Thursday, October 2, 2008

how's it goin'?

Ah. Tianjin.

29th September - Arrival at 5+pm, off to my dad's apartment to drop off 4 bigass suitcases stuffed to near-exploding point full of coffee powder, biscuits, Myojo noodles, curry powder, shrimp paste, chilli sauce and wasabi peas for my poor homesick dad. (no, he isn't really homesick, I just threw that in to make him sound more 可怜) Had 17 vegetarian dumplings for dinner : P Hungry like fuck after a whole day on the plane.

30th September - 6 fucking AM and it's so fucking bright. The sun rises very very early here. Woken up by my grandmother's sleep-talking. Had 豆浆油条 for breakfast. The 油条 is about the length of my forearm (with fingers stretched out) and about the same thickness too. Wah lao eh. This day is a boring day. My dad thinks we love shopping. But apparently he was the only one shopping. We spent the whole day in two different departmental stores (with a gargantuan park smacked in between them) and our sole purpose is to follow my dad around and buy his stuff. And those damned salespeople work at turtle speed. Buying a juicer and a pot? Be prepared to take 2 hours just to process all the jibye forms and insurance and warranty etc. etc. etc... What's worse, everywhere is crowded, noisy, sandy, dusty, dirty, smelly, musty, just plain unbearable. At least the food isn't so bad, vegetarian options everywhere.

1st October - Even more boring. Lunch was lovely, actually, but 文化街 is full of people with no 文化 whatsoever. Cigarette smoke, spittle on the ground, litter on the ground every five steps (considered an improvement from litter carpeting the ground in the old days), people yelling at each other as if there's a whole mountain range in between when they're just side-by-side... I almost wanted to break down and cry in bitterness in there. AND MY DAD TOOK SUCH A LONG TIME BUYING USELESS THINGS WE'D SOONER OR LATER THROW AWAY ANYWAY. Later my dad's chauffeur, 曹师傅 (here you address chauffeurs by their surnames followed by 师傅), took us on an informal city tour in his Buick MPV. Tianjin City turns out to be quite a picturesque place with beautiful European-style buildings, harking back to Tianjin's old days as a city constantly being taken over by different powers within the League of Nations. Dinner was great too. Plus I discovered just how well I can hold my liquor — 3/4 cup of Tsingtao draft beer can make me tipsy. Thank goodness for the hour long car journey back to TEDA (which, by the way, stand for Tianjin Economical Development.... Area? Amenity... Aisle... Alamak!).

2nd October - Which is today. It's a resting day for us. Just some grocery shopping at Tesco and a nice home-cooked lunch at home, a joint venture between my two grandmothers: VEGETARIAN CURRY! Later we're might catch a show, or we might not. No idea. We'll be going to Beijing the day after.