Now I'm really going out of order- it's 2:15 am on the 12th, working on this post for the 8th- I'm skipping over the Tuesday post as I did a lot of stuff and actually recorded very few notes for the day, whereas for this post I had a short day and I already recorded plenty of detailed notes so this will only take a few minutes to complete. Ah, right, time travel- let me quickly explain: instead of working on my posts in chronological order I started working backwards from the uneventful present back to my detailed Wuhan trip. But assuming I'm all caught up this will sound like a really weird idea that adds nothing to the blogposts other than to confuse you the reader. But really, do I need any other reason to do something than to confuse you? See, you get it.
I woke up to the sound of morning Fireworks, because of course I did, Monday morning, the week of Spring Festival.
Finished the blog post that was supposed to be ready on the 4th, I blame the Wuhan trip and will continue to blame it, regardless of how many days before the trip in question this post was supposed to be written by.
Exercised for a little over an hour, I believe I've drawn out the details of my work out regimen already, if not, well, I'll cover it eventually, I'm bound to be pretty desperate for material as things become routine.
Showered and checked in on Iman, no answer, but the note I left was gone- so I left a NEW note, and reflected on how similar this is to leaving ones calling card at someones home in Victorian England.
Clothing set for warmer weather, I left the toque, scarf and gloves in my backpack, only a t-shirt below my jackets, wore my cowboyish tilly hat and my jeans (which I haven't worn since arriving in Dalian). I left to find out what exactly was opened during the holiday.
Wal-Mart and the various stores in its mall was open, ditto the stores in Roosevelt (outside of Web of course). Had a large 33 yuan meal at Food Bazzar to celebrate a safe return and the holiday- rice (with the ham and corn bits), the yellow "porridge", 16 yuan crab thing, different kind of fruit bowl, it was small with pineapple, pear (maybe) and coconut gels (which I discovered in No frills last year, they're these white jelly cubes, very weird, try them), and I also got the sugar glazed potatoes. I regretted getting the potatoes, and not just because of the cost. It was too much stuff.
Met Early-retiree John who introduced himself to me on the elevator- he said I must like westerns (referring to my tilly hat) and asked if I was American. (If my tilly hat yields an American impression I may have to re-think wearing it- but of course westerns are awesome!) We had a short, but friendly conversation. I mentioned I'd just got back from Wuhan, and he told me it gets super hot there in the summer. He probably didn't say "super hot". He listed a number of places I should visit, including one place that, with the mountains and rivers, he said was basically heaven. Of course, the names were all Chinese and too hard to remember. Oops.
Headed to Carrefour, stopped at a phone place to attempt to get a sim card, but after the sales person pulled out the, um, claw looking metal cartridge that carries the sim card she said it couldn't be done- I was worried there was something wrong with my phone, but I think the issue was that I first need to register with... "Mobile Hall" was what the sales persons phone translated her advice as. But I also got the one word "passport" so, okay, I need to purchase the plan/phone number before getting this sim card business. Is this particular sim card just for bonus storage memory or something? Possibly it's unneeded for proper function- at 128 yuan, there are worse things.
At Carrefour I bit the bullet and bought a huge bunch of bananas, 14 (now that I've counted them)-they cost me about 29 yuan *whistle sound*
Shoved the water and raisins into my bag, water bottle into the pocket, but had to carry the bananas, no way was that fitting in my backpack.
Checked out the dry cleaning prices to help fix up my clothing from the Wuhan trip. Pretty reasonable.
Lugged bananas home, stopped in at Iman's room, but my previous note was still there, and then I returned to my apartment to record all my notes about the past few days, and then got carried away with the note taking portion of today (this post) so that instead of being purely notes there's a fair bit of extra detail going into it. That's okay, I'll still need to review and add a thing here or there later, maybe. (I was right about this, that's why they call me "I-was-right-Isaac")
Aiman (I've been spelling it wrong) showed up and we hung out here for a while, then went and visited his apartment. He told me where he was from originally, but I've forgotten (It's Yemen)- he speaks Arabic, English, French, and Chinese, which is obviously crazy impressive. I went on at great length about my current exercise regimen and about the recent court case in Canada I'd read about, as usual I talked too much. We've made plans to spend time together the next day and get my phone in order!
And that was that day. 2:36 am
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