Huang Shan Lu, Yantai

Since I’ve spent so much time complaining about Chinese food I don’t like, I thought I should devote some time to food I don’t hate.

I love everything at the Japanese place on Huang Shan Lu. First, I love the waitresses who try to understand my awful Chinese, they all deserve a medal. Of course, now they say “Welcome back! Do you want your usual?” and all I have to do is agree.

 I love the tempura sauce, I love the veggie tempura so much that I go there for takeout about once a week. Sometimes they have pumpkin or sweet potato tempura, I don’t know if I can finish posting this without going to go eat some.

You can also peek into their kitchen and it’s one of the cleanest kitchens I’ve seen in Yantai.

Thanksgiving In China

It was awesome having Pseudo-Thanksgiving with my Yantai friends. R and his wife brought their new baby so in some ways it really was like a family. A crazy dysfunctional family, with a lot of alcohol and trashtalk, but still.

We got takeaway from the Korean place near the school, something that’s almost like American barbequed chicken. Will put on a DVD of music videos, to make our T-day even more American. Nirvana, Fleetwood Mac, Springsteen and Bon Jovi. The MTV actually made it surreal, because I could remember hearing that Kurt Cobain was dead, and now I’m watching his videos on Thanksgiving in China a decade later.

There was a bit of the inevitable imagining what our families were doing now. Right now, my mom’s on page two, line twelve, of the Thanksgiving List. What’s your family doing? Later we had an American chocolate cake, only it was actually a chocolate-tomato cake.

I brought my camera to record my crazy Yantai Thanksgiving, but unfortunately, my batteries died. I was annoyed, but three bottles of wine later, when we were singing Bon Jovi and Springsteen, and I might have been showing my Jersey Girl roots just a little bit, I was glad there was no camera around.

This morning, I called my folks and heard the whole room shouting “Happy Thanksgiving To Meg Now!” See, my mom brought the phone into the dining room and told everyone to… oh never mind.

Maybe Kafka Visited Yantai

The secretaries at my school are really not so bad. Sure, they practice a little creative recycling, and they’re a bit inclined to nod until I stop talking and they can go back to chatting on QQ. But they’re not alone. All office employees in China make sure they never tell you anything in case it comes back to haunt them.

One of the secretaries stopped me when I was coming to into school and told me that maybe I should pay my electric bill today.

“Ok, how much is it?” I asked.

“Maybe I don’t know.”

“Where do I pay it?” In China, you take your bills and your cash to a local payment office, where they tell you the person you need to stamp your reciept isn’t here and maybe you should come back another day.

“Maybe I don’t know.”

“Then what should I do?”

“Maybe I don’t know.”

“I guess I’ll ask

Chinese Language Exercises

I started going to a yoga class. It’s really hard because although I can understand simple things like up, down, left, right and basic body parts, I can’t understand many verbs. I don’t think I understood a single verb in that whole class!

 It was really tough to follow without really understanding the teacher, but it’s good to remind myself of what my ESL students go through. My survival-level Chinese now includes Taxi Survival (turn left, turn right, stop here, no, we agreed on 20 kwai), Speak-or-Starve, Teacher Essentials and now “breathe deeply”, “relax your body” and “open your chakras”.

Pepero Day

Today all my Korean kids came to class wearing traditional Korean dresses and eating this amazing candy called pepero.

Pepero is a Korean version of a chocolate-covered pretzel. Or chocolate-pretzels are the Amewrican version of pepero. Either way, pepero is an awesome cookie, chocolate, and nuts combination. And four sticks of pepero look just like today’s date, 11/11, so everyone should eat lots of pepero to celebrate. You say Armistice Day, I say chocolate-eating day. Just another cultural difference on this side of the planet.

Volcano Births New Island

Near Tonga a new island is being formed by an erupting volcano. I can only imagine that hollywood is fighting over who will buy it first. So far its a mile wide and growing.

Sanctuary’s Something Wicked This Way Comes “7″, Vancouver, B.C.

Sanctuary’s “Something Wicked This Way Comes” Halloween Party
http://www.sanctuarysunday.com/
Celebrities, 1022 Davie Street, Vancouver, B.C. (604) 681-6180
Annual Party
One of the most wicked Halloween Parties in North America - Sanctuary, the weekly Goth Night for Vancover, brings you a bash you’ll never forget, each year towards Halloween - this year spinning 80’s, retro, electro, industrial, and alternative. Each year, it gets bigger and bigger - and the prizes are incredible - with over a $1,000 in prizes. Great music by DJ’s Pandemonium, Catherinna, Pyxis, this year sending a farewell to the talents of Pyxis who is moving on. The decorations are incredible as Pandemonium and Mr. Dark go to outlandish extremes to stimulate your eyeballs for their blood-curdling brew. Music vending booth and a photo booth that gothic.bc.ca runs at the event for those who forgot their own cameras. Highly recommended venue, and one of the best alternative nights in North America. Rating: 5+ stars out of 5.

More Photos Here

The Dancefloor photos © 2006 Technogypsie.com

Bodies Everywhere …. photos © 2006 Technogypsie.com

Pain and Pleasure, PURE CIrkus (Seattle, Washington)

Pleasure and Pain
October 27, 2006 - Capital Hill Arts Center, Seattle, Washington
A piercing and suspension extroadinaire, that took place in Capital Hill on friday merging together alternative music, circus acts, fire spinning/arts, skits, costumes, art, and suspension. A wild time and awe-inspiring performances beyond the imagination. The renown suspension troupe CoRE (CA/TX) performed with PURE Cirkus (Seattle), and Shift (Oregon) bringing together freaky sideshows of the circus arts, strung together with piercing, hooking, and suspension, performance art, theater, and cameo appearances of your Hellraiser favorite Cenobites, Pinhead, and crew; blended with musical performances of “Mankind is Obsolete”, Mistress Catherinna, and artistic galleries of local artists. Alas, Betty X did not perform, but the evening was ultimately splendid nonetheless. Extroadinary …. Rating: 5 stars out of 5.

Complete photo gallery here