The Best Place To Be Is Sometimes Not Somewhere
Made it to the Nine Dragon Screen. It was right next to the bowling alley we had already been to. Jed remarked that the tour book that we write might not include it. It was pretty anti-climatic but the grottoes are such a tough act to follow. It was pretty much a big blue wall with nine dragons on it. We just did the order wrong, should have marveled at the screen and then gone to the grottoes. The history alone, though, makes it worth seeing in case it sounds like I am completely off of it. The link I included yesterday suggested an hour and a half but there was really no way we could stretch it past ten or fifteen minutes. I suspect at night it is a much more remarkable site with the floodlights on it.
We decided that since we were so close and it was before 1pm, (the price doubles at 1pm to Y10 a game), that we’d bowl a quick game. After getting into our shoes we had about eight minutes to speed bowl. We made it. I bowled a 126. Yup yup. Being too cheap to bowl at the new rate we bailed from there and headed to a foreign language bookstore we had seen. They are pretty much bookstores for the students but offer nothing of great value to us. An English-Pinyin dictionary would be great to have. Pinyin is the Chinese language spelled out using Roman characters.
We ate lunch at a chicken place called Dicos that was super grubbing. It was pretty great to get French fries after not having them for so long and the chicken sandwich was great. We are fully in the mindset of the economy though as we sat eating lunch debating the relative value to the ubiquitous food vendors on the streets to the amount we had spent. It was great and it is nice to treat yourself sometimes but we are back on the street food for a while.
After walking around and checking things out for a while I decided I wanted to head back to the pad and get showered, (we didn’t have water in the morning), and changed before we met up with Bai. We had called her back after she got us out of the phone call mess to see if we could treat her to dinner. I ended up walking almost all the way back from downtown which would normally take about an hour. I say almost because an old Chinese guy on a trike thing let me ride on the back for a pretty good distance. Got some pretty funny glances. We parted at a fork in the road and he wouldn’t take any money from me but I managed to drop Y1 in his basket. Yeah, that’s Mr. Generous to you, sank you very much. I was now pretty close and resumed my walk. I could see the intersection that I would turn left at approaching so I crossed the street and had only gotten about another twenty yards when a huge crash from behind me and across the street announced the collapsing of scaffolding around a building I had just been near. Wow. I looked back and just kept walking. I have generally avoided walking through or under the scaffolding that surrounds so many buildings but until now it was just superstitious avoidance. Not anymore.
After getting cleaned up I made it back downtown ahead of schedule and Jed wasn’t at the coffee shop anymore so I decided to check out the street vendors, (get the idea that there is only so much to do?), when I ran into Jed. We found another pizza place we now want to try. After phoning Bai, okay, wait. We are inclined to start calling her Ping as her name is Bai Chow Ping with Bai being her family name. She said it is just the Megouans that call her by her family name. Anyway, we met her back at the coffee shop and decided to go to a hot pot restaurant. Think Benihanas for soup. So good. Ping took care of the specific ingredients but they were all brought fresh so we could choose what and how much of each ingredient we wanted in our boiling soup pot nested in the table. It was even split in half so as to allow to different levels of spiciness. All the while a steady chain of boats floated by on a small raised canal next to all the tables carrying other fresh ingredients from the kitchen. Great food, great atmosphere and great friends. I really should have gotten a picture.
After dinner the three of us went in two directions. Jed headed back to the coffee shop to chill and listen to music while Ping and I met Carlos at Flagship, a disco. I started dancing with Ping but the dance floor was super packed and on springs. Pretty crazy. So while Ping and I were dancing I got pulled torwards the middle and some room opened up so the could watch the crazy round-eye dance. I was probably out there for ten minutes before I had to not be dancing with so many guys and I stepped out to get some shewa, (shway - water), and met up with Carlos and Ping. We stayed until about 2330 before bailing to meet back up with Jed who it turned out had already left the coffee shop so the three of us split a cab and headed our separate ways. Good times.
From Sunday afternoon,
Olen