goodbye qingdao!

happy 7am on a wednesday morning.

last night i had a traditional korean & japanese mixed dinner with out #1 supplier. he is korean so we had our translator (who is also his friend) there to speak for us.
he understood more english the more jimo he drank though! (is it wrong i thought he was kind of hot?)

*jimo: chinese potato grain alcohol. it comes a bottle about the size of a beer bottle and is about as strong as saki.

i had the most amazing food! pineapple chinks with korean bbq sauce wrapped in "bacon", pumpkin with cinnamon and honey, and the best part RIBS & FRENCH FRIES!
that shit was bad ass, andlong over due. I also got drunk on jimo and tsingdao beer - i think i had like 8 shots (if you spoke to me on AIM this am you can agree i was quite relentless!). it is an insult to the korean/chinese people to say no to any food/drink they offer; so i was just being polite!

so my camera died :( im so sad. i have rechargeable batteries, but it only takes a single lithium battery, hopefully since i am in the land of electronics; or should i say origin - i can find new ones! the #1 electronic supplier here is HAIER, fyi. it like owns china. there are sins everywhere for it.
today i go to out #1 supplier, then to a print factory - then onto guangdong. it is very remote there(and dirty i hear)so i am not sure if i will have a change to update until i get to shanghai - but then again i could be totally wrong and they may have high class heated toilet seats. i ordered room service and am super excited for my "belgium waffles with fresh fruit and maple falovred serup (<~hahahahaha!, yes "serup!"

i had jasmine tea this morning, it was "selected by the monarch butterfly" maybe thats why it was so good?



L on a mission to get batteries 7

streets is watchin

it looks fancy- no idea whatit says.


there is no way, you can ever even guess what the signs say.


those bikes are the object of a game of frogger - the highway vs. the pedestrian vs the biker rider vs the tractor rider.


but there will be no tractor riding here.


chinese street market, thats how they roll.

tsingdao

qingdao was home to the 2008 olympics for sailing.
thats your chinese morsel fo the monday morning.

L give me jimo 7

manic monday

it rained today.

like a box of green running men

these line the "streets" of the hotel halls; so if you have to run- go thata way

L wall street english 7

here's looking at you

L and you looking at me, at 5:39 in the AM your time 7

what's cookin' good lookin'

poppin off like the top of a chinese soad pop - tastes like american coke, only sweeter.

met with one factory today, its sunday so not many factories are open. it's SO smoggy here, the sun never shines - worse than LA. ten times worse. the girl i correspond with "karen" (sweejun is her real name) is only 26 - and married, she came to qingdao as her "lifes dream, because she believes it is the most beautiful city in china" - it is SO crazy to learn about these people's lives. she freaking taught herself english!

ok on to the crazy shit..

so "karen" and "jack" took us out for a VERY authentic chinese lunch. scorpions and all. im a pussy, i wont eat anything that swims (unless its tuna or a fish stick) or any mystery meat.. so, this was quite the experience. especially since qingdao is a "sea city" - they are right on the water, pacific ocean - or what the locals call the "yellow sea" -keep it to yourself- So everything was seafood!

(yes those are scorpions)

besides the fact that this was TOTALLY in the middle of rural china, like dirt roads and tractor bikes - wait everyone rides tractor bikes here; well you get my jest.

the resty was inside a hotel, where we were indefinately the only non-chinky eyed wonderkids inside. The way it was set up was all these dishes (below) wrapped in plastic wrap, and live tanks of sea food.. you basically pick what you want and then they serve it to you.

it is typical chinese culture to eat inside private dining rooms, so we went in a large room and all sat around a table with a HUGE lazy susan so the food could be easily shared.


i almost thought it was a can of dog food, or food made of dog - but i think its a can of fish?


shrimp salad, in a uh - plastic wrap?


get your mind out of the gutter you pervert, i know what youre thinking.


i couldnt even tell you what the hell these "sea animals" are, but they're eyes are all cloudy


thats what you call a "fun basket"


octapus


not me not now, not ever.


a pile of dead fish, with a lobster cherry


this is your brain on drugs, or fried with veggies..


this is my are "really?" face. bc i really just dont know how to operate fucking chopsticks



the best chicken soup of my life, until i found out it was fish stomach and sea urchin soup -


now thats a lunch (note the pumpkin filled with mushrooms - fucking amazing!)

on that note,

a three wheeled car from the window of a four wheeled car, dip set.

L what is in that, does it have legs 7

i just watched asain mtv

11.) i just freaked the fuck out in my room bc my lights wouldnt turn on, i started to panic thinking that somehwre in a dark corner a small chinese man with a piano wire was crouching like i tiger hidden like a dragon ready to strangle the oodon out of me... alas you must put your hotel key in its special holder and viola! the lights turn on.. stupid blonde american i am.

L i can say thank you in chinese 7

hey you fucking starfish

this is for you rachel:
他不是我的父亲

:)

my view of qingdao:


EDIT: this ones better:


L i cant get my camera to shoot in low light 7

qingdao like kungpao

ten things you probably dont know about the other side of the world.
..and if you do youre just a fucking geographic/culture and or history geek.



1.)there are no addresses, or street names - at least where i am.. there are #s and characters spray painted everywhere - how does fed ex deliver one asks? a lucky guess i assume.

2.)the magical buttons on the toilet were to "heat the seat" - it's the big thing to in korea i hear -heat your seat -- hehehe



3.)every pastry i have eaten (or what i was told was a pastry) is made of some kind of bean. this one happened to look like a fish; it's the only fish i will be eating after the lobster salad.. (bread with purple bean paste inside)



4.)there are no "yellow" lights. the trafic light turns from green to red/then counts down like the infamous red light at the jersey shore. who knew guidos and qingdao had something in common?!

5.)the escalators and moving walkways in the airport dont move until you step onto them.

6.)fanqui: foreign devil .. x-pat: ex patriot, aka western transplant

7.) apparently everyone rides a moped, with a small child on their lap - and nobody obeys traffic signs or lights (hmm bad drivers...?) the streets are a fucking free for all.

8.) turquoise means caution when on the road - all the guardrails and lines on the road are turquoise.

9.) everyone drives a shangvan - wich looks like a cross between the vw van and an old school toyota -- OR they drive 3 wheeled cars?! (fuck i accidentally deleted the picture of the 3 wheeled CRX)

10.)its all about heated towels, everywhere i go they give me heated towels.. maybe that goes hand in hand with the heated toilet seat?

DOUBLE JEOPARDY: shikishiki - or should i say thanks fro tuning in.

L i cant wait to eat a green tea kit kat 7

this ones for you deliA: