Beijing- Sichuan- Shanghai- Yangtze river.. and much more to come.....

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Help was just around the corner...

Starting from today I WILL never use GEEK SQUAD again. They are dumb ( not all of them of course) and have no Idea what they are talking about.

There was one computer repear shop 0,7 miles from us and they had no problems taking my stuff out of my old laptop. AND it costed me 2 dollars less than Best buy would have costed.
Anyway- here is long promised story---

Wanzhou, My Nicks hometown July 2006. One week with his family.

Nick was born in Sichuan province, Wanzhou city in 1966. His original home is under the Yangzhe river because after dam was built city started moving families layer by layer to higher places and gave them little money to make the move. Now his original home is under the water and above it is beautiful bridge that takes people from one part in Wanzhou to another.
His hometown is mountain city. Big buildings everywhere. If you ever been to Big Bear mountains then you know what I am talking about. Only and HUGE difference is that big bear has little houses but Wanzhou has huge granite buildings everywhere and it is very ,very crowded. In Wanzhou city lives around 1, 50 million people. Estonia does not have that many people . And Estonia is lot bigger . Here you have to walk a lot. Lots of stairs, since city is built on top and on bottom of mountains. Everything here seems to be maid of cement. Lol
People here do walk a lot or take taxis. 14 kilometer ride costs us around 23 yuans , witch is about 3, 2 dollars. Very cheap. That is one reason we did not rent a car. Rental car price would have been around 60 dollars per day- TO MUCH. We always took blue taxi- all taxis are blue here. Mostly Volkswagens- Old ones. And in very bad condition. But road condition is horrible also. And let me mention one more time about how awesomely bad GOOD drivers Chinese are. They constantly drive in opposite direction lane , cars start passing each other whenever they feel like – even if there are cars are driving towards us on other lanes. And Honking- honking, honking. Honking when starting the car, honking when passing other cars, honking when they see other cars, honking when they see pedestrians, honking when they are mad at other cars, honking when they see friends- and HONKING when there is curb to let cars know that crazy taxi driver is about to enter the curb, or parking lot, or parking building. AND most of the cars on the road are taxis. I saw to much blue here.

And spitting is starting to drive me Crazy. I CAN not stand spitting. People( including his family) is spitting ALL the time. Even in the restaurants. They spit on the floor right there in front of me. Lol They make sounds when they eat, sounds like spit is stuck in their throat. EVERYTHING that is not eatable( bones, bottles, napkins etc) gets dropped right under the table. So imagine how tables look underneath after dinner is done. Very gross, but again. IF they like it, whatever.

Waitresses suck big time. Slow, slow, slow . Nobody says thank you ( besides big hotels and more expensive restaurants). No tiping- I guess that is why service people are so bitter all the time. I think I am getting used to life here – finally. Nothing surprises me anymore. Not even 3 am traffic jams. Seems like this city never sleeps. AND food is available 24 hours. There are people who sell food on streets- They have little stove, where they cook everything and then lay it on street corners and they mix noodles and meats etc. Breakfast time is fun. Since we live in the “ suburbs”( well, wanzhou people consider this part suburbs), there are people making dumpling every morning, different kinds of breakfast breads, meats and then walk around and scream- SOY MILK, DUMPLING, FRUIT, DUMPLING, BREAD, NOODLES etc…. and people run and buy food. IT is kind of fun, and food tastes good, but WE think it is very unsanitary. No wonder I have had stomach pain ALL this time while being here. Horrible pains. Couple of times I broke down in tears in restaurants, because I just could not take the pain anymore, and then Nicks family feed me some herbal medications and I was better again. My digestion stopped for 2 weeks because of TOOO spicy food. And food in siczhuan is overly spicy.

No about his family. He has 2 younger brothers and one younger sister. His sister has 9 year old daughter and she is also raising her brothers 15 year old son, since his brother is lazyass and has no idea how to raise his son. His brother is remarried to a “woman” who is “ gold digger” and total mean bitch who hates his husbands 15 year old son. So my dh’s sister does everything to give hi at least some kind of educations. But with 400 dollars a month( average salary), it is not easy. Nicks sister has been awesome this whole time we have been here. She speaks very little English, but she does everything for us. Even our laundry. If I want to do something she just takes stuff away from me and does it herself. She has tons of energy and is always on the go. Kids love her and she loves our kids. She takes them out and give me and Nick some time to spend together, but since our days are always filled with field trips , we really do not do anything together as a couple. There are always TONS of people hanging out with us and taking care of us. Nicks sister is biology teacher and her husband is geography teacher.
Nicks youngest brother got married about a year ago and her wife is about 2 months pregnant. Nicks younger brother looks just like him. He is- I think 5 years younger than nick and is starting to loose his hair . Regina thinks he is funny. And seems like he even has nicks nice personality .

