Happy Thanksgiving!

Well it's been a while since my last upload, haven't had much online time this week. I've been pretty busy and met some great people this week. I met a guy named Samuel at last Sunday's Chinese/English class. His english is really good, but luckily he's only been using Chinese with me. Samuel brought me to his friend's coffee shop this week. The owners are super nice and the customers are all very friendly. I plan on going back often to chat and try to pick up more and more of the language. They serve a cup of coffee (to men only?) called Emperor Shennong- It costs $45 US!
好久不见。这几天我很少上网。 我很忙不过我这个星期介绍一些很好人。 再上个星期的语言课我介绍一个男人叫做Samuel. 他说英语说的很好不过我们一起制用中文聊天儿 他带我区他朋友的咖啡馆。 那个咖啡馆的老板，和顾客都是很好人所以我打算很常回来聊天儿。 他们做一杯咖啡，叫做帝Shennong. 一杯Shennong咖啡要三百多元！ 再说女人不能喝这样的咖啡。


These photos are pretty dated, starting from 10 days ago on 11/10/09
这些照片很久。 第一个是2009年十一月十号照得。

I haven't talked to my leasing agent in a while, but on the 10th, I got a call from her phone. It was her friend who I hadn't met inviting me to the leasing agent's birthday party. This birthday party was very unusual. Everybody stood in a big circle in the room and we cut various fruits and passed them around as we chatted. The strangest fruit was called an Ohlong, it looks like a purple artichoke. When you peel it the fruit is a milky white with what looks like poppy seeds spread throughout. It was too average- just slightly sweet, slightly sour and slightly salty.
我很多久没见我的房牙子不过十一月十号我接了她的电话。 她的朋友请我来房牙子的生日会。她的生日会很奇怪。我们一边吃水果一边聊天儿。 最奇怪的水果叫做Oolong又甜的又酸的又咸的。





The birthday girl, Grace, my leasing agent.
我的房牙子， Grace.





CAKE! I was really excited about this cake because of the chocolate on the sides... that's all I really wanted. I cut the cake and by the time I had served everybody, there were no pieces left with chocolate because this girl peeled all the chocolate pieces for herself! I wish I knew how to say "Jerk- put the chocolate down, NOW!" in Chinese. Haha
蛋糕！ 我很兴奋因为这个蛋糕有巧克力。 我只要吃巧克力。 我锲蛋糕，但是我锲好得时候没有巧克力因为一个女孩儿把每一片巧克力偷窃了！





The next night I went out to dinner with a guy Mackie and his friend Sammie. Apparently they're not a couple, but he kept talking about how he bought plane tickets to go see her, and how he has to bring her here or accompany her there. Not sure what was going on, but they were really nice and had some great insight regarding asian cultures.
The food was excellent too. We had these greens (thick cabbage maybe) chopped crispy pork ribs, spicy beef, Japanese Tofu and fried shrimp skewers. It was all very spicy and very delicious. Mackie and Sam didn't eat much because it was too spicy so I took on the responsibility of finishing it all. I felt that the next day.

次日我和 Mackie 和 Sammie 一起出去吃饭。 他们不是一对儿，不过Mackie 告诉我的他以前坐飞机去见他的，再说他需要带她去很多地方。 我不清楚他们觉得什么，但是他们不但很好人， 而且教我很多亚洲的文化。
那里的菜非常好吃。 我们吃了菜蔬，猪排，辣牛肉，日本豆腐，和串烧虾。 这些菜又好吃又很辣。Mackie 和 Sammie 觉得太辣所以我把每一菜吃完了。 次日我的肚子一点不舒服。





The shrimp skewers- they're fried shell and all with tea leaves, the black pieces in the picture. After the first one or two, you don't really notice the shell. Good calcium I guess.
串烧虾是和茶叶一起炸的。吃一，两个然后不感觉它们的外层。我估摸是很好的钙质。






Chomp Chomp
咬咬！





The next day I met my friend Wendy for some shopping at the border shopping center underground. I go there pretty frequently, but rarely buy anything. It's just a really fun place to explore.
次日我在拱北地下市场见面我的朋友，Wendy. 我常常去拱北地下市场但是我很少买东西。那个地方很好玩。





