Birthdays and a Rant About Fireworks

Sorry about the lack of pictures again. It’s much easier to write up something about the week than take photos…I just don’t think about photos much.

This last week was crazy for several reasons.

Shaun and Joe both had birthdays this week. Shaun, whose birthday was on Wednesday, decided to celebrate at a restaurant called Taste, which a bunch of us went to. Taste is relatively expensive, which means they have American prices for everything. Fortunately, their food quality matches the prices. Stateside, a restaurant like Taste would cost $25 a plate. Here in China, it’s about $28 for a 4 or 5 course meal. I just got fish and chips because I’m more on a budget, but it was quite good. Margaret decided she didn’t want the rest of her tiramisu, much to my benefit.

For Joe’s birthday (Saturday), we all went out to an Indian place called Ganesh, which is right next to a restaurant/bar called the Blue Marlin, a place I’ve mentioned before. The food was quite good; an order of naan and a samosa appetizer were enough to make me stuffed. The TV’s at that place all showed MMA fights taking place in Manila. I haven’t watched MMA since probably March or April, and I miss watching that and doing some kind of martial arts.

In the cab on the way to Ganesh that night, we passed an MMA place. I have no idea where it is in this city, but I really want to find out, and then find out if they allow women to participate. I’m really unsure about whether I would be allowed to join; the Wushu guy who taught us in Beijing tended to favor the guy(s) who participated. Oh, well. Time to do some research.

One quality of life thing that most people outside China would find interesting: the prevalence of fireworks. Every day, multiple times a day, I hear firecrackers or fireworks outside my apartment. They can go off at 3:30 in the morning (and they have); they can go off at 4:00 in the afternoon. Sometimes they are for weddings, but honestly, I think Chinese people use them any time they celebrate. It’s really frustrating when you really just want to sleep and all you hear are loud noises outside. I’ve woken up a few times at 12:30, 1:30, 3:30, and 5:30 in the morning, completely tempted to run outside in my pajamas and start yelling at people in Chinese because I just want to sleep and why on earth would you set off fireworks in a residential neighborhood between the hours of 11:30 pm and 6:30 am?! This is especially annoying because a large portion of the people around here have very young families, with children under the age of 5, including my neighbors. The process often goes: wake up to fireworks-hear motorbike alarms-hear babies crying-stuff head under the pillow and go back to sleep if it’s quiet enough. I really don’t think I’ll ever see the 4^th of July the same way again. We see fireworks as a treat in the states; after hearing them multiple times a day for over a month, they have lost all their fun. Below, a video of fireworks and the aftermath, for your viewing pleasure.

Aaaanyway. The National Day week-long holiday is coming up, so Claire and I are planning a two night trip to Nanjing. We’re still working on the return tickets. Getting tickets at this time of year is ridiculously difficult, but we’re trying. Traveling during Spring Festival is supposed to be the hardest, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. 

One of the big things I did this weekend was explore the superstore pretty close to my house, right across the street from IKEA. Metro has a lot of different things (drat it, I forgot to look for tea!), so I managed to get an HDMI cable to connect my computer and television (I can watch movies on my TV now!), some Hershey’s chocolate syrup (about $5), and some pots and pans, namely a teakettle, pot, and wok. Altogether it was about $26-$27, not bad for much-needed cookware. Claire was a lot better on her wallet: she got a bag of penne for $1.50. 

The level of awesomeness at brunch went up this week. Mark, Shaun, Dominique, and Claire all came over for some French toast and Firefly. I don’t think Mark is a Firefly fan. The best part of all of it was that Mark and Shaun did the dishes after Claire, Dominique and I cooked, so I didn’t have to do my least favorite part.

Overall, this week has been a very social week for me. So much to do, so little time…