I left off my last real blog post at the end of our Forbidden City excursion Saturday. I was scheduled to do some overtime work at 2:30, so I was back at the office around 1 p.m., where I had a co-worker, Pang Li, order me a pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut, which just really hit the spot.
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I volunteered to come in to edit the mobile phone stories our site puts out every day. Most of them were taken from three publications in Britain, the BBC, The Guardian or the Daily Mail. They weren't necessarily completely copied, and they did usually--not always--say, "...The Guardian reported Saturday." But I still felt slimy about copying another publication's work, so I at least rewrote the stories, even though no one at China.org.cn did any reporting for the stories. There were about 15 of them, most of them about 100 words, so very brief. They paid me 300 Yuan, or about $45, for about an hour of work. Pretty good, I think.
After that I called up Fiona and we went to go pick up my Qipao. We got there and it wasn't nearly ready. They needed me to come in and try it before they put in the final stitches and lined it. They got the information they needed, and then Fiona and I did a little more shopping around the market, which I learned is called the New World Market. In the last week, I've gotten many more gifts for people back home. Please submit requests, if you have any!
We spent quite a long time together; we had dinner at a Japanese Noodle restaurant. I ordered these spicy beef noodles. The menu had a legend that gave the dishes a certain number of peppers depending on how spicy they were. The one I chose was four out of four. It actually wasn't that bad, and I know I've had worse, but I couldn't eat much of it before I was tired of the spicy--not that I couldn't take the heat, I was just sick of the same flavor. I can't wait to have a meal where the ingredients don't all come in the same bowl.
I enjoyed my time with Fiona. It's a shame that I'm only here for 10 weeks, because I think we are going to be good friends, but we'll be a world apart. Nevertheless, she makes my day at China.org.cn fly by. As an added bonus, she's really helpful with speaking Chinese and pretty good at bargaining. I got a huge suitcase for 180 Yuan, or about $26. I sent one of my suitcases home with Debbie when she left, partly because I wanted to get rid of some of the the things I brought with me, and partly because she needed the extra space. I would have liked a hard suitcase, one made of PVC or aluminum, but I would have had to splurge and spend more than $50 for it, because we couldn't talk them down any lower.
That night I got home about 10 p.m., and Pang Li, who ordered me the pizza, and Stephen were at the apartment hanging out with my roommates. Dan, Annie and Pang Li all went out somewhere, and the rest of us were to follow when Brian and Stephen's chess match was over. But another game followed, and then we played spades, and we ended up staying in the apartment all night--which was just fine because I had a great time.
Sunday was almost a great big blob of nothing. I did a load of laundry, napped for a bit and read almost all day. Then around 4, I called up Fiona because we had loose plans to make spaghetti sometime before I leave, and we decided to it then. So I went with her to the grocery store, and I bought a bunch of tomatoes (not enough, in fact), a couple of green peppers, an onion, garlic, beef, and noodles. The Chinese don't cook with spices like parsley, oregano, or basil, so the sauce was a little bland. And the tomatoes cooked to juice, so we mostly just had beef, onion and green peppers in tomato soup on top of spaghetti noodles, but it sure tasted like spaghetti, which was great. My first attempt to make spaghetti from scratch was a huge success, and everyone in the apartment got a home-cooked meal.
Buying the meat was interesting. They just keep all the ground beef in a big container, and when you want some, you go up and ask. The guy behind the counter asked if I wanted a big handful or a little handful. I tried to explain that we needed at least a pound, and maybe more, and then I remembered that China is on the metric system so I said about half a kilogram. Fiona was shocked by that amount, so I thought that maybe my conversion was wrong, and I settled for one large handful. As it turned out, as with the tomatoes, it wasn't nearly as much as I would have liked. Fiona also talked me out of buying more tomatoes, so I blame the problems on her. I shouldn't have let the person who's only had spaghetti a few times in her life tell me how to make it! I'll have fun teasing her about that for the next three weeks.
I might have been the lead cook on this project because Fiona doesn't have a kitchen and doesn't cook very often, but she definitely showed me up in chopstick-use. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good with chopsticks. But trying to load my plate with wet spaghetti noodles was almost impossible. I'd end up getting one noodle in the plate, and all the rest would just fall right back into the pot. She masterfully filled my plate with just two scoops (I guess it's not called scooping with chopsticks, but I can't think of what it should be called). Sunday turned out to be pretty fun, despite my laziness. And as I said before, I might not be going out to see different parts of the city every night, but I'm very happy with what I am doing.
Work this week hasn't been too slow or too busy. I've gotten something to edit every day. Monday we had some extra work to do, for which they also are paying us extra, so I was pretty much working--off and on--from the start of the work day Monday until about 7 p.m. They're paying us 266 Yuan per 1,000 words, and it was a pretty long document. I'll probably get at least 500 Yuan, or $75, from the extra work, which is very nice.
