half and half

No not for the coffee. Though I do wish I had some , it is one thing on a long list of things that I can not get while here in china. Some others include, sour cream, bagels, rye bread, sharpee pens, and loads of others. But back to the reason I said half and half. I was half right and half wrong about the post office yesterday. Fairly uneventful, it helps to be prepared for the worst then if it happens no one is surprised. So now my house looks disheveled and as if it is missing somethings. There is still some stuff to do and today I must pack for the beach vacation and move all the things that I am leaving here at school to the room designated for that purpose. The school opened one of the apartments for those teachers who are moving to leave our stuff we dont want.The new teachers can then take whatever they want cups, plates etc. So I will spend the better part of today going down 5 flights of stairs over to the drop off and back up 5 flights to my house. The things I do in order to be nice.

post

Each passing day brings a new adventure. That is if you are lucky enough to have a life like mine. My little adventure for the day, going to the post office. Yippee!! You may think that there is little to no adventure in going to the post office, but you my friends have no sense of wonder and achievement (you most likely are also fluent in the local language and dont have to deal with small town incompetence.) I actually havent gone to the post office yet but I am preparing for the worst. Here are my predictions, first I will go and they will look at me like I just fell from the sky. Then they will assume I want to send my things to america, which I dont I need to mail them to my new house in beijing. Then they will insist that I want to send it to america. Then it will get really fun because after arguing about beijing and not the US I will have to have one of the workers write the address on the paper (my writing of characters is worse than my reading) then we will have a long discussion about time and cost of which I will understand about half. Then they will finally take my money and off the things go. Of course this all is under my assumption that the post office is open. I am telling you life is so much fun. I have no idea what I would do if it were easy all the time, I would be so damn bored I would kill myself.

bustling town

As I have said I am back in my little town and yesterday I went again to the market (yes the dirty one) to get some vegetables for the few days I will be in town. What a surprise was in store for me there. As it is nearing the big holiday for the chinese the market was jammed with people, like I have never seen it, thousands of people, millions of dead chickens, hundreds of millions of stalks of celery. Really something to behold. I wish for your sake I had my camera, but alas I didn't. So I bought my veggies and walked home. It was nice to see the locals getting all ready for the holiday, it reminded me of the days leading up to christmas when you go to the store because you forgot to buy some small thing and the store is buzzing with activity. Really a pleasant feeling knowing that there will be big meals cooked, laughs had, and memories made. I wonder if any of the chinese families have holiday meals and experiences like I had? I would hazard to guess no, after all my family is, I will be generous, they're "special".

bitter

so I returned to the college I used to work for in order to pack and prepare for the vacation to thailand. I will only be here for 3 full days so no big deal right do some laundry clean a bit get organized to move and then be off. Oh how the world conspires against me. Ok not the world the unbelievable stupidity of the schools heads. Now some background. It is the Spring Festival right now in china(aka chinese new year) and it is really important for the chinese to be home with their family. So only a few foreign teachers are still at the school and fewer chinese teachers. All the higher ups have gone. Mind you it is nearly impossible to get ticket to or from any city in china at this point. So on the notice board at the entry to the apartment there is a note, the heat and hot water will be turned off for the holiday. Now I do not live in a warm climate. It is cold here, snows and stuff and without heat or hot water what the fuck am I supposed to do? And not just me all the teachers here. I will only be here for a few days but some of the teachers will be here for the duration of the vacation. Simply mind numbing the decisions the school idiots make. It is a shame that my vocabulary isnt better because I am sure there is a word for the people who decide this and I dont know it. Something that expresses utter contempt, disgust, hatred, malice, I feel towards these stupid thoughtless, dirty, cheap bastards.

On a related note I dont know how they are related except in my mind, but I stayed up late to watch Obama take the oath and give his speech. It is nice to have and articulate and intelligent person at the helm again. Good riddance to the sorry lot that were at 1600 for the last 8 years. I can not say I am sad to see them go. Nor do I wish them the best of luck. The only time I would like to hear about that group again is if they are being held accountable for their actions or hanging out with nixon, reagan and the rest of that criminal cabal.

why must things be so ...

For all the bitching and moaning I do about china and the things I see here I must say one thing they have in spades is that the airlines dont take every opportunity to rape you for your cash. So I am trying to go to thailand for the few weeks that are left before I must return to teaching (only 8 weeks off this time around) and I couldnt get tickets from shenzhen(a city in the south of china) to bangkok because of the chinese new year. I had already bought tickets from Zhengzhou (where I lived in china) to shenzhen(still in the south) and would have to spend about 4 days in a city I didnt really want to be in. So I went to the ticket office and asked could I change my flights. Now I am supposed to fly in 3 days Without hesitating the woman asked what day and time I wanted my new flight I told her she checked for availability and said. "ok you have been changed". No fees no hassle nothing. Can you imagine that in the US. It would have cost a fortune to change the flight. So next time you get onto an airplane in the states, remember to thank them for the pleasure of being fucked over.

purple haze all ...

in my brain. Actually kind of a grey haze all over the city. It has been this color for the last three days. Kind of depressing. Went out to an irish pub last night got properly hammered just discussed a bit of what we remember and dont remember. Here are the highlights. Remember the barman catching himself on fire. Remember the third round of tequila shots. Remember the marines sitting next to me at the bar. Remember being in a club. Dont remember, paying the tab at the first bar. Dont remember how we got to the club or found out about it. Dont remember getting home. Dont remember how my arm got a 2 inch cut down it. Im sure it will come to me. If not as my friend always says "if I dont remember it, it didnt happen."

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.