Wrong Home To Go Home To

Sheralee and I went to sign the contract for my apartment yesterday.

We met the landlady downstairs at the apartment community office, and from there she walked us up to see the finished apartment that I had been waiting oh so patiently for. However, I noticed that she wasn't leading us toward the apartment.

The landlady attempted to dismiss our concerns and added that she had made the same mistake several times. She insisted that we follow her, and we did.

In an unfamiliar building, we went up an elevator to the 16th floor. She unlocked the door, and tadaa! We saw a finished apartment. The good news was, she did a great job getting the place ready. The bad news was, it was the first time that either of us had ever been in this apartment. How could this be?

The community staff had shown us a single 3 bedroom apartment three times, but had called a different apartment owner of the same floor, but of a different building altogether. Huge mistake.

The community staff tried to deny having made the error, and insisted that we were mistaken.

I spent some time considering taking the surprise apartment. She did do a great job on the floors and bathroom. The kitchen counter was a caulked jigsaw puzzle though, but that's normal for kitchen counters here. The biggest issue for me was the lack of view from the windows. It wasn't impressive at all, and that was key in my decision on getting the first apartment we saw. After considering that I was spending twice as much on this next apartment than before, this apartment simply would not do.

Later, the community staff managed to contact the owner of the actual apartment I wanted in the first place. It turns out, he doesn't want to rent it out ...

It's apartment hunting time again!

Photo: Silly scallions!

Bali, Bali, Baligou?

I wasn't sure what to expect, being kept in the dark about it. Still, I was content with knowing only that others were quite certain that I would enjoy it. It turned out to be great!

It was a trip with our students and staff. With me trailing the rear, it was peaceful and without pressure or obligation to perform. Sometimes, I felt like a sheep dog, corralling the herd onward and keeping them together. It felt natural, and I managed to snap a slew of great photos of the kids, school staff, and landscapes.

At the end of the trail of rocks, paths, bridges, and small outdoor snack shops, we finally reached our destination. A majestic waterfall.

In all, we managed to take some 450 pictures of students, the waterfall, and surrounding landscape.

Filename: baligou2009_04_18.rar - 7 (10MB each) parts.
Selected photos consist of landscape, and myself.

Photo 1: The face of a large coin shaped statue at the start of the trip at Baligou.
Photo 2: The waterfall.

Unknown Caller

It's not hard to explain.

In China, the exchange of contact information (i.e. cell phone numbers) is quite common. In my 2.5 years time here, I've relinquished my number, less and less. Maybe it’s that I just don't like talking on cell phones. So, why do I even have a cell phone?

From experience being without a cell phone in a foreign country, I've found that it brings a nice level of security. I send text messages a lot, what can I say, I spam! However, I rarely make any calls unless it’s really necessary. Having my work numbers on my phone helps if I'm having difficulty communicating.

I had trouble with people sharing my number, at first. Later troubled by people who refused to identify themselves, or confess to who it was that gave them my number. One young female caller made numerous offers. I threatened to call the police if she called me again.

Spring Spring Spring

I haven't been able to post in a while due to limited hot-seat internet, and usually blogspot access was, I thought, denied in this world location. It was yesterday that Helen asked for my blog address. I gave it to her, and explained that it wouldn’t work. On a whim, I checked it.

So, I’ve moved ... again! I'm back at my original apartment where my friend Chris still lives. This time, I'm trying to find an apartment with a great view.

Sheralee and I visited some nice apartments yesterday. One landlord wanted to rent an 80 square meter apartment for 700RMB/month. Another apartment of identical size in the same area, owned by a greedy witch expected 3000RMB/month.

After refusing the offer, she voluntarily dropped it to 1500RMB...
The event was comical, the landlord's daughter had difficulty containing herself. We couldn't hear what she jolt-whispered, but I'm sure it was something like, "3000!!! Are you insane?"

My needs are simple.
- Finished floors
- Painted walls
- Kitchen and bathroom sinks
- Shower, toilet, water heater
- View of the city
- Unfurnished

The Lane Change

February already?

