Monday

Had a quiet weekend. Not much money, so I stuck around. Did some more reading, graded a bunch of papers, planned for the next few weeks, and did some thinking about the finals I need to write.

We're kind of isolated here. "Here" is Wuguishan. In English, that's 5 Goat Mountain I believe. When I first lived here, this was empty countryside. It's now mostly empty countryside. It seems there are 3 foreigners living here, including me & D. Of Course, we're from 3 different countries.

We faced a serious problem Monday; neither of us had any beer at home. We were on our way to the little convenience store across the street when we decided w could just start exploring the little side streets. About 2 blocks away, we found a convenience store with a few pool tables, and cold cheap Harbin Beer. A few hours passed, and we were a bit tipsy. The Canadian decided he needed meat on a stick, and we set off looking. We took the most convoluted possible path to the main market area. No meat on sticks, which was fine by me, as they had spicy boiled veetables on sticks, which is infinitely better.

Nearby was a loud club, so we wandered in to take a look. Turned out to be karaoke only (KTV from this point on). Nothing but private rooms. Fine for drinking with friends, not so great to meet people. Unless someone opens a door to go to the restroom and is surprised to see two foreigners asking the staff where a club might be found. This led to us being whisked into a room and givn beer at a young ladies birthday party. My ability to sing Happy Birthday in Chinese was much admired. That w could speak some Chinese amazed everyone. Photos were taken, and friend called in the hopes they could come meet us. We rediscovered the unpleasantness that is beer and birthday cake together. Ultimately, we left, after promising that if we were ever to go back, we would contact them so they could join us, perhaps in the hope I'd sing "My Perogative" again.

So now we like living in the sticks