Sunday out and about

You might notice a couple changes to this blog. There is a search thing at the end of this blog if you want to look up anything I mention in my blog here. Also I put an advertisement at the top. Google sent me an email saying that if I put an Ad Banner on this blog, and people click on the ads, I could earn a little money. I am waiting to see if Blogger.Com agrees with this. (Blogger.com says ‘pending’) I am hoping I can earn enough money to get back to the States for winter vacation. We will have two weeks off from training in December. My mom agrees that I can come home for those two weeks, my dad…. Not so much. Well, if you like this blog, or want to see me come home for winter break, visit this blog’s sponsors

Back to today’s installment

 British word of the day: butchers-means-have a look


I am celebrating Halloween in China...first time I have ever said that. For me Halloween day started with me sleeping in again till about 730am. Not too late but still felt good to rest a bit more than usual. I even stayed in bed till about 9ish listening to my audio books and chatting online. Sam asked if I wanted to go to the town of Muping for lunch. I thought this was a great idea because I have been wanting to go to a noodle restaurant since last night. Plus I want to buy a Chinese tiger poster for the wall of my dorm room. Sam wanted to go to town to buy more track suits. We decided it would be better to shop in Yantai so we will have to just go to the noodle shop in Muping another day. 




Sam and I got ready for another adventure in Yantai. This time it was just me and Sam with no one else tagging along like yesterday.


We left the academy around 10:30 we had not eaten breakfast and planned to get something in town. When the taxi showed up I saw that it was the same driver who took me and Sam to town my first weekend. This was also the same driver who picked me up from the Hospital. Before leaving the Academy, we had a translator tell him we wanted to go to McDonalds, (for breakfast) the clothing market, and then to the Electronic market just to have a look. The driver nodded his head then we were off. After a while of driving the driver pulled the taxi over and said, " My friends go Yantai. Ok?" I figured he meant he was picking his friends to share a taxi with us. I was used to sharing taxis with strangers from my taxi ride from the airport but I looked at Sam to see if he minded having extra people in our taxi. Sam did not mind either. Sam said "I’d rather not make the taxi driver mad by telling him he can’t take his friends because he can really make our trip horrible." I agreed with Sam and turned to the driver and said “Sure that’s ok," and the driver smiled and said, "Thank you thank you." Soon an old Chinese man and woman got in our taxi. We were on our way to Yantai. 




 After dropping the old man and woman off the driver took us to a market to shop. It wasn’t the clothing market or the electronic market. It was someplace we had never seen before. The problem is, we were starving and had planned to go to McDonalds first! But since we were at a market we had never seen before, we decided to have a look around.


Sam and I have been looking for good training pants and at this market, we saw a booth selling some Addidas and Nike pants. They looked perfect for training. I bought two Nike pants. They looked like really nice quality as well. Sam bought one Addidas and one Nike pants as well. We were happy to finally find good training pants thought we got pretty lucky that the taxi driver brought us to this market. But we were REALLY hungry now. So we told the taxi driver, "Mc....Don...alds." The driver replied, "ok ok." But he ALWAYS replies “ok ok” to whatever I say. Like yesterday, Sam and I usually bring a paper with a list of places we want to go that the translator has translated to Chinese but today we forgot it. The taxi took off down the road and we were hoping for the best. Well, we were hoping for some food anyway. After a while of driving the driver brought us to the Clothing market. We were really hungry but since we were here we decided to have a look again. I wanted to see more stores rather than going in the Clothing market building so we walked further down than usual.


For the first time I saw a weapon booth that had a bunch of knives, batons, lighters, even had a taser! Then on a shelf in the corner I saw he was selling a Shaolin chain whip. That’s the one weapon I wanted to learn while I am here in China! I asked how much for the whip and he said 85 yuan. Since it was a booth I knew I could bargin so i asked for 45. We have to write the prices down on a sheet a paper. So the whole bargining goes like this, he writes a number down then hands me the pen and paper and then I write a number down. He says ‘no no’ and points up in the air. I guess he meant higher. So I wrote 50. He thought for a little bit then he said, "ok ok." I got it! It was the best thing I’ve bought here so far besides my camera. 

Right next to that booth was a booth selling movies. I asked, "Any English." And the lady pointed to a section of movies. I picked out two cds. Each CD had about 10 movies each. The movies were like Gladiator, 300, Transformers, and others. I asked how much. She said 30. I said how bout 25 and she went for it. I can’t wait to find out if they really are in English or if they really work. So we walked down the aisle of booths and Sam saw a booth selling some leather gloves. He wanted a pair but the lady asked 85 yuan for it. He told me he really didn’t need the gloves so he wrote down 40 expecting that the lady will say no and we’d walk away. But she looked at us and said a few words in Chinese, and it didn’t sound like they were nice words by her tone and eventually she said ‘ok’. 

