Hasaam And A Cup Of Tea =]

Day #69 [teehee]
Funds: $5300ish - tickets to Qingdao were paid for with the bond from SISU (400RMB) and the ticket to Japan was mostly sorted out by spare cash I had in my travelex account which I forgot to include last count. At least I never OVERestimate my funds, right?

Location: Close to Shandong Road, Qingdao. multimap.com doesn't have snaps of that area for some reason, but it's just a little east from this beautiful spot!

Michael is retarded in the presence of old Chinese people, Shanghainese or otherwise.


This blog wound up being a bit longer than I originally intended, so I've kindly divided it into two chunks based on content for your convenience.
Wow, just looking at the funds again. I've done pretty well in China, although to be fair I've done very little in China except for walking around and looking at stuff. Which has served me well, I felt. I've even got my ticket to Japan figured out! I was really looking forward to catching a ferry all the way, and having seen how beautiful the water looks in Qingdao (blue skies here are actually BLUE rather than a light greyish haze!) it's still a bit of a shame, but the fact is if I go to Japan too early I miss out on Chinese New Year in China, and this way I get to spend it with Joy too. Not to mention (as I have been a bit too much lately) the amount of money I save by flying. Most of the flights I could find were way too pricey (looking at like $AUS1000ish), but as usual Joy and her family fixed everything and just pointing out some Chinese travel people who fixed it for a mere 2000RMB (around $AUS500) after tax.

[The In-Laws]

So anyway my flight out of Shanghai left 7am Thursday morning, practical as I am I reasoned that this meant I would have to leave the city centre around 5am, when the only way is by taxi. I figured I didn't wanna spend that much or risk mucking something up, so instead I caught the maglev one more time into the airport at around 9pm and just crashed in the waiting area. It was very uncomfortable and a couple with the same idea brought their loud kids who did not think sleeping should be a priority over running around under the chairs screaming at the top of their lungs. Oh well, can't win em all I guess. So I fell asleep on the plane instead and dropped a bottle of water on myself, which woke me up again. The flight only took about an hour and a half and was relatively non-eventful, save for the fact that before we boarded I had a little chat with this Chinese guy who has been an International Student at Sydney for a year, so he was excited to meet somebody from Australia. When we got off the plane, he sort of insisted on driving me where I had to go, which was awesome considering the fact that I was totally knackered. He got Joy's phone number and her grandfather's phone number and before I knew it the three of them had called around to each other and figured everything out. I did absolutely nothing. I don't understand how it is that I always seem to be this lucky, but I'm starting to worry that I may be splurging all of my karma. One day I'm just not going to have any good luck left, and I'm sure that'll suck. Hopefully I can just be a really awesome person and try to keep earning it??? Um, Bob was that guy's English name, we swapped MSN details and might catch up in Aus one day, geez I gotta figure out a way to pay him back ...

He literally introduced me to Joy's grandfather, who I just refer to as "Ah Gong" cos that's what Joy does and then left us to it. I wasn't sure how to approach this guy but he was nice enough and just followed him home. They insisted I sit down gave me bread butter and jam and spent about a minute and a half trying to figure out if I wanted it toasted. Eventually I said something like "Oh do I want it more hotter? No thankyou, this is good." and quickly wrote down the new words. They pretty much don't speak English. They think I don't speak Chinese either, and can't get their heads around what I must have been doing the past year I was being taught. Basically, I'm not used to people speaking as fast as them, and they're not used to waiting for really slow responses, like mine, haha (have you HEARD Joy speaking? Chinese or English, when she goes, geez it's like wHOOOOOSH). Also, I'm forever in a state of being petrified of the idea of offending them somehow by doing something "white" or, worse yet, "Mykalesque". Joy seems to think common sense should see me through it all fine, but I'm not too sure what I have and what everyone calls "common" sense are really as compatible as all that sometimes =P

When I DO understand, it's kind of funny, because even then I don't seem to reply fast enough to convince them I know what's going on. Once her Ah Bu ("Nana", but this isn't good Chinese apparently, it's like Shanghainese baby talk) told me "when you're full you shouldn't keep eating, you should stop before you're full." I got most of that, partly because it's pretty straightforward but mostly cos Joy had already said she says this a lot. I nodded because I agreed, and don't really have much in my reportoire right now except for "yes, I agree." and saying that too much makes me feel stupid. Then Ah Bu was all "oh you don't understand!!!" "No no, sometimes I DO understand I just don't know what to say back!!!" She did seem to accept this. I think. Another time she was making soup, so she yelled at me "Soup! This is soup! Michael, do you know what 'soup' is??? SOUP. SOUP! SOUP!!!"

