May 2008 bring you somewhere closer to achieving your dreams. Or some sort of meaningful something or other. I'm finally caught up. Caught up on the blog, caught up on reuniting with friends, caught up on getting all my stuff unpacked. Now it's time, as is the New Years tradition, to get on with my life. Get a haircut and get a real job type of stuff. I'm literally hemorrhaging money living in Tokyo. Hit up the job posting website for a couple hours or go to a museum? Eat out at some bomb ramen or attempt to make a meal out of cheerios, wasabi, and juice. It's a yin and yang thing people.
Next: Study Japanese, learn how to use my camera, and establish a source of income. Sounds pretty simple. I set up a new blog to write about my job search. It's kinda boring, but it gives me a sort of motivation and a record of stuff. Feel free to read it here.
Fuck it. I don't want to write too much. I need to apply to some jobs, study Japanese, and finish watching season 18 of The Simpsons.
Here's how to shop in China. Decide before you go how many fake Rolex watches, Louis Vuitton handbags, and North Face jackets you want. Make a list of people you will get cheap jade bracelets for. Get your shopping done asap, then enjoy the scenery. While the group I was with shopped for another 3 hours for the same shit we shopped for for 3 hours the day before, I climbed a mountain, saw a dragon parade, and got shooed away from a dog meat salesman for taking pictures. There's too much to see to waste it shopping.
If you want real products, it's the same price anywhere else in the world. Do the conversion to dollars or pounds or yen and you'll see. The idea that since it's made in China you can buy it cheap in China is a myth.
This shop sells A-grade fakes. Fakes are graded A, B, and C. An A grade Rolex will probably cost you about $50. A C grade (which I got on the street) costs about $2.
Columbia or North Face. A fake waterproof jacket will run about $20. Look closely at this photo.
Bags bags bags. I guarantee when you get back to your hotel room you will find more flaws than you thought there were. But are cheap fakes really that bad? Living in Japan, where underage girls go on "compensated dating" with older men in order to buy this crap, I don't think cheap fake is that bad.
Foreigners get into a frenzy with the bargaining system here. It's stupid. You haggle and haggle and haggle over junk. Other people in my group were visually jealous when I got a Rolex for 20 yuan after they had just paid 40. I know that haggling is normal in many cultures, but I just feel bad when I spend 5 minutes trying to get a 70 year old woman to sell me some jade for 50 cents less than she offered. Only when I turn and walk away does she agree to my price. It seems belittling in a way.
The second part of shopping in China was "factories". The tour guides would take us to a "jade factory" or "pearl factory" to learn how this stuff is made. We would get a 4 minute demonstration, then cute little Chinese women would flock from hidden doors to hound us into buying. We were left to our defenses for about a half an hour while the tour guides hoped for a commission. Shady, yes. Lame, yes. Fuck that shit, yes.
But it's educational! You learn about silk rugs. Let's see who's ears are perked.
At least at one we got to sample different tea.
What "factories" did we go to? Pearl factory, Jade factory, Silk factory, Cashmere factory, Tea Ceremony factory. No Chinese rice wine factory. No fake clothing factory with child workers. If they would have thrown some shit like that in I would have been extremely satisfied.
Maybe I'm just bitter because the one thing I wanted, a stuffed Haibao, the mascot of the 2010 World Expo, was only sold in Beijing.
The food in China was superb. Being from California, I've had a lot of good, and plenty of bad Chinese food. But almost everything I ate on this trip (once the plane landed) was delicious. Every lunch and dinner was a family style pig-out fest. That was the only problem, the sheer amount of food. We'd think we were done, then they'd bring out a couple more plates. A few days in and I started limiting the amount I ate. No more full English for breakfast at the hotel, just a bowl of bran flakes and some fruit. And cutting out the beer at every meal helped.
Cutting out the beer?
You got that right. Everything was Tsing Tao. I've disliked Tsing Tao since high school... and we drank some shitty booze back then. Mad Dog 20/20 or giant plastic bottles of vodka were fine. Tsing Tao beer was not. But hey, if you like an after taste that tastes the way morning breath smells... be my guest.
But in Guilin we were treated to the local brand, which was much much better. And in Shanghai I had a draft beer, Mei Wei I think it was called, that was simply beautiful. Golden and cloudy, almost like a good Hefeweizen.
The pomegranate wine was 110 proof. Word.
Food in China differs by region. Shanghai cuisine was noticeably sweeter, while some of the food in Xian was red hot spicy. Here's some photos of relatively normal food. (weird stuff to follow)
Now the weird.
Lets go chronologically. First in Beijing. We saw this huge row of vendors selling street food.
Meat on sticks, steamed dumplings, and fruit looked great. Scorpions, seahorses, and various insects looked questionable. Tripe looked... well... like tripe. We had just eaten, so unfortunately didn't have room to sample much. But we did try one thing.
Delicious deep fried scorpion! Tasted like french fries.
More shots of the street market in Beijing.
Randomness! We saw seahorse for sale. When I was looking at it, the seller started yelling "Big Penis! Big Penis!" to me. He was screaming and pointing at my cock. I guess seahorse is used like an ancient viagra.
In Xian we went to a dumpling restaurant.
At the end of the meal, there was dumpling soup with little tiny dumplings in it. Depending on how many you get, that's your fortune. I got 2... double happiness!
Awww... a fishy.
Awww... a ducky.
Awww... a taco.
On the Guilin river boat ride we got a plate of river snails.
You had to pick out the meat, then rip off the pooey intestines. No one got sick. How did it taste. Meh.
An 11 year old girl working at the golden arches served me this delicious slice of home. But, wtf... that ain't apple!
Finish the meal with possible the worst red wine ever. The 100 yen bottle of red "American" wine from 7-11 in Japan is better.
And some desert.
If you find yourself in China, make sure you sample the local fare. Every dish had such distinct flavors. Dietary restrictions might be hard. We had 2 people in the group who couldn't eat pork. A couple dishes I was 90% sure had pork, even though they waitress said it didn't. And very rarely did a dish not at least have the essence of some meat.
Are you hungry 15 minutes after eating Chinese food? Maybe back in the states, but not in China.
Next: Shopping in China fucking sucks. It's like a big cosmic joke.
