Explorations + temptin' the fates

For June 19, 2007

"I love my hairs." ~On a shampoo bottle. Oh, the subtle humor of Chinglish.

I can now say I'm officially here. Today was a free day and I used it to go exploring. I saw a lot and love it all! I woke up a bit early so I went on a run around the giant university--I think it's about two miles across. I met some students outside of my dorm and we decided to do some grocery shopping and grab a bite to eat at this PX type place on campus. I've never been so happy to buy soap and shampoo in my life.

Gu laoshi (teacher Gu) took us to brunch which consisted of a giant smorgasbord of dishes. Yesterday was a special occasion (I forget why--sorry that was anti-climatic) and everywhere I went, I saw people eating these triangular sticky rice dishes with some kind of brown fruit inside. They were wrapped in banana leaves with string tied around it all. You peeled off the leaves to eat it.

To add a flair of excitement I am without money. But not willingly of course. My debit card does not work and I can't withdraw anything. I've managed to stretch 100 RMB (about 14 US dollars) pretty far though. But I need to eat. And more importantly, I need a bike. It's amazing how many people use bikes. I could only look on in jealousy as my classmates acquired authentic Chinese wheels (i.e., the bike must be squeaky and have exactly one gear--your legs).

After Gu laoshi finished taking us on a tour of I don't know where, I made friends with this fellow named Tim. Turns out he spins for streetbeat at WNUR and actually brought a demo tape with him so he could pitch his wares to local Chinese venues. I decided I wanted to go exploring and try to find the music venue D-22. We found this punk haircut place (literally--that's what is was called) where I am determined to get my hair cut at some point and asked them for directions. No one spoke any English and I kept looking to a very white looking Tim to help me translate. I bet we confused people. We were sent to a building which held what we expected to be a music store on the second floor according to lone English speaking woman, but turned out to be another haircut place. Undaunted, we continued up some more floors for the hell of it and stopped on a floor that had something about Peking University and English. Knowing that the owner of D-22 was a visiting econ Prof. at Peking, I decided to give them a try. Besides, the English part made me a bit more confident I could find someone to tell me where to go. I basically comandeered her computer and finally found directions PLUS a map! It was pretty close and if we stayed on the street we were on we could find both 13club and D-22 and eventually end up at Peking Univ. This had now become a crusade and Tim and I set off. On the way we passed this little side street alley with some street vendors. We went down and it exploded into a bustling hidden city of street vendors selling everything from kebobs to veggies to giant crepe looking things. Tim was nervous about getting anything raw. With unfounded faith in my powers of digestion, I selected from this woman a bunch of different vegetables: bean sprouts, clear noodles with carrots, and something I have no clue what it was but I thought it was cooked chicken. I was just going to eat each separately, but she mixed it all together putting different dark colored sauces and a LOT of cilantro in it. It was pretty salty but served as my dinner for that day. Onward we marched and came upon 13club first. It was surprisingly open, but deserted of course. I made friends with the bar tender Liu Li Xin and asked him to recommend some acts I should see. That night some Turkey flamenco singers were to perform for free (covers only on weekends) at 9:30. I unfortunately never made it because I passed out around 8:30. As we exited the club, I saw a sketchy looking staircase so I decided to go up. The climb revealed an internet cafe (hooray!) and I was finally able to send the p-units an "I'm alive" message and to also ask them for help on the ATM card sitch. A little down the road was D-22 which was also open. There was a band on stage practicing and I wanted to stay and listen, but Tim wanted to keep moving. We walked to the end of the road, saw Peking Univ. and turned back. We entered through Tsinghua's east gate and Tim was found a used bike for 90 RMB, less than half of what everyone else had been paying for "new" ones earlier that day! The guys repairing/selling the bike were really nice and rather cute (for Asians) and I wished very hard that I could understand them when they spoke to me, but alas. No Chinese boyfriend for me.

Classes start tomorrow.