I am ashamed and sorry that I have not added a new story for a few days, I apologize. This is what happened I wrote this really great story on Saturday night, it was called the pee parade and will give you the highlights in a minute. However Worldnomads has a security feature built into their website which means prevents you from saving a story after 60 it ha been open for 60 minutes. In the history of using this website, like 3 and a half weeks, I have never gone over like 30 or 340 minutes at the most. On Saturday night though I wasn't paying attention and I exceeded the 60 minute limit. Since I wasn't paying attention I went ahead and saved it. Well of course the website shot back that it had been 60 minutes already and I couldn't save the story. So my story was lost, I was mad so I decided to take a day or two off from Worldnomads to cool down and collect my thoughts. So here I am back and better than ever.
The pee parade was a long and engrossing story explaining all of the functions I attended on Saturday. WE began the evening by going to John and Meagan's house. Who are John and Meagan you ask, they are the longest tenured American teachers in Shiyan right now they have been here for 4 years. We did some stuff with them went and ate and then we went to get dessert. On the way to dessert we passed three small children peeing on the sidewalk. Well I should say the two girls went on the sidewalk the little boy was polite enough to go in the street. How did I know it was two girls and a boy well lets just say I saw way more than I wanted or needed to. So on the way back from getting dessert we walked through the same area that had just had the pee party. We were all joking about and looking around at our feet to miss the puddles. When I looked up and saw a GROWN ADULT man in the street. He was in a classic pose, one arm chicken winged and resting on his hip, his back slightly arched and his head tilted back a few degrees, and his covered by the exertion to release pressure. Yes he was indeed peeing in the middle of the street. You know children I can deal with, nobody tells them no, they actually encourage them to go when they want, but a grown man seriously in the middle of the street. I mean he might have uromiciticious for all I know and the doctor told him to go or he could die, whatever. The irony of the whole situation is that the guy peeing in the street was wearing his blue jumpsuit, denoting that he is a paid sanitation worker for the city. His job is to clean up the streets. We having a saying that whenever China defeats us in any way shape or form we say "Oh China, you win again." One of the former American teachers actually wrote a song I have heard most of it and it is funny I am trying to get Finn and Luke to sing it on film for me, so fingers crossed you can hear it.
So Sunday night we had this plan to go to the Argyle hotel. I know it is a strange name for a Chinese hotel but just go with it for me. This hotel might be the most opulent hotel I have ever been in. First off it is enormous with gold marble floors and brass banisters. You walk in this place and if you are not in Armani you feel under dressed, i was of course in khakis and a Harley T-shirt. This hotel considers itself an international hotel and it caters to Westerners. Did I mentioned how opulent this hotel was,you can tell because the bathroom actually had sit down toilets in them. So I have heard stories that this hotel serves a delicious bacon cheeseburger, bacon is very hard to get in China. So we planned this like all week, because it basically ended up costing us 100 quai a piece to eat there about $15 USD. So it is the most expensive place to eat in town. So Luke and Finn having been there before a couple of times tell me how delicious this bacon cheeseburger is, its a huge ground beef patty seared to perfection with big thick strips of bacon and when bite into juice and grease run out the back of the bun. So we ordered four of them and I was so hungry and excited. When our "burgers" arrived they were basically McDonald's steak bagels. The one where you get this crappy piece of "steak" that is like half the size of the bagel. They also decided to put a whole cooked egg on top of the burger. Once again just like the eggs off of an egg McMuffin. My "burger had a line of fat going 3 quarters of the way around it that I had to cut off with my butter knife. The steak patty was so tough that you could barely bite the thing, you had to spend a minute trying to saw through it with your teeth. Oh and they forgot to put bacon it, so we had to ask them to cook us some, we each got one strip. I was apologized to like 7 times because according to Luke and Finn this was not the burger they had had the previous times. Well the bun was good I guess, Katherine and I are going tot he butcher this week and we are going to get some ground beef and make our own hamburgers so in your face China. Oh China you win again.
Did anybody see the mockery that was the Cincinnati Bengals game. Finn who is originally from West Virginia is a Bengals fan. So we stayed up till about 4:30 Monday morning and listened to the whole game. It was a pitiful display of professional football all around, but the manner in which they lost the game with 30 or less seconds left was as Don J. would say a heart breaker and he loves the heart breakers. Since Finn stayed up all night and did not prepare for class i got to be his guest lecturer on Monday. So my job required me to stand up and give a small speech about myself and then Finn quizzed them on what I had said. Then we did a Q and A session where I got asked the questions that ran the gambit from, "Have I been married", "Do you miss you family", "Can you describe your home town. Uh No I don't think so because I have never been roofied in Vegas, Yes well kinda i miss my Dad taking out my trash but I got that covered now, and Centerville is the place everybody wishes they could live, because we are better than you and we know it. It was a good time and I learned that with some persistence you can actually get your class to respond to you. Then because I had only had like 4 hours of sleep I went back to my apartment and took a 6 hour nap, it was raining the whole time so I don't feel that bad about it. Also I bought all 5 seasons of the office for 36 quai, which is less than $5 USD, when I told Dan J. he told he just bought it off of eBay for $60 USD and they shipped it to him from China, sucker. I told him I would have got if for him for like $25 USD. Note much else to tell right now, I am getting my text books today at some point. Thursday all the English teachers including the Chinese ones are going to KTV to sing some karaoke, fingers crossed they have Bon Jovi. Also I am going to try and attach the first part of the monster 40 minute video to this story as well. The second part will come next week, so settle in and get some popcorn. Don't get anything to drink I have been known to be so funny liquids will shoot out of your nose.Also I added a video to "I am pathetic..." not really sure what it was about but I assume it was probably good.
