It's Thursday now, and Linds and I are gettin' nicely settled into out apartments. Heck, Linds has even managed to clean hers. I like to think that apartments self-clean every few weeks or so, kinda like hair does. Of course, I am no longer speaking from experience (regarding hair, that is).
First up, cheers for the comments peoples! Gaz, sounds like WDC is suffering from SSDD (same *%#&, different day). I'll be keepin' an eye on the elections from here, thanks to Franz Van der Laars' continued rantings. Doclurve, OOS my AAS. We all know the real reason you call in sick. Docrock, thanks for keeping my ego inflated... if I win a Blookers prize for this rambling and incoherent travelogue, I'll dedicate it to you (but keep all the money, of course). And as for my wayward (but beloved) sister-in-law, I do my best to keep y'all entertained, so siddown, shaddap and keep reading. I even have a phot or two too for you's today.
Right, so what's happened to date? Well today's been pretty active... Linds and I met a Miguryen (American) couple who will also be workin' at SNU. The wife asked us if we wanted to go for a couple beers later on, and I said yeah, sweet as, but we don't drink so it'll have to be a couple cokes for us. Take note, Dr Lurve: she did not then go "You don't drink? What the *%#%* is wrong with you?" or "HAHAHAHAHAAHAAAA a couple cokes, you must be *%&#%*#g me!" She instead said: "Sure thing! We're in apartment 301, come on up sometime!" Go suck a lemon, Dr Lurve.
Oh yeah, we also hit up Carrefour yesterday. For those of you who are not in the know (which I certainly wasn't), Carrefour is French for "Wal-Mart". HOWEVER, I'm not sure if I've described grocery stores in general in Chengdu, so to say that Carrefour was just another grocery store but bigger will mean absolutely nothing to you. So let me describe a Chengdu grocery store:
To begin with, they do not sell groceries. They sell everything but groceries. How many coat-hangers do you go through in a lifetime? 20, maybe? 30 even? Well, every grocery store we've been to here has a whole aisle devoted to coat-hangers. Next, tea towels. I gotta admit, I like tea towels, I'll buy maybe a new set every year or so. Not every time I stop for a carton of milk (speaking of which, milk is almost non-existent here. I managed to track some down in a larger version of these tit-useless shops, and of course you find the milk in the mops aisle! It starts with an "m", right? Idiot...). How about some yak jerky with your tea towel while you're at it? I always wanted yak jerky, it gives me energy as I mop my re-saturated bathroom floor!
Cereal, cheese, floor cleaner, bread, deodorant - why on Earth would you want any of these? Oh wait, that's right - they can all be found in your newly purchased yak jerky. So dip the jerky in a bucket of water: floor cleaner. Wait around for a bit: cheese (yak flavoured). Wait even longer: bread. Even longer still: cereal. I'm working on the deodorant aspect, but I might be able to crack it if I wrap the jerky in a tea towel and hang it up in my cupboard.
Anyhow, back to Carrefour. Dr Lurve, I now know where your toxic-waste shoes originated from - Carrefour, Chengdu. You could smell these shoes from four aisles away. Speaking of scents, they even had durian in the fruit aisle. For those of you who don't know what durian is, it is a large spiky fruit that smells like absolute crap. Afficianados will tell you to ignore the smell because the fruit tastes so good, but I have tried this before, and it is a lie. I recommend you ignore the smell by ignoring the fruit and the country in which it grows (probably Macau).
Ah flang, sorry folks, just discovered I took only one photo yesterday. However, it says many things about this place. Please note that seconds after I took this photo, an angry-looking store attendant advised me that photos were not allowed in the store. Well, actually, she just said "aboruntueyshingwenhah!" and waved her hands in the air, but I got the message nonetheless.
Pies out.
Pies advisory of the day: Apparently sharing washing machine hoses is akin to sharing toothbrushes around here. I've never seen a maintenance man turn purple before. This guy went four shades of maroon when I told him I'd swapped Linds' hose for mine ('cause mine was leaking).
