A Laundry List of Unfortunate Events

1. Getting hit on by sketchy bastards: This weekend, we went bar-hopping again. While Ben met some very interesting people (absurdly liberated, chain-smoking, trilingual Chinese girl and her friend who speaks English with a Chinese-French accent), I got hit on by sketchy bastards.

At JD, a dance club we went to at the end of Saturday night, a boy started dancing with me and then proceeded to try to bite the large (fake) buttons off my (fake) Chloe shirt. I instantly ran away only to be accosted by another guy, Number 11.

11 is from Tibet. I don't remember his real name, but half of his initials consisted of the letters S and L. At his high school in Tibet, all the students were referred to by their numbers because the teacher had trouble pronouncing their names. 11 seemed nice (and interesting, though only because he was Tibetan) until he asked to kiss me. When I refused, he started biting my ear, at which point I made up some lame excuse, grabbed Ben (who had, by this point, made even more interesting friends), and went home.

2. Cell phone: Determined to have a better time Saturday night, I ventured out again, this time with Ben and Michael (third team member who had just arrived). Admittedly, I did have a better time at the first bar we went to, Makewei jiuba. Ginger, the absurdly liberated, trilingual, chain-smoker whose company I very much enjoy, had brought along a couple of more of her friends, and I spoke with them for a while before our whole group headed for JD again to dance.

I didn't want to carry a purse on Saturday, and Ben offered to carry a few of my belongings, including my cell phone. When he was paying for the cab to JD, my cell phone fell out of his pocket, and he didn't realize it was gone until the cab had driven away. Ginger called my phone with hers and the cab driver not only demanded money (the one day I didn't bring enough money with me...) but also claimed that he could not bring it back until 5 am. Now, the problem is, the phone actually belong to my grandparents. I had borrowed it for the summer and need to give it back when I go back home. After calming down a bit, I decided just to buy a new phone, not wanting the asshole to profit and not wanting to wait around outside a bar until 5 am...

3. Questionable Food: Sunday morning, I woke up at 1 pm dying of hunger. Because the dining hall was closed by the time I got there, I went across the street to a small eatery where Ben and I had eaten a couple of times before. I first ordered a noodle dish that was unbearably spicy. Unable to finish it (or rather unable to even start it), I decided to order a bowl of fried rice just to get something substantial in my stomach.

My fried rice came, and I immediately found a piece of hair in it. Not wanting to be an asshole (and too hungry to care), I continued eating from the other end of the plate and found another piece of hair within seconds. I had run out of money to buy anything else, so I still kept eating, trying to pick off the rice far away from the two offending spots. After a little while, I discovered a small piece of plastic in my rice, at which point I ran way disgusted and still hungry...

4. I will not elaborate: One of the worst feelings ever is having your hopes raised up for something only to be disappointed.

5. Piano Practice: On my first day here, I figured out where the piano practice rooms were and planned to practice when I got a chance. Last night, I wasn't feeling particularly great and decided to take a walk to the practice rooms to play a bit of piano to divert myself. Too bad the practice rooms were "temporarily closed for repair" as the sign said (according to my bad Chinese reading abilities).

Finally, because no post in a picture blog is complete without a picture (better pictures next post):

Laundry. Note that I used my internet connection cord to create a makeshift clothesline. Internet still works!