In lieu of the sh*t for luck week I had last week, I must say that things are starting to look up for me in the good 'ole People's Republic of China. After summing up my existence this past week as that of a hermit (something anyone who knows me knows I am definitely NOT), I have slowly but surely reimmersed as my usual self. Walking to and from with a smile on my face, bobbing my head and singing along to my ipod and
not having to turn around to look behind me every second for fear that I am being followed or on the verge of having some sort of physical confrontation. Yes, the skies are blue again and my merited paranoia has slowly dissipated. I have returned to a lollygag world, not limited to: my 40 hr. a week job, socializing, learning/studying Chinese, taking pictures of my food, registering for 'QQ' (Chinese equivalent of Facebook...you all know that Facebook and YouTube are banned by Chinese government, right? My VPN is my baby.), learning how to communicate with my newfound housekeeper (still can't pronounce her damn name) and trying a different part of the pig or cow each time I eat one of the two. Its to the point now where I prefer not knowing exactly what it is I'm eating for fear that if I actually knew what was being grinded up and chewed in my mouth, I'd probably spit it out thus not being able to say that I actually tried it. 'All's well that stays in(side of me) well,' might be my new mantra. Although I must say I am proud of myself for deciding to have my doctor at home write me a script for Cipro. Let's just say that I've had to take it on more than one occasion. But I find it amusing when I tell my students what my favorite meals are here and they say to me, with complete candor, "You shouldn't eat that. Its disgusting, dirty and could make you sick." That's when I pat myself on the back and tell them that as long as it can stay in my body without coming out of either end, I will continue to indulge!
Elaine and I on a tuk tuk ride to dinner. The pic above this is the poor bastard that had to peddle us there, ha! (Elaine is a 20 yr. old student of mine.)
The pics above are from the 'Peoples' Square.' This is basically a huge area with a ton of people, walking around aimlessly, eating food, feeding pigeons and basically just having a good time. I don't know if you can really tell (in juncture of my Annie Leibovitz-like photo skills), but there are hundreds upon hundreds of people in these pictures. Look at the right hand side of the middle picture...this gives an idea of the amount of people we're talking about. Hell, for all I know its easily thousands of people.
Ok, so although I could not summon myself to eat a shrimp's head, I did muster up the cojones to eat the shrimp's skin...and maybe one or two of his little shrimp legs. Baby steps, my friends.
Cold beef and traditional Chinese seaweed. Delish!!
Some noodle dish with A LOT of peppers and mushrooms. Anyone who knows me well can guess that I had this one 'special ordered,' so to speak. I knew I wanted noodles, veggies, lots of mushrooms and very spicy (Ha! Emily Foster Vega..soo spicy). I definitely got what I wanted. I could live on just tofu, veggies and hot peppers...and as it turns out, now I get to!
