没事 (Mei Shi) No Problem

Happy Halloween

One evening last week, I was riding my scooter home and I wanted to stock up on my supply of processed hashed browns from my local Jenny Lou's when I noticed that they had a huge supply of massive pumpkins outside of the door. I inquired the price of the Nan Gua at the counter, "1.5 kuai yi jin" they told me. I thought for a moment the possible ways of getting the things home and the benefits that it could bring. I finally decided on a medium sized one that would be easy enough to strap to my scooter and I took it in. My total price was 28 kuai and I was on my way with a bag of frozen potatoes and one Halloween decoration.

I called Jiao Jiao on the way and told her to meet me outside with her camera. It must have been a sight for the Chinese people to see a foreigner riding down the street with a massive pumpkin strapped to his scooter. Here are the pictures.

Thank goodness for all of those bungee cords I bought at Macro Mart. As we were taking the pumpkin upstairs, the elevator lady was intrigued by the size of the beast and inquired about it. Most pumpkins in China can fit into your two hands together and they are greenish. This was something very new to the girl. So, I told her that Jiao Jiao loves pumpkin so much that I cannot keep enough of the small ones in the house and therefore, I bought a big one to give her food for a few days. Of course I was speaking sarcastically, but they thought I was serious. Someone could really love pumpkin that much.

I have never been a big eater of pumpkin dishes. Before moving to Korea, I had never eaten anything other than pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving and one time I had pumpkin seeds instead of sunflower seeds at a baseball tournament when I was about 11. In Korea I learned to enjoy pumpkin soup and in China, all sorts of pumpkin dishes were available. It can actually be eaten in the same ways as potato, but I still prefer potato - it's an Idaho thing.

None the less, I decided that I wanted to save some of the meat from this massive vegetable (or is it a fruit?) and I recalled how we used to just waste tons of good pumpkin meat in order to cut a face into a plant. However, this pumpkin was not ripe when it was taken off of the vine and the meat inside was rather tough to remove. We spent a lot of time digging away with a spoon, remembering that our main purpose was to make a jack-o-lantern. Finally, we gave up after getting two bags full of pumpkin. Here are the pictures of us working.

 

Couple of Pics of Me

This is me before a Cowboy themed party. Howdy.

This is me on my scooter. Notice the Thundercats belt buckle. Sweet!!!!

This is Ridiculous!!!

Here is a link to an article.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071016/ap_on_re_us/cockfighting_bust_4

Cockfighting Bust Nets 5,000 Chickens

So the Humane Society is in on this deal, they are seeking 50 people that can face up to a year in jail and a $5,000 fine. And here is the funny thing at the bottom. Direct quote, I shit you not!!!!

"About 80 percent of the birds seized have been euthanized, Levikow said."

So, you are going to throw 50 dudes in jail for raising birds to fight, and as the freedom fighters for birds you kill those you save. Idiots!!!!

The story goes on to say that the rest of the birds were sent to the Philippines or Hawaii.

What it does not say is that those birds will for sure be fought in the Philippines and Hawaii.

I have watched the cock fights on TV many times and I tell you, the birds have a fighting chance and choose to fight. I am sure they would prefer that to being euthanized. haha

The Public Has Gas

Coming back home on day, we jumped off the bus and almost ran smack into a real safety hazard that made our hair stand on end.

My Chinese reading is not up to snuff, but I can get the drift of this sign by looking at it. Jiao Jiao also told me what it meant at the time and she was a little bit put off by the whole thing.

"Danger! Gas Pipe"

Which of course implies,  "Don't touch! Stay Clear!" and of course...

"STAND ON ME AND SMOKE CIGARETTES"

In defense of the idiots pictured, I did not wait around to see if they were actually smoking cigarettes. But, having been here as long as I have...I bet good money they were smoking...and that is just plainly, stupidly ...

 typical!!!!

I had only been here about a year when the story came out about a school being blown up in northern China because a mine owner had stored a bunch of dynamite in his apartment next to the school. Of course, it went off killing him, his friend, his wife and more than a few kids. The newspaper article did not offer any reason for the ignition of the explosives, but I can imagine the guy in his house smoking and putting out his butts on the floor and getting blown up!

These pipes have not blown up yet.

WHEW!!!

Chinese Portable Toilet

We were walking down the road one night and we walked past a Chinese portable toilet, or Blue Poo as we used to call them. I decided to examine closer and YUP, they manufacture their portable toilets with a squat-style seat which is elevated to where a western seat would be. Check it out!

