Of Spin Cycles and Backstreet Boys

Weather report: Cloudy, foggy, perhaps mostly real H2O given that it gave us a short rain a few hours earlier. I took this a few days ago. It was nice to a) see the moon and b) see it white.

One thing I forgot to mention is that Wednesday last week was my first and last Taiji lesson. It was at 6:30 in the AM and rather annoying. We had an old guy speaking Chinese to us with Wang Laoshi occasionally translating. We did a couple weird hand movements like you would see in a movie, wherein we apparently gathered our Qi. Then we would do a squat, the type where you lean up against a wall and try to keep your knees completely bent, except all sans wall. It was only half an hour (I think future sessions would have been longer) but was rough on the thighs and more importantly, involved exercise at 6:30 AM. I dropped it in favor of Chinese chess.

It was also time to do laundry this week. In this hotel/dorm which has 30 rooms per floor on 5 floors, there is a single washer, and no dryer. Dryers, by the way, do not exist in this country unless you are ridiculously loaded. The washer also happened to be quite small, capable of cleaning god knows how few towels or whatever the washing machine SI unit happens to be. I decided then, to wash only boxers and t-shirts, considering I had yet to wear pants here, and I'm not too worried about my short rotation getting dirty yet. I was able to fit a bunch of these small items in, and everything went fine. The machine naturally, was all in Chinese but there were 2 convenient buttons that were obviously supposed to be pushed, so I hit those two and it started whirring away. After one of the hotel workers told me it would be 50 minutes, I went on my way. Hopefully I will continue to have laundry luck.

Some prices here seem very expensive. An "I Believe" pen, for example, costs something like RMB 3.50 which at half a dollar seems about the same as US prices. Massages, as mentioned previously, barely crack $8. Keep in mind RMB=kuai and 7 RMB = 1 dollar with these common prices here:

Bottle of water: 600 ml (standard plastic bottle size).60 kuai each in a supermarket, 1-2 kuai in a convenience store, 4+ in a touristy place where you get ripped off

Beer: 600ml bottle is 3-4 kuai in a convenience store, a 350ml bottle (standard American can or glass bottle size) is 15-25 or more in a bar or club

Food: Cheap street food is 3-5 kuai for a large rice meal or a sort of tortilla-bread wrap with chicken and vegetables etc... while a fairly good restaurant can run you 100-150 kuai each.

Spirits: Disgusting, puke-inducing liquid that is apparently 35% alcohol by volume costs 2 kuai for about 150ml. It looks like rum, and smells like beef and cough syrup.

Cigarettes: Are 13 kuai or so per pack depending on the brand. American brands may be higher but are also often fake. Don't worry mother I have not taken up smoking.

Electronics: At a mall I saw a pair of quite unimpressive looking earphones for 120 RMB. This is in line with $5-$10 ones in the US that looked about the same quality. My cell phone, I am not sure if I mentioned it previously, was 300 for a rather old model. I was feeling a little hosed until I realized the battery life on it is BEYOND GODLIKE and I haven't had to recharge it yet. It has only lost 2 bars of life out of 7. I got it more than 2 weeks ago and have basically had it on ever since.

Produce: Apples were 4-5 kuai per pound. Despite working as a cashier at Jewel for 3 months I have no clue how this compares. It seems cheap though.

Clothing: Regular cotton shirts with no brand names can be ~10 kuai.

I can't think of anything else for now. Yesterday was my first experience with Karaoke Television, aka KTV. After another Hot Pot dinner, went to a massive KTV building. The building had dozens and dozens of rooms, and they are all furnished with large flatscreens, leather couches, and naturally a sweet built-in AV system. Given that my friend Shino is an Asian female born after Mao's death in 1976, she was naturally a fan of Britney Spears, The Backstreet Boys, and Celine Dion. Not quite being able to say the same, I nonetheless endured the sound of my own singing voice, belting out That Way, My Heart Will Go On, and Oops I Did It Again. I was able to squeeze in a Mrs. Robinson just to humor myself thankfully. Not only was the experience interesting and rather how I expected it to be, it was really expensive. 215 kuai for 2.5 hours in a 10'x10' room and a pitcher of orange juice. Not quite the best way to spend a dollar or 30 in Tianjin, but whatever. Perhaps there are cheaper places, or the moral is just to take a larger group. What was interesting was the amount of 40-year-old men there often with wives and family friends. One thing for certain is that the scale of KTV is uniquely Asian.

There is an Iraq-China Olympic qualifier in an hour but the tickets just ran out on me. Instead I will be going to an all-you-can-eat-and-drink pizza place for 39 kuai. I figure as long as the food is digestible it will have been worth it.

I saw "Snowflower Beer" on cups and cans at other places in the city, so I now have no clue what the restaurant was called.

Not much else to say; took another test on Friday, and an hour or so afterwards my teacher said I did a good job. I'm not sure how much she looked at it, but even if it was just the multiple choice, I'm pleased. Of course, this is all assuming I understood the Chinese. That's all from me today. I'll try to get back to taking more pictures, going on more walks.

Rest in Peace Tim Russert