Moon Cakes in the Shizzy

This last week I got to go to Shijiazhuang (and most people can't say that so we call it the Shizzy). Turns out that's where we needed to go to get our physicals and foreign expert cards so what I had thought would only be a weekend turned into a week, which suited me just fine because all my classes were cancled, I got to hang out with the Shizzy kids longer and I got a free ride home.

So Cathy Lee and I left Chengde on the night train at 11 PM while Andrea went to Beijing to visit her friend Aubry from high school. Let me tell you; it was a small miracle that we got tickets for the right day and place so we weren't complaining... until we got into our train car and realized what we had done. In China there is usually a choice of having a soft seat, hard seat, soft sleeper or hard sleeper. For a 10 and a half hour overnight ride to Shijiazhuang you'd usually want a soft sleeper, but see, we thought we were just lucky enough to actually get tickets. This meant that we were lucky enough to have hard seats with a family of four (three of them facing us and one on our side of the bench) where we had just enough leg room for me to stratle the old man sitting across from me. Now, usually, us foreign girls are up walking around in a sea of Chinese, not crammed into a tiney train car where most passengers need to stand. In this close proximity we were like caged animals... why don't you just throw a couple of apples into a vat of gold fish... what? we didn't belong there at all. We couldn't have gotten stared at more if we were wearing show girl outfits. About 20 minutes into our trip I realized (at Cathy Lee) that this train ride was just a few hours short of our original 13 hour flight to China. YAY! "Brandon so owes us dinner", was her response. THEN about 40 minutes into our ride the 7 year old girl a few rows ahead of us crapped her pants in her sleep and continued to sleep while the rest of the train covered their noses and mouths because, though it's China and the smell of garbage is the general perfume, it's usually never this intense. DOUBLE YAY! "Brandon owes us way more than just dinner", was my response.

So we didn't sleep much. Once Brandon met us at the train station and took us back to his apartment for a nap and a shower we were much happier. The ultimate treat came when we met up with Matt, Julie and their Aussie friend Greg for Pizza Hut. Glorious day! Supreme, cheese lovers, Hawaiian, pepperoni AND parmesan cheese for sprinkling?!?!?! Plus they had some really sweet waffle fries... goodness, I could go on forever. After gorging ourselves we went to Matt and Julie's for a little MidAutumn Day Festival (aka Moon Festical) gathering. Greg brought a couple of friends from Camaroon and Lauren (from Drake) brought a small crew from her school as well. All went swimmingly until I attempted to throw Mr. Zhang's parachute inside the apartment and fell flat on my ass. To answer your question, yes, I did have a giant purple bruise on my right cheek for the rest of the week. It was at this time that everyone wanted to go to a dance club except for Cathy Lee, Brandon and I because traveling and then drinking heavily didn't really mix well with staying up late and dancing, or in my case, throwing myself on the floor.

So we hung around downtown the next day before we had to take C.Lee to the train station because, unlike Andrea and I, her school had made no mention of her needing to stay or when they would be taking her to the Shizzy for her processing at all for that matter. We did manage to get her a soft sleeper for the way home so she was pretty happy about that. Why is it that traveling always seems to produce the best stories for us while in China? Cathy Lee found herself sharing her 4 person sleeper car with only one other 50 year old man who decided to drop trou immediatly after entering. Going to the bathroom down the hall seemed a distasteful option for changing into his pajamas. He then chugged about 4 bottles of "orange juice" which then gave him gas for the rest of the trip... sorry Cathy Lee. No sooner had she arrived back in Chengde that Mr. Fan (her care taker of sorts) told her that she'd be leaving the next morning to drive to Shijiazhuang with Andrea and other people from my school. hahahahaha... aww, sucks.

And on to the physical examination portion of our story! Cathy Lee hates needles, and doctors... so it would be appropriate for her to have the hardest time while we're at the Hebei Foreign Medical Examination Center. First they took a blood sample. I actually saw them rip open a new package and take out a fresh needle so we were in the clear there, no HIV for me please. Then on to THE hallway. This hallway had about 10 rooms off of it, each specializing in one area of the exam. The woman who checked my blood pressure and height was nice, the eye lady kind of scared me, but the best was the EKG lady. Cathy Lee got to go first for that one. Not realizing that we'd have to be completely topless for her to apply the little suction cup monitors to us, Andrea and I were just waiting around in the room for our turn until Cathy Lee told us we'd have to leave. Soon the EKG lady came back out into the hallway and said something to Laura (our foreign affairs woman from Chengde). She had to ask one of us to tell Cathy Lee to relax. So I stood close to the door and said, "Cathy Lee...?" "AH! WHAT!?! I'M NAKED!" "The woman says you need to chill out dude, relax, you're heart's pumping too fast." "She keeps hitting me and pushing me around! How is that supposed to mean relax? Fine, ok, I will, send her back in..." Oh yeah, we also got ultrasounds on our abdomens. Andrea and I are baby free and Cathy Lee is happy to report that it's a boy. (just kidding) And that's about it for funny things there.

The rest of the week was just nice and relaxing. Brandon's campus is really quite lovely and much larger than ours (as is his apartment so I'm jealous). There's a nice little park with trees and walkways and a big lilly pond. Very romantic for late night, misty strolls under the big MidAutumn full moon (which was hidden because it rained for about two days straight).

Our ride home provided some more entertainment though. Laura and the other dude stayed in the Shizzy to fill out more paperwork for us while the three of us got driven home by a man we now affectionatly call "pack and a half" for the amount of cigarettes he smoked on the way. He spoke no English. 8 hours in the car never seemed so long. It could have been that he didn't feel the need to roll down the window when smoking... could have been the Chinese talk radio busting through the car speakers... could have been the awesome food stops we made. For breakfast (we left at 6 AM) we stopped at a sort of Chinese truck stop buffet where we ate what we eat for lunch and dinner every day... spicey noodles, buns and unidentifiable stuff with a refreshing bowl of egg drop soup to drink. Lunch was a different story. We sat, helpless as pack and a half ordered. As we waited patiently for our food a mangy, matted down, white cat strolled in and went through a door to our right. Minutes later our food came out of that same door... among the 4 meat dishes we decided that two of them were probably the cat; some odd tasting cold cuts and another plate of grizely light meat with carrots. Add that to your fear factor food list Brandon! We ate cat! Or so we assume...

The End