This leads me to more toilet business. The other day we took a trip down to Wang Fu Jing and we were charging up our IC cards so we do not have to buy bus or subway tickets. Well, I noticed a terrible funk coming from the area of the public toilets. So, I looked and this is what I saw!

That looks clean enough - modern and technological. So what was causing the stink? Oh, it must have been the barrels of SH#T that they placed right next to the toilet in the underground tunnel with poor ventilation that is used for public transport.

I could not believe that they would actually empty crap into barrels and store them in the basement. Well, actually I could! But, I wanted to see for myself and Jiao Jiao stood in line watching me walk toward the radioactive crap cylinders with a cringe on her face as though she had just drank a large gulp of expired milk. I looked in and for sure it was waste, but no real dooker in my line of sight. My nose told me otherwise and we quickly walked into oriental plaza.

Lots of toilet humor coming from me lately, what a cultural experience!

Kuala Lumpur

    After we got things started at the airport, we decided to go stay in China Town. We chose China town because it seemed like it was central to many areas and it was one of two areas which has budget accommodation. The other area with budget accommodation is called Golden Triangle and seems to be nearby the Patronas Towers. China Town, like other China Towns we have been too, was essentially a place where people come to buy cheap counterfeit goods. In fact, at night this China Town was packed with people shopping so much so that, it would take an hour or more to walk from one end to another and back and the total distance was about a kilometer. Some of the items on the street were of high quality, but for the most part, it was the same items that you could get at any market in China and we did not buy much there. Actually, most of the sales people were of Indian decent, not Chinese...ironic.

    During this time, the city was filled with Arab people on a shopping holiday because it was "Sale Season" in Kuala Lumpur. We found out that in July and August every year, things go on sale and huge discounts on every sort of item is available and we did a fair share of shopping ourselves. We did not waste much time on the items in the street market, we went to the mall and got authentic and high quality items for a minute price. If you can get to Kuala Lumpur during this time of year, it is brilliant for shopping and all of the name brands are authentic in the real malls.

    We did most of our shopping in an area called Imbi, which is only one station from China town. During this time I filled my whole new work wardrobe for the year, got two pair of glasses, we got new luggage and Jiao Jiao got tons of new and very unique clothes. We spent about 500 dollars on all of this shopping and for the quality we got, it would have been worth a thousand dollars.

    In plan, I did not want to spend too much time in Kuala Lumpur on our vacation, I wanted to go straight to the beach. However, our unfortunate baggage issue caused us to need to stay in Kuala Lumpur for a bit longer. Our original plan had been to take a bus to a port city and then a ferry to Tiomen Island, but this was modified and we took a flight to Tiomen instead. There is one major discount airline working in Malaysia, that I know of, and that is Air Asia...they are actually expanding their business into China. www.airasia.com. You can book flights on the net or they have an office in the Central Station of Kuala Lumpur.

    However, this airline does not travel to Tiomen, so we had to book with a much smaller airline called Berjaya Air. I am not sure about their website, but they had very simple service and you could basically just go to their little airport and jump on the plane for a 40 minute flight.

    Anyway, we did not do a lot of things in Kuala Lumpur as we were busy with luggage stuff the first days and busy with shopping the last days. Here are some pictures of the city and the things we did, followed by a video of the roller coaster inside of the mall at Imbi station.

The Gates of China Town

A Temple on the way to Imbi Station

A sign on the subway, classic!

The Petronas Towers

Me in front of the Petronas Towers

A couple of buildings around the towers, beautiful blue sky.

The towers at night, from a distance.

The food street perpendicular to the shopping street of China Town.

A beer that is insanely expensive. Since Malaysia is a Muslim country, vices such as beer are very expensive. However, Tiomen island is duty free and so the alcohol is cheap. However, the locals do not participate in those sorts of activities. Also, they do not look kindly upon sexual extravagance. One American dive instructor on the island was beaten up by the local men for his philandering ways. Much different than other South East Asian nations we have visited.

Here is a picture of our toilet in the hotel room. I have taken this picture because it is a good example of the toilet habits of the nation. You notice that the wall has a hose, this is for washing your butt after you have a movement. Every toilet we entered had a hose, but maybe not tissue paper. It began to gross out Jiao Jiao when she would enter a toilet and the floor was covered with water. The natives use their right hand to eat, bare hand mind you, and their left hand for washing after their business and thus, it is not polite to wave or offer something with your left hand. Takes all kinds. I guess they save on waste paper though.

Here is the video of the roller coaster in the mall.