Eating at some sketch restaurant where they only gave us appetizers to eat.
Buying some apples on the way back from some giant Buddhist graven idol something something.
Treasures found while moving
Ahh, the joys of moving. But among all the back-breaking throwing out of junk, I found these beauties:
Item #1: a "lucky" rabbits foot, partially decomposed with dead maggot carcasses on it.
Item #2: A dead mouse stuck in a pile of spilled honey in our garage.
Item #3: a dead father in the giveaway pile.
Item #4: These lovely artistic creations displaying Danny's feelings on moving.
Item #5: That one time Danny said "I'm not going to China!" and "ran away," aka walked the 5 minutes down to the elementary school and hid on the roof until it got to scary and he came home and said "ehh.. I think I'll sleep here tonight." Viva La Resistance!
Item #6: an almost "before and after" picture of our family room. My mom will get mad when she sees this. hehehe.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Oh and I got my identity stolen today. Happy 9-11.
Oh and I got my identity stolen today. Woke up today to a phone call from Tiana from National Security telling me my dearly beloved ex-aunt is actively using my identity. thanks.
Nanjing: A Memoir
I spent the last week visiting Nanjing and a couple days in Shanghai. It was nice. Couch surfing, street food eating, job seeking and interviewing, sightseeing, and of course, lots of snogging. In retrospect, this is my conclusion of Nanjing vs. Wuhan:
For a more complete comparison, please see wikipedia's "Wuhan" vs. "Nanjing" webpages.
Some notable events from the week:
-Kristy and Maggie letting me stay at their place a couple of nights, sleeping on an awesome 2 foot wide red pleather couch
-Willie giving us toothbrush covers
-A man crouched down playing with a rat in a cage, people crowdeing around watching, even a little kid, and as we walked the man picking up the cage and lowering it into a bucket of water. nothing like drowning rats in buckets of water.
-4 migrant workers (3 of them women) pushing a buttload of bricks (maybe three times the size of a coffin?) across the street towards Spencer's neighborhood where the day before they had randomly torn down all the shops' roofs and were rebuilding them.
-a keaiduo a day keeps the doctor away
-eating chips and salsa and guacamole and chicken bacon crockpot and mashed potatoes and salad with hidden valley ranch and chocolate chip cookies at the Peterson's house in Shanghai. and leaving with individual bags of cookies for each of us.
-finding a taiwanese shop that sells douhua and zhengzhu
-beating Spencer at go fish in the subway
-Michael being engaged and attending YSA events.
-Sunday dinner with the flagship kids
-interviewing with a sketchy english school that was located in someone's apartment (it was really nice though), learning that they couldn't hire me because of my L visa, having them call me later saying "actually, we want to hire you and you can sleep at our school at night whenever you are in town" and me turning them down cuz it's illegal, them telling friends that I'm looking for a legal job in Nanjing, the next day a lady calling me telling me she'll get me a Z visa and a job/free apartment/salary/etc and me looking up the school online and finding this, deciding I don't really want to teach english anyways, and deciding I'll just move back to wuhan and take chinese classes.
-riding on the back of Spencer's women's bike at like 10 pm and almost crashing. multiple times.
-buying illegaly copied US movies that AREN'T in Russian and DON'T have english subtitles to "The Lorax" on them
-chillin with my fat bottomed boy, my boo.
-having the best night's sleep ever in China on the couch of a member in Shanghai, and then having an even better nights sleep the one night I actually got a hotel in Nanjing. shoot girl, I saved like $100. let me get that dolla.
Nanjing is pretty sweet. I highly recommend it. but it ain't got nothin on wuhan.
except maybe this:
-Kristy and Maggie letting me stay at their place a couple of nights, sleeping on an awesome 2 foot wide red pleather couch
-Willie giving us toothbrush covers
-A man crouched down playing with a rat in a cage, people crowdeing around watching, even a little kid, and as we walked the man picking up the cage and lowering it into a bucket of water. nothing like drowning rats in buckets of water.
-4 migrant workers (3 of them women) pushing a buttload of bricks (maybe three times the size of a coffin?) across the street towards Spencer's neighborhood where the day before they had randomly torn down all the shops' roofs and were rebuilding them.
-a keaiduo a day keeps the doctor away
-eating chips and salsa and guacamole and chicken bacon crockpot and mashed potatoes and salad with hidden valley ranch and chocolate chip cookies at the Peterson's house in Shanghai. and leaving with individual bags of cookies for each of us.
-finding a taiwanese shop that sells douhua and zhengzhu
-beating Spencer at go fish in the subway
-Michael being engaged and attending YSA events.
-Sunday dinner with the flagship kids
-interviewing with a sketchy english school that was located in someone's apartment (it was really nice though), learning that they couldn't hire me because of my L visa, having them call me later saying "actually, we want to hire you and you can sleep at our school at night whenever you are in town" and me turning them down cuz it's illegal, them telling friends that I'm looking for a legal job in Nanjing, the next day a lady calling me telling me she'll get me a Z visa and a job/free apartment/salary/etc and me looking up the school online and finding this, deciding I don't really want to teach english anyways, and deciding I'll just move back to wuhan and take chinese classes.
-riding on the back of Spencer's women's bike at like 10 pm and almost crashing. multiple times.
-buying illegaly copied US movies that AREN'T in Russian and DON'T have english subtitles to "The Lorax" on them
-chillin with my fat bottomed boy, my boo.
-having the best night's sleep ever in China on the couch of a member in Shanghai, and then having an even better nights sleep the one night I actually got a hotel in Nanjing. shoot girl, I saved like $100. let me get that dolla.
Nanjing is pretty sweet. I highly recommend it. but it ain't got nothin on wuhan.
except maybe this:
just sayin.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
I hate blogging.
Let's just get that out there. But Spencer beats me at everything, so I have to pull out the big guns and whip his trash at something. So here's to a full year of trash-kicking high blog-viewin' stats.
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