October 19^th, 2006

I want emails, people. There is nothing like getting an email in the morning. So send me an email. 

So yesterday was a crazy day. We didn’t stay the whole time; we couldn’t stay the whole time. It has been so long since I have pulled kitchen hours. It wiped me out. I am such a wimp. Today was just “grace, grace” for us.  I feel like I did nothing. I am still tired though. I am such a wimp.

So I am sitting here in my bed typing this email into Word, listening to Showbread (Currently Listening: Age of Reptiles – Sing Me to Sleep), and going to go to bed soon. All while some of you early birds are getting up. Then the email goes off to you some time tomorrow. Kind of like a time capsule. 

I don’t miss home yet. Which is suprising to me. I am right at the longest I have been away from home, nine days. A Mexico trip is nine days long, an event is five days, my longest stint house sitting was seven days. I am not alone here, I have people that I know, I have new people. I miss my friends though, I am sad that I am not around, I am not in the loop. I don’t know what Stef’s day was like, or when Josh gets off work, or if Steven works tomorrow.  Tomorrow… 

Tomorrow is a new day,
     and I am in China.

I will be here tomorrow, I will give my all. To be more than a flashbang. More than just a loud noise and a bright flash. I am going to leave pieces of myself all over this lovely country. 

-Andrew!

PS. Send me emails at rtalavara7@yahoo.com while I am on this trip.

October 17, 2006

Like I was bit by a tiny vampire. But all it shows is that I am perfectly health. I am sitting here in the lobby of the extended stay hotel, listening to some sad love song in Chinese; smelling cigarette smoke. It is quite a bit different than back home. (Luke says hi, by the way).

But back to the holes, the first time was before I left and let my stepmom stick a needle in my arm and draw my blood. And the second time was here in China. Since we came here to help work in a diner, we need to get health cards. Everyone here who works in a place that deals with food needs to get one, to make sure that they don’t have any serious diseases. Kind of an interesting thought.

But I am healthy, and I passed. And when I get home I will finally find out what blood type I have.

Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Tomorrow is the day that the diner opens. But also the first day that they are going to be open for lunch to the public. And it is the day that 70 some odd lunches need to be made for a school. It is just going to be one long day. I will write another email when it is all over. Good night.

October 14^th 2006

No, not in that way. I picked up some pictures from Kodak store about three blocks away. maybe more. Probably more, it was a 45 minute round trip. Anyway the distance isn’t that impressive unless you know that I did it alone. Yep. It was awesome. Suprisingly you feel pretty safe here, the only scary thing is dodging cars. And anyway the cute girl who checked me out last time we were at the Kodak store was there when I picked up the pictures. It was a short conversation. 

So on Tuesday, we are going to the health department to get tested. I am going to know a lot about my health that I didn’t know before, with giving blood the week before and this.. All for cheap too.

So the money here is called Yi Yaun. That is pronounced UN. Like the United Nations. Kind of funny. And there are about 8 of them to a dollar. Oh, actually it has three names. The other to are Quy and RMB. That gets confusing. 

Well, we are still having lots of grace, and I have been taking pictures.

And tomorrow is a muesum.

‘Cause it is sitting out on the balcony drying.

October 16th, 2006

Yeah, so they don’t have dryers here or something. Today Yolanda got sick, (HEALING!) and Tom stayed home with her to keep her company and to do all of our laundry while the rest of us got to go play. He is such a sweet guy… But anyway my underwear is out on a balcony for all of northern China to see. At least it is clean.

Enough talk about my underthings. Today, we walked across the number 1 bridge. A long walk with nothing really to see. Every few minutes a scooter or bike would come up the sidewalk honking to tell use to move over.

Once on the otherside we hit up Snack Street. An odd place, and one that I finally found out what that horrible smell is in the mall. Stinky Tofu. Yep gross stuff. But the Snack Street is just as it sounds, a street filled with snack venders. They sold tons of stuff to eat for 1 to 3 Kuai. I could tell you everything there, but instead I will tell you what I ate, cause that is a whole lot more personal.

I had a pork sandwich thing on pita-ish bread (pretty good), fried stinky tofu (kind of gross, actually), deep fried persimmons (just okay), some imitation-crab-with-corn-and-some-other-stuff-all-wrapped-in-seaweed-somewhat-korean thing (weird), hot dry noodles, a local speciatly (tasted like noodles with peanut butter on them), a dumpling thing with corn in it (made me realize that I don’t like corn cooked in other things that much), and a salty donut (actually really, really good. It isn’t so much salty as just not sweet.).

Most of that was just tasting other people’s food, so I left there hungry…

After that adventure, we all hopped in some cabs to go to Carrefour and Hom Mart. Cabs are actually cheap here. It cost something like 25 Yiyuen to go thirty minutes. And there are 8 Yiyuen in a Dollar. The driving here requires a whole different email; it is just that cool… So at Carrefour we split up and about half of us went to Hom Mart to price some wood for making some benchs. Hom Mart is like an OSH or Home Depot. They have everything you would ever need for your house, mirrors, bowls, sinks, toilets, really cool showers, fish tanks, tile, miter saws, hammers, wood, wood flooring, fake wood, fake wood flooring. Everything you would need for a house, except an axe or shovel.

Yesterday we took out a tree from someone’s yard, with a shovel, a wood saw, and a meat cleaver. The cleaver was actually really effective. Well we were told that they wanted the other tree out, cause it was dying, and an axe would have just been so nice to use. But Hom Mart doesn’t have them, or any long handled tools for that matter…

Well, that was my excitement for the day. Mostly, I am tired now and can’t remember much more. I write these emails at the end of the day, when I have stuff to say and time to say it, and then I save them to a disk and copy and paste them in to emails when I have time. So this might all be late news to some of you, but it is my spin on it. I don’t really know how long it takes for these letters to get to you… I am just glad that they do.

Tomorrow is the health test and I have to do a twelve hour fast. At least missing breakfast is easier than other meals.

Peace, love, and all that other stuff.