On Saturday morning, the 14th, I ran up my mountain like usual then met up with Hank for some hiking. We hiked up shi Jing Shan and the mountain on Ye Li Dao Island. I got a text message from a strange number asking what I was doing... so I had Hank slyly ask the person how we knew each other. It turns out she was the person that invited me to Grace's birthday party. We invited her to hang out with us, so she met up with us and I cooked lunch for Hank and her.
After lunch I got a text from somebody I met earlier in the week inviting me to play badminton with some friends. I brought Hank and Shannon out to play. I never knew badminton could be so much fun.
星期六早上我在金钟花园跑步爬山。然后我见面Hank. 我们在石景山和野离岛山爬山了。 我接了很奇怪的短信，但是我不清楚谁发给我的。 Hank 问她是谁？ 恰好他是












Hank the Tank
I didn't realize we were going to play at a paid court, so I paid for my guests. After badminton ended, we went to a restaurant near my old crazy roommate's house. I ordered Japanese style Tofu, which is now one of my favorite dishes. It's spicy round tofu made out of eggs served with spicy beef or chicken. After dinner, we got to talking about cooking and decided to take the bus to a really big supermarket to find some Cheese. They had cheese there, but it costs like $1-2 US per ounce! After playing around in the supermarket, we saw a bar that said it had mexican food, so I went in and asked the owner where he gets tortillas. He gave me the card of a place called Zhuhai deli. Afterwards Hank and I walked Shannon to her bus stop and Hank insisted he wait for me to get on my bus before taking his. He got along really well with Shannon, so I hope they get closer in the future.






I've been teaching a little english 2-3 times a week to a couple on the floor below me. It's great because I make a little spending money and I'm definitely learning more Chinese from them than they're learning English from me. They opened a business together making ink Cartridges and hope to someday set up a business in America to distribute the products. They invited me over for lunch on Sunday the 15th. We had some duck, cucumbers, greens and fish. There were lots of bones, but it was pretty good.





There's a lot of shirts, signs and various things for sale with English on them. The English often doesn't make sense, but nobody knows better. Take this bathroom tile for example. I can do that too- adsklfjbnefkljbhfbhlekjrbfhjlebhrfljebrfjberjfbejferjlbfjerjher





Later that day I went to find the Zhuhai deli. They had really random imported goods. 10 stale tortillas cost $5 US though! They even had Spam there for $6 US a can. Ironic. I ended up buying a bottle of Taco sauce for about $4.
The next day, Monday the 16th, I got some flour and salt to make my own tortillas. It was really simple but very time consuming.





I didn't have a rolling pin so I used this ketchup bottle. The problem was it's not really cylindrical, the bottom and top of the cylinder have a raised round edge which kept making thin spots on the tortillas.





Batch #1, 8 tortillas, but I ate one.





I had a little time and the tortilla I ate was so good that I decided to make another batch. This time I found a chili oil botter that was better shaped, but oil kept leaking out while I was rolling the tortillas. I used chili oil instead of vegetable oil in this batch though anyways and they had a nice flavor to them.





TACOS! Finally! I think Mexican food is my favorite.





I took a one pound cut of pork and turned it into really small chunks. It took forever, but you can only really buy large chunks of meat here. I cooked onions and green pepper together and added cilantro green onions and taco sauce on top. They were delicious.







I gotta run now, but I'll publish this as soon as I get online next time. It's now 6PM Friday November 20th.

A long walk

Continued... I went back to Tangjia the next morning to try and get my bike fixed. I left the house at 8:15, took a bus and arrived in Tangjia at 10am. My bike was where I left it! On the engine though there are two identical caps each with a hex head. The one on the left in this picture had just blown through. Pretty crummy metal I guess. I found a mechanic who told me he would have the bike done by 2PM. I didn't want to spend 3 hours in transit going home and back so I begun walking north where I had never been before.





This is a small body of water connected to the upcoming river that I came across in the beginning of my journey. It was right after some really nice houses and some really beaten factories.





Just after that there was a very large bridge traversing the river. I was really hot so I made a shir-Turbin.





This is a panorama from on top of the bridge. The bridge traverses the end of the river. There were a few industrial docks among other things. I didn't get a picture, but the bridge was constructed of a single rectangular cement column 250ft tall with cables running from it to the rest of the bridge.





This boat looked like it was about to capsize. The water was right up to the deck.





This is the 'end' of the bridge. The elevated road continued for hundreds of yards, but the sidewalk suddenly ended.





Many walls in China have a very simple alternative to barbed/razor wire. Broken glass should do the job, and it looks pretty neat too.