After Sam paid for his gloves. I saw a scarf hanging up in her booth and I asked how much and she said 45 yuan. I knew thats way too much for just a scarf so I smiled and said ‘no’ and gave the scarf back. She gave me the pen. I didn’t want the scarf that bad so I said ‘no its ok’ but she insisted that I write down a price. I thought about it and was like ok just to get her away from me I wrote 25. She looked at my number and she said ‘no no’. I didn’t expect her to go for that number anyway so I said ‘ok’ and handed the scarf back. Instead of reaching for the scarf, she said some Chinese words to me, and her tone sounded like, "Damn foreigners, trying to get things for cheap huh!" Then she said ok to my price for the scarf. I couldn’t believe it. Well at that price it was definitely a good deal so I got it. 

We walked further down and saw some dogs in cages. They looked so sad! One was black and looked like a mastiff, the other dog was a husky, there were also smaller cages with smaller dogs but I couldn’t tell what they were. I wanted to buy the two big dogs and take them home to the academy with me!

After we saw the dogs, we stopped by a track suit store. They had nike jump suits, addidas jump suits, and a bunch of other types of jacket and pants. I saw a Nike track suit that looked like Master Gou's track suit. Sam said if I got it he will take a pic of me with Master Gou when he has the same track suit on. So I asked for the price. The shop keeper said 180. The shop keeper was this really tall buff Asian man. He looked more like a bouncer than a shop keeper. I really wanted to bargin the price down. I like bargaining for the price but this guy was big. I was not sure if bargaining too low would make him mad or not so I finally asked 150? He thought about it and said ok. I love BARGINING! It’s really fun! Sam ended up buying a Nike track suit too but a different color. We didn’t see any more good stores so we walked around the Clothing market which is like a building with a bunch of small shops inside.


We didn’t see anything else good so we walked back to the taxi. This time we begged the taxi driver, "McDonalds," and with our hands gestured eating food. He said, "ok ok." All Sam and I could do was hope. Luckily, this time he did bring us to Mcdonalds. FINALLY! Sam basically ordered two of everything on the menu, Two big macs, two fries, two shakes, and even two cokes. I ordered some chicken nuggets, a double cheese burger, and fries. The food tasted fantastic. Then after we finished, we headed back to the taxi. 




The taxi was parked but facing away from us. The driver was in the taxi and had his window open and was reading a newspaper. I snuck up behind the drivers side of the taxi and grabbed the taxi driver’s shoulder while I yelled in a deep voice, "NEE HOW!" he jumped so high I was laughing so hard it made my stomach hurt. The taxi driver realized it was us and he too started laughing. So we hopped in the car and told the driver take us back to the academy. On the way back I was looking for stores that sold posters. I didn’t see any while we shopped. Finally I saw a store with a tiger poster in the window. I pointed and asked the driver to go there. He said “ok ok” and went and parked by the store. Well the poster ended up to be a jig saw puzzle that needs to be put together and not a poster...crap.


On our way back we made one more stop. A store that sold electronics, bags, home supplies, and toys. It was pretty big. I went over to the toy section and saw they were selling ping pong paddles. The academy has a ping pong table but no paddles or balls. I called Sam over and he told me he brought his paddle but doesn’t have any ping pong balls. So I picked out a paddle and a box of ping pong balls so we could play a game later. Then we headed back to the taxi which took us back to the academy. I didnt get my poster or eat noodle soup but I managed to buy some good stuff and was glad that we made a couple stops that weren’t originally planned.


Once we unpacked all our bags in the room Sam and I headed down to play a game of ping pong. Sam won the first game, and I won the second game. The third game was close but eventually Sam beat me in that game too. By the time we started the third game, It was getting dark and it was hard to see the ball and the lack of light was my reason why Sam won the last game. We decided it was late so we got our stuff and got ready for dinner. Since we spent so much money shopping I didn’t think Sam wanted to go next door for dinner but he said he wanted the chicken wings which did sound good. So after inviting a couple guys from the academy, we walked next door.


I forgot my flashlight so it was pitch dark, but the worst part was we heard someone whistling. While we walked the whistling got louder and louder like we were getting closer but we couldn’t see anything or anybody. It was kind of creepy. The other guys started walking faster and I kept my hands out of my pocket just in case something jumped out at us. When we got to the restaurant, the whistling stopped. That kind of spooked us all out. A good little spook for Halloween I guess. We had a great dinner, talked about the different things we did over the weekend, and then headed back to the room.


When I was walking upstairs, Peter Pan had a bag of candy and was decked out in his kung fu outfit while wearing a monkey mask. 

He said to us “you can’t pass until you say trick or treat” and gave us a treat from his candy bag. I thought that was nice and grabbed a piece of chocolate. While I was writing this blog I heard a knock at the door and it was one of my neighbors with a bag of chocolate as well saying ‘trick or treat’ but he was the one giving out chocolate. So it was backward trick or treating.


I can say this was the most interesting fun Halloween I have ever had. But it is late now, and tomorrow is… well I will see what tomorrow holds and I will let you know in tommorow’s blog.


Goodnight


-scott