Step 10 - I can *so* count to 10! Watch; 1,2,10!

Alright so that was a fairly nonsensical title, but on a creepy side note, it has also been 10 days since my last post. That's over a week! So what have you been missing out on? Gather round children, it's time for another adventure...

Look at me! I'm a block quote!

Yeah, I lied. Before getting into what's new with my life, I'll fill you in on what I'll be doing that's new with the blog. First, I'll be using these dandy little things called block quotes. I think that's what they're called anyway. Just to highlight the important/funny stuff, you know? Also, I'll be trying to get some sort of mini-series action going on, reporting on certain themes or aspects over a few posts, or maybe even many. I don't want to promise you guys too much on that one because, knowing me, I'll probably want to change topic every week. But I'll try be good, okay? Sorry for the lack of pictures in this post, I haven't had my camera on me much this recently.

So, China. The BBQ at the American's apartment has received a further workout, with the 4 of us making pizzas. This is a relatively expensive venture in China, as cheese is pretty expensive. We also had issues in that the flour was... non-gluten flour. So it was pretty crumbly pizza dough action, but in the end, delicious.

On that side note of good times, I'm getting a bit concerned about the amount of time I'm spending out at night. It's conflicting with getting homework done for classes the next day, and as fun as it is to go drinking with them, it's not exactly why I'm here.

On a smaller side note, we turned the card game 'President', aka 'Asshole', into a drinking game (After further reading, turns out everyone has been doing this for a long time. My bad). Basically, every time the deck clears, everyone except the winner of that stack has to take a drink. The Asshole has to finish their entire drink, and vice-Asshole has to finish 1/2. This doesn't necessarily sound like a lot of drinking, until you add in a rule I hadn't previously played with - if you can make 4-of-a-kind at any time, slap those cards down and you win/clear the deck. This happens... really frequently. It also really keeps your focus on the game, waiting for that window to complete a set of 4 and also in terms of strategy. After awhile, players begin to start guessing what cards you're going to put down, so it pays to keep things mixed up.

I've bought a bike.

Okay, so that turned out to be a bigger side note than the original side note. *Cough*, moving on... I've bought a bike. It's a stolen bike, and it's pretty crap. The rear brakes don't work, and it makes strange noises. But the price was okay, and it was kind of a fun experience to buy it. Basically this corner/street has a bunch of people milling around on it, apparently doing nothing. When you walk past, they'll ask if you want a bike etc. In my case, I apparently was asking the wrong person (I wonder what dodgy goods she was selling?), as she laughed and pointed out a woman who was hurriedly running over and asking what kind of bike I wanted.

So I said I wanted a bike, and cheap. She takes me down a thin alleyway and into a series of... I guess almost shanty buildings. Sure, they had 4 walls and a roof, but none of the walls seemed to be constructed of the same material, or particularly complete. We continued around the back and a guy unlocked a door, which  had about 5 or 6 bikes in it. Haggling ensued - he wanted ￥400, I was prepared to pay ￥100-￥150, maximum. In the end, he decided it wasn't worth coming down to my price and, I assume, he'd palm it off on some other foreigner with a more obliging purse. My little guide woman took me through another series of alleyways, to another shed with more bikes. This time a bike and price was agreed on - ￥150. I was getting at least a little ripped off, but I was happy to be getting a bike.

She was telling me not to hang around.

To add to the excitement, partway through the proceedings there was a hushed voice from outside the shed. The salesperson was suddenly turning off the lights, closing and locking the door, and and telling me not to speak. We waited like this for maybe 3 minutes before continuing. My little 'guide' now came into play, as she sells bike locks. Not exactly sure how much you can trust someone selling locks at a stolen bike store though. The bike seller was telling me something in Chinese, but I wasn't really getting any of it. She repeated herself a few times, but it didn't get clearer. So we're leaving, and now a guy comes out and is urging me to go quickly. He starts running, asking me to keep up. He gets to the road, takes a peak, then urges me out. Ah, it was clearer now. She was telling me not to hang around.

So, off I went. I've been enjoying the supreme convenience of a bike, making those previous 'long-walk' distance journeys into a mere 5 minute journey. I'm still not quite used to dealing with riding alongside Chinese cars though, and I noticed pretty quickly that no-one wears helmets.

 I need a haircut, soon. Shave wouldn't hurt either.

I had intended to write more in this post, but I guess I'll leave that for later. For a peak into the future, I'm going to be talking about class in more detail, and my trip to the French sporting-goods chain 'Decathlon'.


I've just had the brain-wave that I should let my readers choose the first topic for mini-series investigation. So please, get your thoughts/votes/comments to me and you'll find out which one is the winner next week.