The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain. The rain in China stays mainly...everywhere. It has been raining for three days straight. As a native of Denver, where it never really rains for more than half an hour at a time, I'm a little unsettled. I don't like the sogginess, mud, and puddles. I hate how the bottom of my pants get wet. I don't like being damp. Which is why, for the last two and a half days, I have been outside of my apartment for a grand total of 15 minutes. I went to get my caffeine fix and promptly returned. That's right, I've spent Thursday, yesterday, and this morning (it's only 9:00) bumming around, reading, watching movies, staring into space, playing around on the internet, and otherwise wasting time. I did manage to accomplish a load of laundry which is as wet today as it was yesterday when I hung it up.
There's a relatively good reason for my sloth-like behavior. Besides the fact that I just don't want to go outside because it's gross and cold, we went to Guiyang on Wednesday and the cloth market on Tuesday. I've been a busy girl! Joni took us to the cloth market Tuesday. It's a section of town where they sell...cloth. Chinese silk, polyester, cotton, denim, fleece, tweed, corduroy...you name it. If you want to have something made, you go find the cloth you want and buy some and then take it to a tailor. To have a fall/winter coat custom made is 120 yuan including the fabric, stuffing, and sewing costs. That's kind of expensive for us, but for you Americans it's about $15. The end of all the cloth streets opens up into a Sam's Club-sized warehouse that has more fabric, socks, underwear, shoes, insoles, zippers, screwdrivers, beads for your doorways, bedspreads, and all sorts of random stuff.
After exploring that to our heart's content, we went to lunch at a new stir fry restaurant. It was like American stir fry! The food was amazing. American Chinese food is nothing like Chinese Chinese food. No egg rolls or wontons here, and no sweet and sour in the southern part of the country. Also, hardly anything has broccoli or carrots in it. Almost everything has tomatoes and scallions and hot peppers (la jiao). I miss American Chinese food!
Our trip to Guiyang was a little chilly and wet, but we had a good time. Rickey was there visiting her grandma and aunt, so we went to visit her. We went to Wal-Mart and saw two Americans which was really strange. We had a snack (they love their snacks), went shopping, ate another snack, shopped some more, and went to Rickey's grandma's house for dinner with her grandma, two aunts, and her mom. Just like Laura in France, the shrimp here is cooked and served with the head, antennae, legs, and tail still on. Some people can peel them with chopsticks, but I'm nowhere near that skilled. Eating shrimp is not my favorite thing--I hate squishing their little brains when I'm pulling off the head. But dinner was good.
Rickey's uncle drove her mom, Rickey, Liz, and me to the bus station. We made the last bus with 15 minutes to spare! Rickey and her mom walked us in and Rickey's mom bought our tickets because in her eyes, we're still children (we kind of are) and we shouldn't be buying our own bus tickets. Then they took us out to the bus and showed us our seats and gave us a list of instructions: Don't nap, watch your bags, take a taxi when you get back to Anshun, don't pay more than 10 yuan. We kept our bags between our feet, napped on and off, and took the bus back to school from Anshun, but Rickey doesn't know that so everything is okay.
During our shopping trip, Liz bought two bracelets made out of etched bone pendants. Since she bought two, Rickey bargained for the four of us (her cousin was with us) to each get a bracelet with a lucky cat charm. Our stupid cats are so not lucky. On our way back to the bus station to go home, we hit traffic and almost didn't make it out of Guiyang that night. When we finally got on the bus at 6:30 (we left at 7:00 that morning, so we were tired), we just wanted to get home. We had the slowest bus driver in the history of China. Then we had to stop on the side of the road to pick up a couple guys. Then we had to stop half an hour later to drop them off on the side of the road. Then we had to stop and get gas. Getting gas for a charter bus takes a looooong time. Then we had to stop and drop some more people off. We finally made it to the bus station at 8:45, half an hour later than usual. Liz and I got on bus 11 which takes us right to the school gate. A couple miles before school, we had to stop to add radiator fluid. Thankfully, we made it back to school just after 9.
The moral of the story is...if you are in China, don't buy lucky cat bracelets. They don't work.
posted by Sara @ 6:13 PM
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