Despite feeling under the weather, I accompanied Kevin, Chris, and Maggie ... bowling. I’m sure however that my bring ill will be omitted when anyone recalls the days Kevin was in China visiting. If I recall correctly, the last time I went bowling was with my family in 1994, in Newmarket. I do recall being in a bowling alley when I was 19-20, but not for bowling. Anyways, even though I didn’t want to take part, I still had to pay just to get in.

After the 1^st set had finished, I joined in for the sake of killing boredom.

15 pin bowling, and looked like the real deal. Even the monitors above the lanes said “Brunswick” on them. Around 12:45, we left and feeling no better than I did earlier that day, I would still have to work the next morning.

Up at 6:45, at work by 7:55, and expected to teach at 8:30. Around 10:30, I went home. Since no one else had arrived.

Hours later, I realized that today was not the 2^nd , it was the 1^st. So, I spent the rest of the day resting in bed, and started to feel a heck of a lot better than I had over the past few days.

Currently my family is in Florida. My mother sent me a few photos, and I look forward to hearing about their experience.

According to my parents in a video skype call, I've been to the U.S. “ONCE” when I was around 10 years old. Maine, Michigan, Detroit, etc. I don't recall the trip at all.

Photo: Picture from a balcony. Florida, U.S.A. Photo by Wasylyniuk

Enter: The Tragic Claw

I returned home from Christina's after the official new years’ eve celebration. Her home was filled with thick smoke and heavy smell of sulphur several times, from the fireworks we lit in the stairwell of her 5^th floor apartment. Her mother cooked several dishes. I couldn’t bring myself to try the shrimp or 1000 year old egg (an egg covered in leaves and clay, left to blacken over several weeks)

The taxi driver tried to con me, a 10 RMB trip to Christina's home, cost 17 RMB to return. I paid the driver 10, and refused to give him more. He scoffed, but accepted it. I really shouldn't have paid him anything. Home at last, I watched movies on my computer, then, I “tried” to sleep.

Pepper was still frantic. Ever since the fireworks the previous day, she’s been freaky. She’s a bi suck regardless, standing on my lap when I’m at my computer, resting on my chest with her head on my shoulder. Sometimes she’d fall asleep.

This time however, it was not so precious. I got up to prep a snack. So, I tried lifting her off me. Bad news for me, by my neglect at grooming her well enough, her claws were like wicked fishhooks. I let go, and tried to quickly pull her off when I thought she wasn't prepared. I failed over and over. Turning to more drastic measures, I leaned back on my computer chair, and tried pushing her over the back, forcing her into jumping off the back. It worked many times before, but not this time. The fireworks were still around, and she refused to separate.

She moved around behind my neck. I tried shifting and tilting to force her off. Inch by inch, it seemed to be working. I leaned further to my left, giving her no choice but to jump off, or fall off. Instead, she caught my right ear with one of her wicked hooked claws. Forcing me to tilt further, and closer to the floor. I pulled her claw out from my ear, and ran to the mirror. The gash was deep.

I'm getting ready for dinner. I'm absolutely starving. Kevin arrived and is at Chris' place. I hope Maggie is making extra. Did I mention I was starving?

Photo 1: I thought it was hilarious!
Photo 2: I bled for nearly an hour. >:[ BAD KITTY!

Prelude To Even More Confusion

National Holiday/Vacation time has begun.

Many people are scrambling around today, the last day of work before the mass migration to visit family during the holidays. Traffic is heavy, honking horns everywhere, cars driving on sidewalks, forcing electric bikes, motorists, vendors and even pedestrians aside.

My flatmate Paul is taking a trip with another foreigner down south, and may end up in Macau. They'll be gone for almost a week, leaving myself and my kittens. Around the time of Paul's expected return, Kevin will be visiting from Canada. Much like Santa, he is bringing gifts for all the good girls and boys. A Fossil brand watch I'm paying him for, and catnip toys for my kittens. Kev's a sucker for kitteh!

Laundry day, and downloading a few of my current favourite TV series, and studying a bit of Chinese. Mostly, the rules for writing Chinese characters.

Recalling one of my older posts (http://northkin.blogspot.com/2008/04/i-dont-understand.html) I'm making the same complaint today. Contemplating shaving my head.

Photo: Stree scene. Exact location unknown. Found in google image searching "China street". Double the volume, in the evening, a more accurate example here during this pre holiday season.

New Gregorian Year!

Part 1 [Posted before]

My roommate invited me to a celebration at the Crowne Plaza hotel, a well known place for foreign events and gatherings. I hesitated in deciding to go, since I don't drink. The festivities commence at 9pm.

(yawn)

Part 2 [Posted after]

I hijacked a pretty colleague from work to go with me to the event. Around 2am, the group wanted to speed to a night club for 30 minutes of dancing before closing. I wanted to go home. I was feeling burnt out, but champagne, red wine, beer, and 6 cocktails will do that. Oh, and a chicken leg. Yes I know I said I don't drink, but you're crazy if you think I'm going to suffer 5 hours with my friends sober.

There were prizes through the night. I think the first 4 or 5 winners came from a single table. They announced the final draw, and they won again. Later in the night, they held another draw. I think they had winners in that too. Theoretical probability considered, the prize draw had to be fixed.

Xiǎojiě, nǐ shì nǎ guó rén?

America is not a country.

I didn't think much about it until a few days ago in a cab ride to work. The driver of the taxi asked me a couple of questions. I became aggravated as the conversation progressed.

Taxi - "nǐ shì nǎ guó rén? Měiguórén? [which country are you from? American?]
Me - "wǒ shì jiā ná dà rén" [I am a Canadian.]
Taxi - "ahhh, (nodding) nǐ shì Měiguórén." [Ahh, you are American.]
Me - (Thinking for a moment) "shì, jiānádà. wǒ shì jiānádàrén." [Yes, Canada. I am a Canadian.]
Taxi - "zhī dào, Měiguórén." [I know, American"]

It was a refusal to acknowledge my identity. We know it is impolite to refer to someone as "Middle-Eastern", "Asian", and "South African". In these situations, we tend to ignore it unless it is directly related to a given situation. Courtesy would be that being corrected expects the conversation to adapt and use the preferred term.

Idiot - "Which country are you from? Asian?"
Chinese National - "Yes, I'm Chinese."
Idiot - "Ahh, Asian."
Chinese National - "China. I am Chinese."
Idiot - "I know. Asian."

Mistaking someones nationality with their geographic region is excusable. Refusal to aknowledge someones identity by considering their regional origin to be their country of origin regardless of being corrected, is belligerent.

My computer is back in working order. I lost alot of data, but my Mandarin software has been reinstalled.

Photo: The McDonalds here keeps messing up my order. I literally point and touch the menu item, so why do they still get it wrong? Next time, I'm opening everything as soon as the bag is on the counter. >:[ Edit: Who am I kidding? I should be happy that they mess up simple orders. It gives it that "like back home" feeling.

Lightning Crashes

After 2 days of searching for options, I reluctantly had to format my hard drive and start over, all due to a botched windows update. I did however manage to slave my hard drive to a friend’s PC and burn my important documents to disc. My PC problems didn't end there.

After reinstalling Vista™ Ultimate and suffering the endless updates, it seems my data stored on 3 DVDs could not be read in my defective DVD drive.

My drivers are up to date, and my burned DVDs made using the drive work fine on a friend’s PC, but can’t be read by the drive that made them. Samsung can kiss my ass.
There’s no listing in their product database for my TSSTcorp CD/DVDW TS-H652D ATA Device. The latest firmware for my device failed to install with an error indicating it was incompatible...

Picture: Dopamine now!

Zoom Boom II !

I stopped near a school I used to teach at and took a picture. It was the location of the 2nd accident I wrote about in my previous post. It was just a plain calm stretch of road.

Satisfied that I had a photo to append to my previous blog entry, I turned and carried on.

I heard a vehicle breaking. The sound broke with a certain familiarity, as the people in the area all turned their attention to its source.

