Tuesday

Day 2 or is it 3? It’s difficult to remember it is 13 hours difference (no daylight savings in China) between home and here. I’ve kept my computer on US time so I can look there for the time. So in reality I’m coming to you from the future (1.21 gigawatts !?!).

The air quality is not good here (surprise). It’s like your high school lab experiment with sulphur dioxide, you could still smell it even after it was done. It’s never overwhelming it’s just there. Mix in the cigarettes, smoking is common here and you can smoke just about everywhere. When you walk into some places, it’ll be overwhelming at first but you eventually get past it. These are just things to get accustomed to, you have to take the good with the bad and make more out of the good and less out of the bad.

The lunches at the plant aren’t as bad as I have been told. So far I’ve eaten both days without too much of an issue (I know something bad is coming). I have noticed that there’s a lot more fatty tissue & gristle in with the meats. They don’t cut off the fat, it’s cooked along with everything else. I went out to dinner with the Press guys to a Hong Kong style Chinese place. Everyone orders and shares their food. I ordered the barbeque pork (wimp) and then we got all of the rest of the food, small shrimp (all of it, heads & veins included), spicy vegetables, curry beef, bean paste with lotus root soup, mushroom soup with tofu, and steamed dumplings served 2 ways. I would say it was mostly good but my chopsticks could use some work (I don’t know how Ralph Macchio caught that fly). I was doing okay eating until I hit the fat chunk of “beef” in the curry beef. I guess the fat came from a cow but it wasn’t really beef (where’s the beef?) Stevie Wonder must’ve been the butcher (my “Part Time Butcher”?). I had to spit it out into a napkin…there was just no way to get it down, it was either that or lose the entire meal. No one seemed to notice but it ended my evening a little early. Luckily this dish was late in the meal and so I acted full and drank more beer. I’ll have to find out if they have a high calorie beer to keep my weight up (can you mix protein powder in beer?) or I’ll be wearing suspenders to keep my pants up since I don’t think I can find a smaller belt in the adults section. I guess the rainbow belt with the power rangers would be okay but not real professional.

After dinner two of us broke off from the group and we walked around to see more of the local flavor (although I have no idea where I was…I think it was a place called lost). We walked around and went to get a foot massage (only the socks came off……remember when your mom told you not to wear holy socks; well kids, listen to your mom). Very odd but nice, it actually took 1 hour from start to finish. It’s something people do here very regularly and they believe it helps them for health, body, mind, spirit; their Chi. It only costs about $10 US, so it’s very affordable although there are some of the higher end parlors that cater to Westerners that are more expensive. Of course there are the other spas here as well, but that story will have to come from someone else’s blog (paging Victor Hill). I’ve got to start some fancy book learnin’ and get more language skills if I am to survive here. The Chinese seem very friendly and eager to help so I should try to get some basics down and see where it leads me. Rosette Stone doesn’t work well for me, it’s all picture based. It’s easy enough to figure out some of the stuff like milk, bread and such. It’s the photos with people doing things and multiple people that could mean many things that make it hard. If they just had some English underneath the characters to indicate what was being said, you might understand better. I think I’ll have to take a hit on Michael Phelp’s bong, heck it worked for him right!?! The fastest way to learn Chinese ( Cheetos)….I don’t think so.

Afterwards, I was given a general direction and the option of a taxi or walking. I chose to walk home and see if I could get across the street without becoming “splat the cat”. It was actually good to take a walk on my own even for a relatively short distance (about 4 blocks). I got to think as I walked and consider how I could get by on my own. I know when I return there will probably be less outings with others since I will become a “local”, the walk was helpful to gain some perspective. It will be different but it can be done; the new Dudley family motto is “suck it up”, we all have changes and transitions to make so get ready mentally and don’t create obstacles out of the little things. Change we can believe in……crap, I can’t believe I wrote that, it’s just wrong. We stopped in a Western market, they have all of the staples, a good deli, cereal (although the names are different), mac-n-cheese and everything to feed the western fix when needed. It’s not huge but it has enough to get you through until you can find local products, if you choose to make a switch.

That’s it for today, another day down and one more day closer to home.