February 12th, 2016

February 12th, 2016

(Ephemeral Editor's note: From this point in, to speed up posting slightly, I will be leaving the date in the main body of the entry as well. -G)

12:24 am

I'm trying a new strategy- I'm still working on the post for my first day visiting Wuhan- that was LAST Friday- but it's clearly too big right now. If I work backwards to that day, maybe that'll work out, this past week has been pretty event-light.

For example, today I was going to visit Aiman, but he left a note in my door saying he was going to be out. We're getting a good back and forth going with the notes, so at least I'm in communication with someone.

After that I took my smart phone and recorded a few videos of the street, took pictures- some pictures have a weird blue look on the edge- I think that's where I wasn't holding my phone case far enough away from the camera. 

I only took a few photos once I got inside Roosevelt Plaza- I noticed my phones battery was SUPER low, so I guess that's the limit to how much video I can record, it's based on the power and memory available. Okay. 

I thought maybe there was some in-built cut off or something, like those horrible twitter vines or something.

Picking up lunch, I considered taking a picture of my food to send people, but I couldn't stand the thought of me taking pictures of my food even for the strict purposes of anthropological interest, so I didn't. Maybe next time I'll get off my high horse... I'll eventually need to take pictures of something, so I guess it's coming.

I examined the donut shop prices- 5 yuan for a honking big donut (I don't know, 20% larger than a Tim Hortons number?) that looks ridiculously delicious, all pink frosting and whatnot. I said no, because carbs are the enemy, and they're in cahoots with love handles.

Wandering over towards Watson's Drug store, passing by a mother/daughter pair from Russia- I assume they're from Russia because man that was a lot of fair haired blondness. 

Inside Watson's, I picked up my usual multivitamin, but I didn't see the 17 whatever price... it LOOKED almost like it was going for 38.50, but that's impossible, the prices must simply not be aligned properly. I wait in the long line, only to find that the high price is what they were expecting. I considered paying just to get the thing and get out, but I decided, no, I bought the thing twice before and it wasn't this expensive. The cashier waved over a manager, no English there, I was waved over to another associate with a little bit of English. She told me the item I wanted wasn't sugar... thanks, Tips. We went back to where I picked up the thing and I pointed at the 15 yuan sign- the assocaite handed me the multivitamin tube NEXT to my usual purchase. It's virtually the same product, made by the same people, but instead of a rad dog thing having a great time on the bottle there's this sad blue girl with freckles that don't actually look like freckles, but the tears of being trapped marketing for a slightly inferior product. Also it has a lemon flavour.

I went to Carrefour to pick up my customary bottle of water to rinse my toothbrush and mouth with, and then I thought, let's be crazy and grab a second water bottle so I can go a day without making this trip. (I also went and looked at the donut prices here... 3.80 yuan. Useful intel on the delicious enemy.) I didn't get any donuts, instead I just thought about all the money I owe. Memories taste bitter, unlike the taste of pink frosting.

I ended up picking up the 12 back of water bottles, it saves me 8 yuan in the long run, not bad- and was a sweet bicep workout for the walk back in the light rain.

Oh yeah, it's pretty warm here, they don't call it Spring Festival for nothing.

Back at my apartment I discovered this "Fn" key, so I was messing around with that when my screen totally blanked on me- this was slightly worrisome. I waited for my Japandroids song to finish before holding the power button. When things turned back on there was a new screen telling me about a memory diagnostic test that was now happening and that I've never seen before. It took, I don't know, ten minutes? I decided to go to sleep, waking up enough when it was finished to shut my computer off properly and then pull the blanket over me.

It's very warm in my apartment.

I woke up about two hours later and spent the rest of my afternoon, after transferring all the pictures and videos I've taken onto my computer and then deleting them off my phone, playing solitaire. Ugh. The good news is that, if the fate of the world ever depended on me playing a game of solitaire, our odds of survival have greatly improved.

Thankfully I've beaten all the Candy Crush business until it loads new levels for me in a few days. Be thankful for small mercies.

So yeah. I spent that time wishing I had internet, or tv (English tv, preferably), until I got hungry, then I just thought about Kraft Dinner and/or macaroni and cheese. They're two different things, you know they are.

One of the things I hate the most about the holidays is how everything is closed- at least in the west this phenomena lasts a maximum of two days. Well, here I am, a country with a week of closures. At least the grocery store is opened- at greatly reduced hours, of course. In fact, greatly reduced hours for all! (Yay!!... that was a paraphrased Futurama bit. I could really go for some tv. But also the mac n' cheese.)

It's 1:07 am, let's jump back a day and work on that post. It's like I'm time travelling but, you know, into the past, instead of the regular slow time travel into the future.