Philadelphia Museum of Art - Part 4

In all honesty... the building itself is quite beautiful.

This is a comb.

This is a stupid sideways stove/fireplace

The entrance to the Mines of Moria

Which apparently leads you to a Spanish courtyard. Something tells me the dwarves of Moria were Spanish. OYE CALIENTE!

But they couldn't take the heat.

Even with the small water fountain/well

Ice Cube has turned to Pimp My Crib

But he wasn't aware of literalists bringing him cribs to be inlaid with bits of ivory, mother of pearl veneers, and a hint of gold leaf. 

Man I can't handle you walking all over the carpet. Put that ish in some GLASS!

KEEPS IT ALL PRETTY AND ISH

Shh... I may have stumbled upon Indiana Jones' latest adventure

He seems to be having a lot of trouble with taking clear photos as the entire world before him shakes.

And that shaking lead us to the exotic eastern kingdoms of China, Japan, and Korea

Where we sipped on some fine sake

And played hide and go seek in some dressers with the stereotypical nazi villain 

But it is time to retire for you and I.

Lest we have a mishap with a dog at dusk.

Catching Up in Xiaoshan- June 9th-10th

Day 12 – June 9^th

So, woke up at 6 am again. Why do I keep doing this? Sat around and finally decided to say good morning to A Yi. I assumed she had gotten the call from Jim about me moving out so I just got ready and started reading Path of Daggers. Unfortunately I’m seriously losing my wits end over not having more to read. I’m going to have to make a run for the city and check the foreign language bookstore. Hopefully they’ll have something for me. Who knows?

So I sat around then A Yi brought me an unwrapped Zhong Zi…? The triangle of glutinous rice and pork. I swear that stuff that makes it slimey must be the fat. I read somewhere that these are boiled for a long time so I can only assume that causes it. I’m no cook but I’m pretty sure there’s no liquid out there as comparable to that.

A Yi left about half an hour later. I guess Jim didn’t give her a call. I sat around for a while since I only had once class and it being at 6:30 felt no rush to head over to the High Long Plaza. Turns out I was wrong, it started thunderstorming or threatening to do so as I worked on a thank you post it note collection for A Yi. I wrote a message in English, Pinyin, then in Simplified Chinese characters. God that is difficult. Augh. Anyway got that going and hurried my way out of A Yi’s. I’m going to miss her. I saw her at the office once so maybe I’ll see her every now and then. :D Here’s to hoping!

After I arrived I saw Jim and he handed me the keys and gave me instructions for the apartment. Looks like I’ll need to figure out the internet after I figure out just what the hell I’ll need for this place. I wish the rain would let up though, it’s annoying carrying around an umbrella when it’s so windy and thus useless.

Two workers took me to the apartment and helped me set it up like seting out the sheets and such. I honestly can’t remember their names for crap but they’re sweet. We went to Lotte Mart right afterwards and we bought a ton of noodles. One even came with Tupperware. I then bought myself the same old delicious and sweet fruit cup I had discovered just recently and then we made our way out of the store. Just as we got to the ground level, one of the workers’ bag had broken. We piled their stuff into mine and then each took a handle as we walked back to the plaza.

I ended up getting duck and rice, figured I would maybe get enough meat off of the damn bird this time. The workers had bought a vegetarian dish and offered to share with me. It had all kinds of veggies, some I was familiar with and others I don’t know but equally delicious. It was really good.

It turns out that my class was cancelled.. sort of? Maybe the student forgot… Oh well. 

Day 13 – June 10^th

Woke up several times this morning. MY body is not happy with me right now for whatever reason when it comes to sleeping. Remembered I had classes at 1 so I decided I would get a shower and grab stuff for the apartment. I checked through the kitchen and noted that there were bowls and some potentially useable cookware. Grabbed a bowl to discover it was covered in some kind of brown sticky grime. Oh god. Tried to wash my hands and maybe the bowl and found sticky stuff on the sink faucet too. WHAT IS GOING ON?! I splashed and rubbed the faucet down with some water then checked the stove. It’s gas, easy enough right? Wrong, I don’t apparently know how to start a gas stove.

The microwave played a bit of a game of peekaboo with me before I got it working. The fridge has a really funny smell, not like just food that is different from even Korean fridges, just… funny. I’m a little worried about using the thing. I’ve kept it off/unplugged for now.

I’ve made two trips to Lotte mart today. I’ve spent about 300 RMB altogether. I still need more stuff. Augh. At least the rice cooker seems to work.

Taught 2 out of 4 classes. Students just don’t seem to care to sign up for SPA classes… Taught Della and Gemma as well as Steven’s class. Steven can do the English pretty well as well as John. I’m a little confused as to why they act out wait.. damnit.

