Yay Stuff!!

So its been REALLY busy lately, we have all been working a good bit of overtime..... but that will all slow down very soon and only a week and a half until my summer vacation... will post about that when I figure out what I am doing.

I decided to buy a fish tank a few weeks ago. I got a couple of frogs and a few fish... I am now missing a fish....... I guess a frog ate one.... o well... survival of the fittest :)

We have been talking about doing some sort of bike trip a lot recently.... so today I finally decided it was time to get a bike. I spent a little over $35 on it, I could have gotten a much cheaper one.... but I wanted to make sure it was at least decent quality. I rode it around for awhile today... its nice.... it definitely makes traveling around the city a lot easier.... though I have to be really careful if I go near some intersections..... people drive CRAZY here...

I still need to get a little light for it... if I ever end up riding it after dark. Its a pretty bike right now... Sadly... I am working on taking any of the stickers and things off of it that make it look new.. and probably going to cover it in some mud or something so that no one steals it.

Tomorrow I will probably do some biking around Songyuan with one of the Reach High teachers. Should be fun... I think we are going to cross the bridge and explore some areas I haven't really seen yet.

OMG its LiLi!

Happy 4th of July everyone!

We completely forgot about it.... until Chris saw Google's thing change for it. So all 5 of the americans in songyuan got together... we decided to grab some KFC and a few fireworks and head to the park.

We thought it would be easy to get fireworks.. but as with most things in songyuan... all the places selling fire works close up at 6 and it was like 7:30.... so we wondered around for a little bit asking random shops if they had any.. and at some point a random guy out for a jog decided he knew where some were and decided to lead us around. Another guy from one of the shops we asked in chased us down and started to help as well.. they eventually led us into the night market and then told us to wait for a minute and one of them ran off. He came back a few minutes later saying that he had called the guy that owned one of the shops by the night market and he was going to come back and open up the shop for us.

As we hurry towards the guys shop I hear "Jefu!" and some girl slaps my arm. I look at her for a second... am like... holy crap that voice is familiar.... and I am thinking.... i think its lili... I quickly check her hair and the red streaks are gone... she isn't wearing the spike earrings either... but I am pretty sure its her... I totally can't think of how to respond to her at all in Chinese beside just saying hello.. and Natasia kinda pushes me forward and is like "say bye to the girl... we are going" so I kinda wave and try to catch up with everyone... who hadn't gone far... and the shop was really close.

So the guy totally wasn't there yet to open the shop(at this point I had time to fully figure it out and knew for sure it was LiLi).... I told Natasia that that was LiLi as I was looking around to see how far she had gotten... I still wanted to go talk to her. She was still really close... they had gone down a side street that doesn't go anywhere.. so they were back almost right next to us.. but still a decent amount of people between us.........so.... of course I whip out the LED hoop and put on a quick show.. and it took no time to build a nice crowd... including LiLi. I was able to go talk to her for a little bit.. basically just asked her where she was working...and how she was doing... I was only able to understand a little bit.. but seemed like she was doing well. I was still having a bit of trouble putting together anything good in Chinese... but o well.. I hadn't really prepared any sentences in my head for a situation like that... I guess I need to.

Anyways.... we got our fireworks and went to the park. It was a lot of fun... then we decided to go to a KTV to sing some English songs. We tried 1978... but they don't have the KTV part of the bar anymore.. which kinda sucks...but I put on a little hooping show there... and everyone else got up and danced at one point.. so it was good. Then we finally went to another KTV that has a lot of songs in English and had a pretty good time. It was a nice little celebrations.

One night at Tanbo

One hot and raining night I decided to take a walk.... and ended up passing Tanbo. Some of the staff were outside under the sign (where its dry)... so I stopped and talked to them for a bit. The restaurant was pretty much empty so I hung out for awhlie (no one comes out in the rain). I hung out for a little while and walked Xu Hui home... and then went back to Tanbo... because at this point there were no customers there and I was having fun hanging out. I actually didn't even order anything. When I got back the manager looked slightly unhappy and she was writing out a list. She didn't really mind me watching her write it because she knew I couldn't read it. She looked like she was preparing to do something she didn't really want to do... so I figured this was a list of stuff that the employees had done wrong or something.

A little later the manager had taken Liu Huan into one of the private rooms and all you could hear out of that room was the manager yelling. I couldn't understand any of it. Lin Lin sat down on the steps next to the door to that room and listened... she looked very sad listening. She has that look of a child sitting on the steps listening to her parents scold a sister... or listening to her parents fight. It was very interesting to watch... at one point we could hear that Liu Huan was crying. Then we heard the chairs move and LinLin jumped up and went across the restaurant so that it didn't look like she was listening. I went to the bar and started talking to Hai Lun. Soon Lin Lin came running and said something to Hai Lun and then ran into the waitress area. Hai Lun put down the mop and hurried over to the private room as Lin Lin went running back by with a cup of water.

I stayed outside the room, but when I got over there I could see the manager laying on the floor.... my first thought was that Liu Huan had hit or something, but no... she had over heated or hyperventilated or something from yelling so much. They turned on the A/C in that room and started fanning her and trying to get her to drink some water. Soon Lin Lin picked her up (the male water was in there... but Lin Lin really took charge) and carried her over to the owners office and put her down on the bed in there. They found some sort of medicine in the office and gave it to her... I have no clue what it was. I continued to just stand a little ways away (out of the way) and watch. Everyone pretty much went and started finishing up what they had been doing... except for Lin Lin who stayed there to take care of the manager. She soon was back on her feet and went back out and finished closing out the register and was like.. ok its time to go home... they closed 10 minutes early.

As soon as they started shutting things down... I went outside to wait... it was still raining a bit.. but not hard. I was expecting them to grab umbrellas from Tanbo (they have a bunch for them to use) but they didn't. The manager walked out first and two of the other staff locked up the door. I put up my umbrella and headed towards the manager.. and as soon as I started walking Lin Lin grabbed my arm with the umbrella and pushed me faster towards the manager. So I walked them home keeping the manager dry.... usually when I walk one of them home I try to have some conversation..... but this was a very silent walk back. They live only 2 buildings down from me... so its a convenient walk.

There are a few things that just felt so strange about the night when you think about it. Pretty much all of the female employees live together in one 2 bedroom apt... and pretty much all the of the male employees live together in another 2 bedroom apt. So when the manager has to scold one of the employees.... she then has to go home and sleep in the same room with them. So they work together all day and then go home and live together.... I mean talk about really having to put up with who you work with.... and take a very interesting way of managing I am sure. You wonder does the manager still try to hold authority at the dorm.......

The other interesting thing. With being an outsider here... and though they pretty much accept me as a friend... the best thing I could do when she passed out... was to just stay out of the way. It would take to long for them to communicate anything to me...and for them to understand any suggestion I give them. It was definitely a weird feeling to just know I couldn't do anything but watch... for one... I still don't fully know what happened.... I can just kinda guess from what I saw.....