life is good

so last post i was trying to describe my weekend, but i couldn’t for the life of me remember saturday, so i just talked about sunday’s glacier/volcano. but i’ve looked at some photos, and it turns out we did a lot on saturday.

one of those activities included being on a boat in a dark loud thunderstorm. it looked like armageddon was on its way while we were walking through this place that has cold springs of water which has really high iron content and is naturally carbonated and tastes like you’re drinking metal bars and we stop at the water where there are two boats
waiting. we’re not surprised, and since inner mongolia’s lightning storm boating experience we weren’t really that scared either b/c not much could top that one.

so we hop on the boats and armageddon jr arrives and i have a video of the whole extravaganza. if i can figure out how to post a photo on here of the sky i’ll do that.

and then today was great. i just got back from throwing the flying bird. (frisbee). i loooove frisbee. it was 6 on 6 and another friend showed up towards the end so the other team got her and we asked a member of the audience if he wanted to play. (there’s always an audience).

after declining politely we dragged him onto the field and he was absolutely amazing. ultimate frisbee’s not a common game in china, but after a 5 minute explanation he was making goals and catches all over the place.

anyway that made my day as throwing the flying bird always does. we have a rematch next week.

afterward we went for food. by ‘food’ i mean ‘beer and french fries’, but i actually just got a plate of tofu and watermelon juice. which sounds awesome, but eating here actually sucks. only in china can a diet of tofu and broccoli be this bad for your health. you don’t stand a chance against the msg and oil.

oh - and the restaurant/chef mishap from yesterday carried on. tonight w/ the tofu they told me not to pay again
(i forgot my card anyway so a friend paid) and the woman even said it was ‘bu hao yisi’ which sort of means embarrassing. i said i was ‘bu hao yisi’ and i think we forgot the whole thing. we got 3 dishes tonight - all of which we ordered.

okok i’m off for real.

ps - two weeks ago i saw oodles of siberian tigers. also ligers. they actually exist. it’s not just in napoleon dynamite. 20 of them do anyway. for $5 i got to play with a baby siberian tiger. which shouldn’t be allowed for so many reasons. oh china.

yesterday i hiked a volcano. it was hot. then i climbed down into an underground glacier.
it was cold.

i’m feeling a wee bit brain-dead. i really do like it here. but i think if it weren’t limited - if i didn’t know it was only a short period of time, i might go a little bit crazy. it’s the pace of life more than the pace of class. and the lack of sleep. i love my roommate but she never ever let’s me sleep. ever.

there’s only one person in the hospital right now. which is good for us. it’s guy #4 though. i’m not kidding. this is ridiculous. the chinese people here all think it’s normal. i’ve lived in china before for four times this amount of time with no hospitalizations. others have lived here for years hpospitalization-free. - multiple surgeries and hospital stays are *not* normal.

the guy from my class, JBG, came back today. and the guy who got foot surgery, FDS, walked (well, crutched) his way to the cafeteria today.

we got them shirts that say - “i went all the way to china and all i got was this lousy appendectomy”, with an arrow to the appendix area. hehehe. and ‘man of steel, made in china’, b/c FDS now has a piece of china’s metal in his foot.

we thought these were very clever. and our friends are both still on pain medication galore, so they’re pretty much always happy.

ok it’s after 9 i should go get things done and sleep.
today at dinner i was given two plates of food both not what i ordered. no - one was what i ordered but it was made into a soup. i asked them if they could add mushrooms to the soup and instead was given a plate of fried mushrooms in addition to the unexpected soup.

this is fine, but when you can actually speak and say exactly which dish you want and they just don’t listen b/c you’re a foreigner and give you what they want to, it’s so upsetting.

and this woman’s done it to me so so many times. it’s not the food, it’s that i actually can communicate they just don’t believe it. she gets so happy when i come too and starts throwing out names of dishes…but not happy in a good way. happy in a slightly evil way. a - foreigners are so hilarious - kind of way.

anyway, so today they brought over a plate of fried mushrooms and i told them it wasn’t something i ordered, but in a kind of sad yet not entirely defeated way, and explained that i had asked if they could add mushrooms to the soup.

this is getting way too long for such an unimportant story. anyway, the reason i’m writing this random long story about soup, is this:

after the girl brought fried mushrooms over, the chef himself came out and apologized for the miscommunication (which being a foreigner was most likely my fault anyway) and offered to make me any other dish i wanted, even if not on the menu, for no cost - i said nono that’s okay, then later he offered to give me the money back - which never happens -
and i said nono i’m sorry i made such a big deal it’s no trouble, etc.

so finally he went back. and i felt really guilty (until the guys came, saw fried food on plate, devoured on command), and my faith in humanity was restored once again.

i know i sound like a brat, getting upset about something so trivial, but it gets so tiring just being here sometimes. being stared at - not just regular stares - ‘you have three heads and i want to have your babies’ types of stares, and people follow you with video cameras, secretly take your photo, think you can’t understand so forcefully pull you into their photo with no words exchanged, jump into your photo when you’re trying to take one w/ friends and have their friend take one, shout ‘hello’ or russian words at you over and over, follow you, etc etc. alllllllllll the time.

it makes it difficult to have a normal conversation. or..move.

misunderstanding after misunderstanding. but then mr. chef comes by and is so nice and china just gets you again.