I spent most of Tuesday trying to plan my trip to Mount Everest. I know now that it can't happen. It's too expensive and will take too long to get there. Tuesday night after work I went to the Pilates class again, which I am really enjoying. It was over around 7, and I went back to the apartment, ate dinner, and then watched the new Karate Kid movie with Will Smith's son and Jackie Chan.
It was a really great movie! I was surprised, given that it's a sequel. It's not about Karate, but about Kung Fu, and it takes place in China. There's a scene where the kids go to the Forbidden City, which was cool to see after I just went there this weekend. There weren't any people at the "city" in the movie, though, so they must have gotten some super special permission to clear the area, because it wasn't like that at all when I went. There were other landmarks, too, like the Olympic stadium, and many of the streets looked exactly as they do here.
There's a scene where Jaden Smith knocks a stack of crates filled with beer bottles over to block the way, and the crates are just standing outside a building. The scene could have been shot almost anywhere in Beijing, because those crates are everywhere. I thought that was interesting because when I watch movies I think things like, "Oh, how convenient that those crates were just sitting there right when he needed them," but I know from experience that it really could happen.
I think Dan said this before, either in his blog or in person, but I think it will be a really cool memory, to know that I watched that movie while I was in the city where it was set. Now if only I can get Jackie Chan to teach me Kung Fu.
Wednesday I suppose was the most exciting day this week, but it was also the most disappointing. That was when I found out for sure that I can't go to Mount Everest, after a full day of planning and researching. I had ups and downs, finding out I could make it happen financially, only to discover that the tour I found is 12 days, and I only have 9. Then my former-travel-agent-co-worker George found out that we could get to and stay in Tibet pretty cheap, about $250, so I thought that adding on a trip over to the mountain wouldn't be that hard. I could do it, but it would take it from $250 to $950, and that would be the cost if we spend two days on a train, three days in a car, get out and see the mountain for a little while, and then turn around and come straight back. It's really hard to justify spending that much money to sit in a car/train for 8 days. So we're not going, and now I have to find a new trip. I'm welcoming suggestions.
After work, it was time to go get my Qipao! So Fiona and her friend YanFang and I headed out to the market once more. It fits perfectly, and it's beautiful! I also had an updated gift-idea list, so we spent the evening shopping again. We ate at a Korean fast food restaurant, where my food (beef, onions, carrots and green peppers with rice) was served on a stone plate that had been placed right on the fire. It was probably the most dangerous meal I've had here, but it was yummy. I think that of the meals I've had, it was also probably the closest to American-Chinese food (and yes, it was Korean).
We walked through a real shopping mall across the street, where I was torn. There were lots of clothes I liked, and they were admittedly cheaper than clothes in Dillard's or Belk's stores. Dresses that would have been $60 to $100 in Dillard's were $30. But since I don't spent that much on clothes in the U.S., I found it hard to splurge enough on myself to get anything. But I splurged on my Qipao, so there's no need to buy more dresses!
Work today was busy in the morning, and not busy at all in the afternoon. We have an intern here who is studying English at a Beijing university, and I was given one of her stories to edit this morning. When Nanlan, the editor, walked up she said, "I'm sorry, this opinion piece was translated by our English intern. It's quite long, and I'm afraid it will be a lot of work."
She was right, but it might have been the "easiest" piece I've edited so far, in that I had no problem following the meaning, there was a purpose to the article, there was nothing superfluous, and, unlike most of the opinion pieces I've edited here, the opinion was evident from the beginning. Most of the others spend 500 words listing facts and figures, and then present an opinion in the very last paragraph or two, making all the facts seem unnecessary. This one was good, the facts were mostly all there, the tone was nice, and I enjoyed the work a lot.
I have been recruited to work this weekend again. I work one day and Brian has the other. I want to go on a hike to the non-restored part of the Great Wall, which I can do for less than 300 Yuan ($45). But I don't really want to go by myself, and the others have plans, and either I'll be working or Brian will be working, so I can't go with him. I might suck it up and go on my own. Don't be alarmed. It's with a tour group, so I wouldn't be totally alone, just not with people I'm familiar with. I tried to recruit Fiona, but she didn't like the hiking aspect of the hike up the wall.
I'll make a decision tomorrow. I'm also planning to finally do Summer Palace this weekend. I think that if I get up and go first thing, like we did last week with the Forbidden City, I can have it done in the morning, and then after work I can go off to do other things.
I still can't believe I've less than three weeks left. I kept telling myself that 10 weeks was nothing, but the time has really just fallen away. Here's the breakdown of my time left:
6 workdays
6 weekend days
7 vacation days
That's it. I can't believe it. I need to try to jam-pack these next couple of weeks. Who knows if I'll ever be back?
Oh, one reason I hadn't updated this week was that I have been playing with my Google map. I've updated it, so now you can see more of the places I've been! Hopefully I'll add some more to it in these last three weeks.
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