sleep sweet sleep

Yesterday I went to a Tex-Mex place here in chengdu, and it was passable a nice change of pace from the usual noodles and rices. I do of course have a high expectation of tex-mex food having lived in arizona and mexico for years. At any rate that seems unimportant to this story. I ate way too much like I needed a vomitorium. Had too many margaritas and too much beer. I got back to the house latish had a night cap (who doesnt now) and went to sleep. This morning I had nothing to do. Sleep. And Sleep. So can you guess what happened? I woke up bright and early of course. Have been awake for some time now and have been laying in bed trying to go to sleep. No luck, so now I have to find a way to spend the morning while my host naps and we wait for the repair man to arrive and install a hood into the kitchen. I must say I would have preferred the dark oblivion of sleep.

pandas and hotpot and sichuan oh my

so I am having a great time here in chengdu. it is not what one would call a fabulous city but it is truly an enjoyable place to spend a few days. Thus far I have seen the largest buddha in the world ( i think at least) Ill put up mpre photos I promise. You can get a sense of scale by looking at the people in red coats in the background of the pictures, not that size matters right?And pandas, both the big dirty lazy ( and quite tasty) giant black and white ones and their lesser known cousins the red (where but china are the pandas red) panda. I must say I like the reds better more active and slightly weirder, sort of an animal that defies categorization. Have had too much to drink on at least on night and plans to do the same again tonight. Had sichuan hotpot, fucking nice. And so far have been lost at some point every day. In all the only complaint I have had is that the air china website has been down and its been a real bitch for me to get tickets out of chengdu. I finally got them today and will be back in beijing for only about 15 hours before flying to zhengzhou to get a change of clothes and the its off to thailand. What a life. Beaches, grilled fish and beer. whoa is me.

ahhh china

so the days are passing now and I am finally on vacation. After the most cursory of visits to the police in bejing I have flown the coop to chengdu. Staying with a friend and drinking some 3 year old rum. Will post more tomorrow just wanted to check in.

flowers in my hair

Because Im going to beijing. Not moving yet just going to try to get the visa stuff sorted so I will be away for about a week . I will try to keep up the blistering pace of my blog. As i realize that it is like crack and without it everyday some of you will be forced into doing degrading acts with your body that are only appropriate between consenting adults. So to prevent your from befalling such a fate I will try, try to write. No promises and I dont want the comments section filled of horror stories about things you had to do to try to get a little fix. and how it wasnt as good as the stuff I push. You know . Ok wish me luck with any sort of competence I should be able to go on vacation in a few days. Though asking for competence from government workers is not exactly a promising start.

guess what i did

thats right people I bought my first laptop. and it is pretty good if i do say so myself. Though i must confess that i know nothing about computers as those of you who follow this blog religiously can attest to. But I did get an interesting perspective on china from my foray into the computer owning world. First I collected some friends one of which is chinese and could translate for me and one who knows a fair amount about computers, and we all headed down to the technology market. To say that there are alot of choices would be an understatement. After looking at hundreds of thousands of laptops I narrowed the choices down to three. I settled on one not for any particular reason but because they all seemed about the same and I am a terrible shopper, so into the store we all went to buy the laptop. Ok you would think if someone wants to spend nearly 1000 dollars the sales assistants would do whatever was needed to make the sale. However you clearly do not live in Henan. I asked if I could have Windows Vista in English installed. No because it doesnt exist. Ok how about Windows XP in English? Yes we have it but it will cost extra. Ok fine can I get the RAM upgraded to 2 GB (I have no idea what that means I was told it was better so I asked). And instead of telling me of course but there will be a fee the sales assistant told me that I dont need that. Now he has no idea what i use my computers for but he was sure it was unnecessary. So I said fine how much is the laptop. Mind you I had asked a few minutes earlier when scoping out all the choices and magically the price increased a few hundred RMB. So I said fuck it and left to the next store. Ok same questions Vista in English? Sorry no. XP in English? Yes but the pirate version only. Ok how about the RAM upgrade? Again you dont need it. If I told you my head almost exploded you probably wouldnt believe me. But it did I could actually feel it throbbing and nearing critical mass. Then i finally said I dont care if i need it or not I want it. OK. So now I am set to buy my laptop. The sales woman leaves and goes into the back. I wait. And wait. and wait. and 20 minutes later she comes back and asks would you like to buy the laptop. Hahahahahaha.....visions of knives and slashing and guts on the floor. People are real lucky. Yes I would like to buy it. That is why I am still sitting here. Ok wait one moment. 15 more minutes and I get up to ask where oh where has my laptop gone? where oh where can it be? Oh sorry it is coning from another store you will have to wait 15 more minutes. Ok I am gong to get some food. I shall return. I Return and there is my laptop but with a guy working to install the pirate XP. OK I will wait . An hour later he is finished. Except the wifi doesnt work. What the fuck? So now he tells me it is because the computer is Chinese and XP is in English. Did i mention vision of destruction on a large scale? An hour later he finally gets his boss, who opens some task manager clicks the enable button and presto change the wifi works. I pay and leave. China at its best.