Nicks dad got remarried after his wife died couple of years ago. EVERYbody hater his new wife because- OF COURSE she is a gold digger to and her DREAM was to come to USA and she thought that if she gets married to my dh , WE will help her. She seems nice up front, but I have heard enough stories about her bitchiness and sneaky personality… lol His dad wanted to spend more time with kids, but he is that kind of dude, who has no idea what to do with them . Nicks mom was the one who raised all 4 of them and Him, so all he did was smoke and eat. Lol

AND his family likes to talk. We have had way to much food here within this week. First night here we spent with nicks class mate. HOT POT in Sichuan is huge. People love hot pot ( not Pot luck- huge difference) Hot pot is kind of like shabu shabu. There is huge bowl with spices in the middle of the table, table has cooktop in the middle. Then waiters bring raw food on the table( 10-30 different ones)- meats, vegetables, fungus, fish, insides, outsides, penises, etc. And if you feel like eating fish- you take fish and stick it into boiling water, if you feel like eating vegetables you stick veggies there etc. and you eat and you eat until you drop. AND you drink beer – lots of beer because people want to drink with you and more drunk they get more they want to drink with you. AND they want YOU to drink more than they drink. So they come to me or nick and tell us all the nice things- HOW pretty I am, and how smart nick is, and what a good sence of humor I have, and how well I eat with chopsticks and how MUCH I can drink because it is GOOD to drink a lot etc. lol and then we drink- bottle after bottle after bottle and then we eat, and we drink.
Dinners in most cases last over 4 hours and we always have at least 10 people eating with us. Lots of food.

Second night we had dinner with Nicks family. Of course EVERYBODY wanted to drink with us and I got lots of good compliments ( so did nick, but I got more) AND did I tell you that NOBODY besides his sister speaks in English? Yup. But still I managed to be funniest of them all. Lol Not sure how I did it but they all love me. Oh, I am so fucking good. Honestly. How did I manage to keep my temper so awesome this whole time.

Then we had more hot pot dinners and more beer and street food and beer and “ Chinese Mexican food” , and tea houses, and few lattes and … TONIGHT we had the best food ever. WHOLE LAMB – it was grilled with lots of spices, very spicy, but meat was SOOOOO GOOD. Even Regina, who is lamb hater ate it. I think she was just exited to cut meat of the lamb by herself, so that is why she loved it so much. Gabriel hot new favorite food- He had never had eggplant in his life before. BUT today I managed to make him eat eggplant and he ate, and ate and ate and was sad when he finished everything and there was no more. Lol GOOD BOY.J

Tomorrow( Friday) we are leaving his hometown with 2 night cruise on Yangze river. We really want to see 3 gorges Dam- which is the LARGEST dam and the biggest energy source here in china. It pollutes environment like crazy, but what can Chinese do about it. They need energy. SO they really need this dam. SO leave Chinese alone about this dam.!!!… OK. I am really , really tired. Walking around and seeing all the beautiful places here is exhausting. To many stairs, no elevators, no direct access…lol I love it. I just wish that it was not so hot. It is impossible to do anything here during the daytime. IF we do( and of course it is because of me, because I refuse to sit indoors all day long), All I hear from my DH. BLAH, BLAH, BLAH- IT IS to hot, it is to hot, I hate it, It is to hot, let stay indoors, I do not want to go there, I do not want to eat there, I hate food, I hate drinks, I hate everything. AND All I want to tell him is- SHUT UP YOU high class whore. You were born here, you were raised here- and all you can tell me is- I HATE CHINESE FOOD???? How in the world do I learn about Chinese if even you- Genuine Chinese man do not want to teach me. So shut the fuck up and start talking and stop whining….

…. OH BTW, if you really want to see real buddas, you should not go to temples and watch those statues. China is filled with buddhas, and they are everywhere. Lol Chinese men in general look like BUDDHAS. They have huuuge beer bellies and shaved heads and have these silly smiles with very bad teeth showing ( Asians in general have very , very bad teeth, and lot of the people do not even wash their teeth because it takes time. ( GROSS, I have seen to many people here with huge chunks of food stuck between their brown cigarette stained teeth . ……

My vacation is fun. Yeah, I do complain a lot, but so what. I still manage to find things to make my vacation fun. I just point and tell- I WANT THAT, I WANT TO GO THERE. == And I get it. I feel like an American princess…. ( so what I am not even an American. . I speak English and I am not American. What the heck is wrong with me…….. ( people here think so….)

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