J.C. and Zack took me out to the street food street. Got to meet their favorite vendor and we got some rice dumpling type thing covered in spicy spices and a fried pumpkin thing. They’re so good. 

This humid weather is not pleasant please go away or at least just give us rain.

Catching Up in Xiaoshan- May 31st

Day 3 – May 31^st

So I woke up to A Yi having already left to take care of her mother. I woke up at 7:45 for just about no reason beyond forgetting I had an alarm set for then. It was unnecessary as my class wasn’t to be held until 6:30. So I went back to sleep for a few more hours but that proved to be silly. My body simply did not care anymore and did not want to pretend to sleep. Even just lying in the bed was uncomfortable.

I had nothing to do besides read and I’m trying to savor that book before the next month is out. I didn’t think I would have so much free time. I’m likely going to need to look into buying a couple new books or so.

Fraaaack I only have 672 pages total and I’ve read 226. I’m already a third through this book. Woe is me.

Anyway I wandered around the area for a good chunk of time. It was afternoon at this point so I figured why not learn a bit about the place in which I’m staying. I figured I could stop and grab some fruit while I was out considering the numerous fruit markets I had seen along the way in bus and cab rides. Managed to buy a bunch of bananas (4) and an apple. I wasn’t paying much attention to the quality or the prices but so far the bananas taste alright. The total ended up being 9.10 Yuan/RMB/CNY. This translates to about 1.46 in USD. I can only assume that this fruit is even cheaper than what I see back at home but I’m not sure. Either way a buck fifty for fruit to last me two meals is awesome. I’m definitely buying some mangoes and pa pe which is a fruit in season out here similar to an orange in that you have to peal it but a different kind of sweet. Hard to describe and I really just wish I could take it back to the states. Doubt that happening though. I wonder if we have it back in the states…

After buying the fruit and wandering a bit more I saw a lot of the same old businesses and landscapes. Reconstruction, deconstruction, merchants, scooters, cabs, buses, old and young, and of course the standard blatant staring. Nothing new this day really. So I hopped onto a bus and made my way to High Long Plaza to hang out at work seeing as I was locked out of A Yi’s apartment.

So upon arriving I noticed J.C. was there as well as Julia and Sunny. The latter 2 were hard at work while J.C. seemed to be really out of it. He had a class to teach soon. I talked with the others and explained why I was there so early and everyone just kind of shrugged it off. No one seemed to worry. I also came across the issue of transportation. The K716 ends at 5:50. I work later than that. Uh… this doesn’t add up besides in cab fare. FUUUU-

I told J.C. this and he offered to help me out after his class. I later had my business class with Jenny which turned into a conversation about personal matters, then devolved into a discussion about my personal life and my family as well as turned into a SPA with another student, Lily. Their English wasn’t that bad and they were both really sweet. Jenny runs a business that sells pencil cup holders and general office supplies while Lily sells handbags and related accessories such as wallets. That was the only bit of business I learned about beyond discussing why I was there and what I was expected to do and what I myself expected to do. They talked about my parents’ love story and giggled over how nice it was, then laughed and learned new words like Military, Random, and Unplanned. I worked with them on some of their pronunciation and corrected whenever they misspoke. They asked about my hair being natural and were constantly complimenting one another and me about various physical things. They were really sweet and acted very young for their age. Or at least Lily did. I don’t think we ever asked Jenny’s age.

At the one-hour mark Lily and Jenny went out to check for a pen and to see what exactly we were doing. The class apparently turned into a SPA – talk about whatever just as long as they practice their skills- and thus was over. They had other plans anyway so I figured I’d just let them out. I think their interest in me may have completely distracted the focus on having them speak and generally respond. Then again they may have benefitted from just hearing me talk. Who is to say?

Sat in on J.C.’s other class that was completely unexpected. Apparently it had 3 very young boys. They screamed bloody murder, spat, and pounded on the walls. It was very hectic and J.C. was just trying to get them all to sing a song together. A simple song about animals of Africa. I don’t know what to expect after seeing this. I’m honestly a little worried.

For the most part though, I spent my time conversing with J.C. I updated him on the various aspects of the mall rat life such as what stores changed and/or closed over the past year. We talked about gaming and majors.

Once I went home, A Yi came to me with a towel, a yogurt (my first dairy product), and bug bite medicine for my ankles. She had looked at my legs for a little while and I tried to explain I got the bites from LingYin temple. It wasn’t an issue with the mosquito repellant she has in the room. She quickly figured out what I was saying and grabbed some fairly cold and clear medicine that she just rubbed onto my bites. Now that I think about them I want to itch so terribly. She treats me like I’m her daughter she’s too sweet.