First Weekend

This past weekend was our first real weekend in Suzhou. I don't consider last weekend because I don't remember it. The weekend went like this:

Friday night: When I was 'back in the States', Scott and I would not talk on Friday mornings (his night). This used to bother me because I did not understand what he could possibly be doing all night instead of calling me. Now I understand what he was doing that would not allow him to get home before midnight. Here is what I observed... Friday night he got home around 530, and we headed out to dinner via taxi about 615ish. We arrived at Drunken Chef (to meet up with the other AJ Friday night regulars) at 645 and headed straight to the pool table. 30 minutes or so later, we take our seats, order another round of drinks, and place our orders. Jacob orders the mini cheeseburgers, Warren orders the grilled ham and cheese, I ordered the fish & chips (what do you expect it was an English pub), and Scott orders his regular, Shepherds Pie. Onion rings were ordered by someone else as an appetizer. I'm not much on onions (just ask my Nana, who used to "hide" them in the goulash when I was younger, "they are big enough to pick out" she always used to tell me), but Scott made me try them anyhow. These were pretty good, they had a seasoning on the outer layer that made you forget about the onion inside. The food arrives in a bit, we all eat, and socialize. After dinner, the group decides to walk along Bar Street (or was it Walking Street ~ still not sure which) to a place that sells fireworks. Fireworks in SC or AL are peanuts compared to this! We picked up a round of firecrackers that was bigger than I've ever seen before. This "round" of crackers were just this, a circle of crackers that was about 1.5 feet wide. They (Eric, Scott, Warren, and Jacob) unrolled it down the street and lit the end. It must have gone off for 5 minutes, pop... pop... pow.... pop.. pop... pow, and on and on and on. I wish I would have had my Flip to film it. After the fireworks, we continued walking down the block to the DVD store. Here we picked up Open Season, Surf's Up, Up, The Simpson's Movie, Night at the Museum, and Alvin & the Chipmunks. The cashier told Scott that the UP movie was "so-so" and explained that so-so movies are movies that are recorded in the theatre, thus they are just so-so (LOL). After the DVD store it was almost 1030 and we decided it was best to head back to the apartment because the boys were starting to cross over into silly mode (right before grumpy mode). The rest of the group kept on going, no telling where they ended up.

Saturday: The boys and Scott went to China Mobile to get SIM cards for the boys' phones (when in Rome do as the Romans). Jenny went with them to help with the translations. As a 'gift' for signing up, they received 48 cokes and 4 bottles of shampoo. They didn't take the cokes (didn't want to shlep them back to the CR) but he did take the shampoo ~ when they start complaining that their hair is falling out, they will know why. While they were gone, Eric called and offered to go to U-Town to get my phone "jail-broken". Eric also mentioned that after hanging out with the kids on Friday night, he had a "hankerin'" for some McD's. SO... we went to McDonald's for lunch. Same food, different continent. As with Burger King, it might have even tasted "fresher". After lunch, we proceeded to U-Town to drop off my phone then off to some of the side alleys. Eric took us down where the pets and plants were (ok....). While walking along the very narrow sidewalks we passed a stall where we saw a small dog 'taking care of business' with another dog. Funny, I don't think the boys saw it, if they did that will only add to the therapy that will be needed later in life. Reminds me of how Elliott and Shadow used to play, only Shadow did not know that she was a girl dog! After the plants/pets, we went to the tailor where I found some silk to make some pajama's. I also found a cashmere jacket that was hanging up (guess what I'm having made later this summer??). The pj's will cost 100RMB, which is equivalent to 13US$. The original pj's that they are duplicating cost 20$ on the clearance rack. This is the same tailor where Scott had his pants done a few weeks ago. We eventually made it back to U-Town, but could not pick up the phone until Sunday because they had not completed it yet. This was almost 2 hours after they had 'promised it', but what were we going to do? The man who took the phone said that it was still not put back together and they were still working on it. Imagine the look on my face when I found out that they took apart my phone... what?? why did they take it apart? "Because that is how they do it" it was later explained to me. No worries, mate, everything will be otay! We finally got back to the apartment just in time to take another taxi to Sharon and Steve's for dinner and the laser show on the lake. That was cool, they live on the 25th floor overlooking the lake so the view was quite nice. I took some video with the Flip, but YouTube is still blocked and I'm not sure if I can use the same backdoor website to upload videos as I use to post on this here blog ~ if I told you more, I would have to kill you.... Eventually I'll have the videos up, but you will have to wait!

Sunday: Sleep in! We went to Rainbow Mall in the morning for Scott to show us what the food market is like. Very clean, not bad prices, and it has a western area. We bought a few things, then headed back to the CR. That afternoon we went back to U-Town to pick up my phone. On the way there we saw a very interesting scene. In the scooter lane there was a woman with her dog.... picture this... the dog was on his hind legs with his front legs up on the handlebars. The woman was hitting him on the head, I'm assuming because he was not driving the right way. Only in China, my friend! We made it to U-Town, paid for the services and then headed back to the CR. We ordered Hot Chic for dinner through Sherpa's. Very good! We ordered spring rolls, spicy green beans, sweet & sour chicken, crispy popcorn chicken, chicken over rice, general tsaos chicken, and fried rice. All that food cost about 25$US. Cheapa, Cheapa!

The other day, I was told that my post should have more detail (because he is so detailed!). So I hope that I was able to go into more detail about the things that people (me) do in the Middle Kingdom. The week looks like it will be mostly uneventful ~ shopping at Carrefour, going to the bakery, etc... This weekend is July 4th and we are going back to the Drunken Chef. The owner will be playing cartoons on the big screen, serving NY style hot dogs (and you hear my accent "dawgs"), and Texas chili. He's also having 15RMB Carlsberg pints (that is why we are really going!), and shooting off fireworks (it's BYOF) in the evening. I'll have stories, and maybe even pictures of our 4th celebration. BTW, July 4th is a US holiday, so finding a restaurant that is "celebrating" is quite abnormal.

Have a good week my friends, I'll post again soon!