Trip to Jilin

Pictures from Jilin are posted on Facebook.

We had a pretty good trip to Jilin last week. It started with a 2.5 hour train ride to Changchun.... I decided to spend this free time to try to read my new kids book in Chinese... so I read it out loud (very badly) to Adam and he tried to figure out what it was saying (he has been here for 5 years and has a Chinese wife... so his Chinese is pretty good). We spent a good portion of the train ride reading through the little mermaid.... while Chris slept and Jess had to explain to the very confused passengers that the idiot failing at reading the book was her coworker and the one trying to translate it is her husband... and then then usual tell everyone that asks where we are from and what we do. So train ride = good Chinese practice time.

We only spent about an hour in Changchun.. enough time to get tickets for the train to Jilin (can't go strait there) and side down for a snack at KFC....... ordering at KFC was definitely an eye opening experience. I went up to the counter and tried to order a large fry in my broken chinese.. and the lady responded in like perfect English.. and took my order in English.... I can't even image the shocked look I must have given here. You never run into any restaurant employees that speak good English (if any at all) in Songyuan... and those that can speak some.... usually wont use it until you have been there a few times. My first sign that I definitely need to get out of Songyuan more.... hehe

In Jilin we wondered around and did some shopping... hit some restaurants that Adam remembered from when he lived there... and played some pool. Service is interesting in China... you finish a game of pool and call the employee over to rack the balls for you.... hehe. Adam had to go meet up with Jess and her family at some point.. so he drop us off in the area with a bunch of KTVs and night clubs. First order of business though was Chris wanted a haircut... so I decided to get one as well... its been a long time. Cost us each 15 yuan (about $2.15). Mine took about 20 minutes (with washing)... Chris's took about an hour (with getting washed before and after). With short hair they have a pretty crazy way or cutting hair... but they are damn serious with it and very good at it.... they mostly use scissors..... but they make that shit perfectly even.

We hit a really awesome club called G+ that played great music and had a nice little stage i totally could have used had I brought my hoop... it was really stupid of me not to bring it... but wasn't sure how the train traveling would go. We saw some other people that weren't Chinese so we went up and toasted with them and introduced ourselves... well damn.. their Russian... and speak very little English.. and very little Chinese. So our conversations were half English half Chinese trying to figure out what we could say that we both knew :) They were all college students here studying abroad. One of them was trying really hard to talk to us.. and getting really pissed off and cussing like hell (not at us.. just in general) when we failed to understand each other. He was pretty amusing and you could tell he was a little irritated with being in China and not really being able to talk to anyone.

Then we stopped by an awesome little steampunk bar!!! It was more like a bar then a dance club.. but it had a DJ an the waiters would dance occasionally...and they started something similar to a conga line that I totally joined in. The midget waiter even got out there and danced at one point!

Tuesday we spent the majority of the day wondering around this mountain park with a lot of temple type things. I took a lot of pictures of it... it was really pretty... we walked like 5 miles that day.. and a lot of it was stairs or hills. At one part of the park we saw a bunch of old people in the woods exercising on this one type of tree.. still don't know the significance of that tree.. but they definitely were all on the same type of tree... some of them were like scratching their backs on the tree and shit... it was kinda weird.

We went out to dinner with some of Jess's friends from grade school and their husbands.... they didn't really speak much English... so it was another good time to practice our Chinese :) They were a pretty fun crowd.

We caught a bus strait back to Songyuan on Wednesday morning and go back around 1pm. We watched some really crappy movies on the bus... but nothing eventful really happened.

When I got back, it had been 5 days since I had been to Tanbo(restaurant near my apt)... I decided that was way to long and headed there to study (I go there almost everyday). I knew the last time I had gone that I wouldn't be back for a bit... so I told them I was going out of town :)
I decided I would practice my pronunciation again for a bit.. so while waiting for my food I went do and started reading the Little Mermaid to the lady that works the front desk (I can't remember her name). She was pretty amused and kinda confused at why I randomly decided to go down there and read a kids book to her... but they are pretty used to me doing random shit. After a few pages she decided to start reading it out to me in little pieces and I would repeat those pieces right after her.... the Tanbo staff are my Chinese teachers.

After I ate I had a random craving for a Coke float... so I taught HaiLun (the bartender that also deals with icecream and shit like that) how to make Coke floats.... they thought it was a little odd. I decided to drink that at the bar and teach LiLi (my favorite waitress in Songyuan) how to say a bunch of the basic things they had at the restaurant in English (straw, fork, chopsticks, cup.....).

I ended up spending like 3 hours there.. and then going home for a nap.... after about an hour... Natasia called me to say she was headed to Tanbo for dinner... so of course I went ahead and joined her. When I sat back down at the table.. the waitress was laughing (i think it was LinLin).. so I told her in Chinese that Tanbo is my home. She agreed. Spent like another 2 hours there.. because after about an hour when we were about to leave... Ann decided to come to Tanbo.. and called me to see if I was there.. and to no surprise I totally was.. so ended up staying another hour with her and Ken.

Next post........ My first trip to a Chinese hospital.
After that.......... Where's LiLi?