This morning I was offered toast again. I've been trying to write down all the new words I hear every day and revise the most useful ones here and there, so I was ready for the question, I was all "no thankyou, I don't really want toast, just like this is good." She seemed very impressed. "Oh sometimes he DOES speak Chinese!!!" she said, although I totally missed this and recieved it second-hand through Joy.

Ah Gong went on a sort of rant about how my future should go now that I'm a graduate (apparently he just does this sometimes, having been quite successful himself in life). It went on for a while and Joy says this was just the beginning. All I understood was, "First step, be as good as Joy at Chinese at least!!!" I agreed with this much, haha. Could be a little while though ...

Oh and Ah Bu still hasn't decided whether or not I can use chopsticks yet. Joy's Uncle's mates were all pretty impressed and told me no white people can use chopsticks like me. Joy kicked me under the table when I started to reply with "oh lots of Australians can use chopsticks, it's not that special!" I'm not quite sure what Ah Bu's criteria is yet, haha. She was very impressed at first when I picked them up, but when I had a little trouble with an egg of all things she was really quick to say (with what sounded to me like relief) "Oh, ok, he doesn't know how to do it!"

I'm pretty sure they think I'm really stupid and I am a little worried about how that'll affect their opinion of me being the guy chasing their granddaughter, but they're still super nice to me so that's good at least xD Why do I like old people so much? Maybe I look forward to being one of them one day or something, or maybe part of me already is a bit like that =P

They're so thoughtful, set up a bed for me, washed my clothes and making sure I eat properly etc. Ah Gong is such a thorough planner, he's compiled a list of all the things I have to do/see before I leave, and has even organised it into a day-to-day plan to make sure we get as much of it in as possible ... I hope we didn't offend him or anything by taking today off, we're still a bit knackered from getting here and all.

[First Day In Qingdao]

Yesterday was good, we checked out the beach, which is awesome by Chinese standards. Not nearly warm enough to go swimming though, the average temp has been around zero, and if I'm gonna get snow worth knowing about I want it even lower! Qingdao is a lot more like Melbourne than Shanghai though, it's a lot cleaner - the air actually feels safe to breathe, the people seem a lot less crazy about milking me for all my money, there are trees everywhere and yes, BIRDS everywhere ^^ Yesterday I was a little grumpy from lack of sleep though, and I was particullarly sensitive to the staring. There are not nearly as many tourists around here as in Shangy, so they are not as accustomed to white people I guess. There has been quite a bit of gawking.

The market with Joy was ok, but I did get more than a little impatient, her style and mine is so different (apparently I remind her of her mum when we're clothes-shopping). I think she's a bit too nice, she doesn't feel the need to be curt like I do. I just don't like to waste time or seem too keen (Ah Bu later made comments like mine about Joy too obviously wanting stuff and so not getting the best prices =P) Joy was very adamant about me getting a new jacket, as my favourite is literally falling apart at the seams. I argued that I kind of like that cos now I can hide stuff between the seams. But anyway yeah Joy copped a little bit of a snappy rant about how if we were shopping for me I would only do it my way so after arguing with one woman a bit too long about how her goods weren't quite as awesome as she said we marched around the corner, grabbed one without really looking at it after I mumbled in a thick grumbly accent "Yeah, whatever that one'sorite" and Joy told the woman "We're only paying 120, I'm not arguing, usually I only pay 100 but I'm being generous because I heard prices went up. If it's not 120 we'll just go somewhere else where it is." The woman immediately accepted without wasting our time or trying to play us for idiots and I was so proud of my Cutthroat Baby =P (Still though, damn market crash that's at least equal to what I would grudgingly pay for a non-op shop jacket back home!!!)

Oh and we randomly got on a boat and cruised around. Both of us, for 20 kuai! That made me feel a lot better =]