The man on the ground with his scooter seemed to be dazed but otherwise, still breathing.
I had just passed on the idea about taking a small documentary style video of the area for my previous "Zoom Boom!" post, but chose not to for whatever reason. I could have caught it all on cam.

Photo: One of my students posing for the picture (center) as he was leaving the school I used to teach at. A man stunned and contemplating his options (left) after having been hit by the van (right). Also, that student said he didn’t even notice the guy on the ground.

Zoom Boom!

Why?

If you were on the 400 heading to Toronto going 50kph on an electric scooter alongside other vehicles, wouldn't you be scared?

On my way to work (an 11 minute walk) two separate accidents involving electric scooters happened along the same street. The accidents happened about 2 minutes apart.

The first one, a guy stopped in the middle of the road to take a call on his cell. Another scooter crashed into him. He didn't budge, he didn't offer to help the other guy up off the ground. He just kept talking on his cell and stayed put.

The second accident happened as a man on a scooter with his daughter standing on the back was inching across the road at a designated crosswalk. Another scooter plowed through his scooters front wheel. It didn't knock his scooter down, and his daughter was not injured, but the driver of the other scooter crashed and fell down, and slid about 8-10 feet.

Photo: I can't find a good photo. I tried searching for electric scooters in google, but none of the results feel right for this entry. Use your imagination I guess.

Poached Eggs?

File size: 1.06MB Format: .3gp

It's quite funny. A while back, something uncommon (but not rare) happened to my friend Chris Watts while he was in Shanghai. Sitting down in a public location, what appeared to be a Chinese national placed his son right next to him, and proceeded to take a photo. If I recall his story correctly, Chris turned his head away from the camera. Or, he got up and left. One of the two, I can't exactly recall.

From time to time, I too have experienced some sneak photography, seemingly to them, a "papparazzi" opportunity. Some even try to be descreet, aiming their cell cam at you while trying to be inconspicuous.

I decided to up my level of personal security and took extra steps at controlling the acquisition and usage of photos of me, in an attempt to reserve a right that didn't transfer with me or my luggage when I came to China. Under these conditions, one can only be so successful.

In early summer of this year, I went to the neighbouring city of Kaifeng, which I enjoyed by the way. Very beautiful. However, when I arrived at the location I was to work at for 2 hours, I noticed an old photo of me on their school banner . . . I was not thrilled.

The reason I am mentioning this now, is because something happened to me the other day. I was having my haircut, and when it was finished I stood up and found that they had been videotaping me. Remembering what someone had told me long ago, I pulled out my cell phone and started recording them in what was supposedly the most effective way to get them to stop. I didn't think it would work when I originally heard the idea. After putting it to the test, I found that unfortunately . . . I was right.

Photo: No photo
Video: Me filming them filming me, filming them. Filming me. No permissions acquired.

Two Tails

And here they are!

These are my two kittens. I haven't given them names yet. I thought of giving one of them the name Butters, as a tribute to the South Park character of the same name. However, both my kittens are girls. I thought about naming the white one Snow, but she has an interesting design on her head. Regardless, they are quite happy to be out of the tiny cages and stressful places they were rescued from. Names will come soon.


In other news, I have an assortment of photos taken from a mountain hike in Shaolin from two weeks ago. Simply request it, and I will email you a zipped package of these photos.

Picture 1: My two kittens
Picture 2: Picture of me, taken at an difficult angle.

New Roommates!

Today, I'm cleaning my apartment. I really need to clean up in such a way to prevent any mishaps from my two special roommates coming tomorrow.

Oh, I thought about roommates, and how they come with pros and cons, but I've come to learn there are benefits to having company, especially of this kind. These special guests wont be paying any rent, so I'm not sure how I'll make them earn their keep.

Rationing the hot water, tv privileges, phone and door rules, leaving lights on, internet usage, late night snacking. Much to discuss.

As for my AC, I had visitors this morning. I've been looking forward to having someone fix this leak for some time. I wish I knew when they were coming, I would have expressed my need for hot water from the kitchen sink tap.

Anyway, I must prepare for my special guests tomorrow :)