This is the Peking University Zhuhai Experimental Campus. I went in to explore and was very surprised to see every age in school uniforms, from kindergarteners to college students all at the same campus.





To my surprise, even this less traveled part of Zhuhai was adorned with palm trees and its own bike road.





I saw a new BMW and Audi take a dirt road so I followed them. There was a really ritzy restaurant at the end and a beach with couples taking wedding photos. You see a lot of that here, especially at the beach. I would think the sand and lacy white dress might be a problem, but bride always sits in the sand for a few photos.





On the opposite side of the dirt road was this mysterious place- Golden Apple Paradise as the sign said. I had to take a look. I was really hoping to find some apples as I was parched and hadn't eaten anything on my journey.





The ticket booth was empty and the gate to the park was open. I went in to find an empty, forgotten theme park. I even found a ring toss and gave it a shot. Even with free tosses and nobody there, the game was impossible.





Judging by some of the vegetation and overall condition of the place I'd say it was abandoned for 6 months to a year. Later I found a clay workshop- there were a few bags on the side of the room with clay that was still moist and malleable.





I'm not sure what was going on in this painting. A girl listening to headphones, a boy looking at his watch and waving a flag, two other kids firing a bazooka and a machine gun at UFOs. There's even a kid holding the root of a tree as if it were a gun.





This was their empty zoo. There were no dead animals, but it was really creepy. Every time I peeked into a room a metal door in the back made noises in the wind. There were hundreds of unburned incense on the ground so I grabbed a handful. Shortl after I realized I don't like hanging on to useless junk and tossed the incense.





There was even a small race track in the back of the park. I really really wanted to try and find some abandoned go carts, but I was on the wrong side of the track and already overdue to pick up my moped.





I had gone a little off path to get to the racetrack, and was trying to make a shortcut back to the entrance. I came across a really dry area that was like a miniature desert.





The heat really made me feel like I was in a desert.





Another strange painting. This must be the stage where they had performances.





I began walking back South, on the other side of this cove was the Peking school and behind me were some very strange things.





I got back to the bike place and the mechanic had my bike ready to go. He had to change the engine because they like to make metal alloys out of butter and dirt here. (Notice how thick the metal is in the shredded remain of the tapped post.) For 4 hours of work and a new engine though, I can't complain. It set me back 100 Kuai, or about $15USD.





This little bay was beautiful so I stopped for a few photos on my ride back home... just before it started raining. My house is South South South of here.










Hey everybody!






Tons has happened since then (Last Wednesday) But I'll get some more pictures up ASAP!


Love you all,
Robert

Week 3

I saw this little teddy bear on my way home one day.





This is the new hospital... complete with a giant Vegas style LED display. I guess there's stiff competition in the industry.







When you buy a hot dog here it comes on a stick and looks like this- This is my version with garlic sausages.






This is the inside of a $500 mahjong table. The table seemed to be worth more than everything in the house combined. There are 2 sets of tiles, while you play the table shuffles the tiles and gets them ready for the next hand.





I sat and watched for 4 hours and still don't know how to play. I picked up some Chinese though!











This is what we had for dinner after Mahjong. It's called hot pot. It was really hard to eat... I won't say what was in it because I don't want to ruin anyone's lunch.





I finally found some peanut butter to eat with the delicious apples here. It's really expensive, but the PB/chocolate swirl is surprisingly much cheaper than regular PB.





This is my new ride. It was about $200 US. It's quick enough to keep up with most traffic but really terrible quality...





This is the church my friend brought me to. It was really interesting though I understood few words. The pastor spoke great mandarin so I plan to return often.





This is Ye Li Dao Island. There's a road that connects it to the mainland. It takes about 50 minutes by bus to get there, but I made it in 15 on the new moped!





The 'boat' on the left is a really big seafood restaurant.





A panoramic of the mainland from the island.





Helloooo!





There are surprisingly many breathtaking sights in Zhuhai.











After we left the island, my friend told me she had attended Beijing Normal University Zhuhai Campus so I asked if she could show me the school. We rode really far north and on one of the roads there were a whole bunch of buses going really fast. I was riding full throttle trying not to get run over when the moped lost power. We pulled over and walked the bike an hour north to the gas station, but after filling up the bike still wouldn't go. It was too late to find a mechanic so we left the bike there and took buses home...

To be continued with more pictures...