Shopping & Farewell Dinner

Today was quite the interesting day.  Started off at 6:20am this morning when I realized I had a major problem.  MAJOR problem.  Last night, after I wrote the brain-dead boring post, we went out to grab some food.  Now, this was not necessarily the smartest thing in the world to do, since the only thing open here in Yueyang at that time of night is the road-side stands… and the food there is definitely less than the best, definitely less than safe.  The place we ended up at seemed pretty reputable though, so we figured we were safe.  Well, let me tell you… SOMETHING that we ate did not agree with my stomache.  AT ALL.  The food wasn’t bad, because a couple other people ate the same thing I did (we share all the dishes here, so we were all eating out of the same platters).  But man oh man… that stuff ran through me like a pack of hungry dogs chasing a pound of bacon.  Whew.  So, after emptying my insides in a quite pleasant fashion for an hour and half… then getting some kick-ass Chinese medicine that helped immensley, I started my day.  The reason this is all relevant and worth telling (besides being highly informative about certain aspects of Chinese culture)… is that for lunch I was definitely making a bee-line for KFC, which struck me as highly ironic.  Here, when I wanted something to settle my stomache, KFC was the best solid western food I could get.  At home, if I had an upset stomache, KFC or any fast food restauarnt would be the last place on earth I’d go.  Kinda ironic.

Anyway… the day was interesting… I was going shopping for antiques for my dad, and one of my student’s, Lisa, took me to the best antique shops in the city with her dad, since he was in to antiques.  Sadly, all the stuff that I liked was, of course, the most expensive stuff they had, and I wasn’t prepared to shell out 3,000 yuan (approx. $350) for a vase or a painting.  So… while the antique shops were interesting, no antiques.  (Not to worry dad, I had a couple of other things in mind anyway, and I think you’ll be very pleased with what I purchased for you — just make sure to leave them to me in the will please).

So… nothing much happening at the antique shops, so made my way to the art/art supply store to make the majority of my purchases.  There was one embroidery/painting that I wanted, but the picture in the frame was way to big to carry in a suitcase.   They told me they wouldn’t take it out of the frame and give me as small discount (since I wasn’t buying the frame).  Now, I happen to know that one of the other teachers had done this exact same thing at this exact same store three days earlier.  They were trying to feed us some bullshit about how they weren’t going to be able to re-use the frame since they wouldn’t have anything that size (ignoring the fact that they had like 5 or 6 other paintings almost the exact same size on display on the walls).  So, I said no dice and we left.  When we came back two hours later, because I was going to suck it up and buy the painting anyway, one of the shop-keepers came running out the door before we could even turn off the street to go in and said they’d take it out of the frame for me.  Hah.  Score one for the foreigners.   We get overcharged for everything here since the Chinese people figure we have money.  Bargaining can be fun, especially when you win. =)

Anyway…  it turned out to be a good day shopping… Lisa (my student) was very cool and had some great suggestions, and of course was a huge help as my tranlsator.  Then back to school, where we did a fun team-building activity at my suggestion (basically, getting all the teachers together to write a short message from each person to the rest, but in a fun and creative format… stole the idea from my RA days).  Then off to our farewell dinner.  Hard to believe it was our farewell dinner.  The month has just FLOWN by.  Dinner was great… everyone made lots of toasts and thank you speeches, as is the tradition here.  The headmaster (Mr. Chin) gave the three of us who are living tomorrow and Monday really nice Chinese tea sets (which was perfect, because the three of us all really liked the tea he made each morning).  And then home to play a little ping-pong and chill out.

Now it is far past my bedtime… hitting midnight, and I have to be at the school at 6am tomorrow morning for white-water-river rafting.  What a great way to end the trip, it should be fun.  Photos are so not getting put online while I’m here, but that’s ok, I’ll take some time in the couple days after I get back to put them up and send them out.

Peace out everybody.