Day Eleven

we woke up kinda late & had a late breakfast, consisting of the left-overs from last night's dinner & some things Ruoya's mom concocted, it was pretty terrible in all honesty. After eating, she took us to her office, where she showed us her company's research lab, where they research drugs to help fight against or prevent strokes. So after the 5 minute tour, we took a bus to another part of the town (the port) & went on a pretty crappy boat tour of the port (a real shit hole of a port anyways). After the tour, we walked around for a bit, but then took a taxi back to her apartment to eat some fruit & get our stuff to go to the train station to go to Tainjin (we were actually in TEDA (Tainjin Economic Development Area). The train ride took about an hour, once we got there, we waited for Ruoya's uncle to pick us up to go to dinner. We ate a large meal with his uncle, his wife, their son, his grandparents, his mom & the two of us. The restaurant specialized in Bao Zi, which are quite tasty dumplings that are shaped like balls and steamed. I ate quite a lot of them. After we finished eating, Ruoya's mom paid for everyone (as is customary) & asked for a receipt, here's where things got crazy. I'm not sure what was happening exactly, but there was a good bit of yelling at each other & the staff (turns out, they didn't feel like they could give them a receipt, they wanted one for liability's sake, etc.) The driver (same one) took us back to Beijing. At this same time, Ruoya started to break out again and his skin swelled and itched. While Ruoya sat suffering next to me, I listened to Harry Potter until we reached Beijing. Ruoya's aunt was waiting for us once we got back to Beijing & drove us to our apartment, where Ruoya went to sleep immediately to hopefully find some relief & I continued to listen to Harry Potter until bed.

Day Ten

Woke up pretty early this morning, tried to listen to Harry Potter, but my iPod has developed this rather annoying problem that it will not restart from a paused status after more than a couple of minutes, so you have to restart the track which is pretty crappy because the they're so long & you are unable to fast forward (it turned out to only be those MP3s & not my iPod itself). So I had to restart once I had already listened to half of it. When Ruoya woke up his skin was even worse than before, so his aunt picked us up a little bit later, took us to eat breakfast at a typical Taiwanese restaurant, consisting of donut-like fried dough (not sweet though), a prawn wonton soup, a tea egg (boiled egg, cracked a bit, then soaked in tea) a spring onion pie & either hot or cold (sweet) soy milk. After that, we went to her hospital, used the computer & drank some instant (yuck) coffee, while Ruoya received an IV drip for his allergic reactions. We then returned to the apartment & are currently awaiting the arrival of Ruoya's mom's company's driver to take us to Tainjin // We met the driver at a restaurant, had some hot pot lunch, which was very similar to the sumo meal in Japan, & picked up his grandparents at his aunt's apartment, then set off for Tainjin. The drive took about 2 hours, which is funny, because it's only something like 110 km from Beijing. Once we got there, we went up into Ruoya's mom's summer apartment, which is really nice. It would be the kind of apartment I would like to have one day, very modern looking, lots of wood, leather sofas, cool lighting, etc. Anyways, later on, we went to dinner which was pretty decent, but nothing memorable. When we returned to the apartment after dinner, I listened to Harry Potter until I fell asleep some time later.

Day Nine

This morning we walked to the bus stop & on the way we got breakfast (Moonpies or at least the Chinese equivalent). We rode the bus to the subway, then again back to the Pearl Market, where I tried on my suit, it was a very good fit, so no adjustments were necessary. After I got the suit, I bought 5 more polo shirts, because the others did not fit. When we left the Pearl Market, we walked down the street to get some food and, on the way, we saw a street vendor selling polos for 25 RMB each, which is half the price of what I had to haggle for at Pearl Market. So I bought 2 more for me and 2 for presents. At lunch, we got some chicken and egg & tomato, which is pretty good stuff. I don't remembering paying a lot for it, but with 3 beers, I know it wasn't much. After lunch, we went back to the apartment for put my suit down before setting off again, this time for the mountain close to the apartment. We walked over to the mountain at 3:45 & we summited (walked up a trail) & were back down by 5:00. We walked out of the mountain's 'scenic resort' & to the bus stop. we rode the bus toward the main part of town in order to find a restaurant. We walked around awhile, but we eventually found one that suited our eyes & with cheap enough beer. So we ate there & took the bus back to the apartment. Ruoya started complaining of his skin itching around his neck, well, he must have had an allergy to something because his itching continued to get worse & his skin because very swollen & red. I went to bed early as I fell asleep listening to Harry Potter.

Day Eight

Woke up this morning & there is a really powerful windstorm outside which I'm sure is producing a good bit of dust tornados & such. The power has gone out (I assume from this storm) which means no hot water, boo, so I suppose I'll take a cold shower. Oh, but, we checked the 'circuit breaker' to see if it was tripped & funny enough the whole apartment is on two circuits, but it wasn't tripped either, so no luck. At least it's a gorgeous day outside (& since yesterday wasn't too hot) i don't think It'll be that hot today either.// The weather was nicem we went back to the aunt's apartment to pick up all the stuff we bought yesterday at the Pearl Market (we did go, that journal entry yesterday was just silly...), then once we had it all back at our apartment, we went to the Temple of Heaven, pretty cool, then we went back to the same area where we went last night to get dinner and Ruoya really wanted a massage. So we got dinner for 26 RMB each, then we got 40 minute massages for 88 RMB. I would have to say that I did not enjoy the massage fully, it was really rough and awkward. We took the subway home and went to bed

Day Seven

I woke up this morning with a beautiful sight out the window, a blue sky....Yesterday it was so overcast & smoggy that I never saw any blue of course it probably means that it'll be obscenely hot today. So this morning Ruoya is going to get a hair cut, we're going to the summer palace, great wall, tibet tourism bureau & the Pearl Market (again). I'll see how much of that we actually get done...// OK, so I did get a suit made today & we are going to Tibet! Yay! we ate dinner with his family, just OK food, nothing special, went out to buy drinks (I'm pretty drunk while wiriting this), 6 drinks for like ~150 RMB, terrible price, but who cares. It was funny, whenever we walked down the street, "Hello Sir, Lady Bar?" Haha. I'm drunk, Ruoya wanted to get a massage (legit), so we found a place for "just massage" for 30 each plus 50 for a tip for this guy who directed us around. So we followed him around the streets, but he took us to places that were closed. I don't care, oh well, I'm drunk, taxi 76 RMB, fuck, good night.

Day Six

We awoke kinda late today at like 9 o'clock. We left the apartment & walked around to the main street of the area & found a small bakery to get breakfast. So we paid about 5 RMB for breakfast, so that's like 60 cents or so...pretty cheap. After we ate we went to the bus stop, where we waited for like 15 minutes until we realized that we waiting for the bus on the wrong side of the street (wrong direction), so we walked over the over-pass to the other side of the street. After waiting another 15 minutes, the bus arrived. We rode the bus until we got to Tian'amen (it took almost 2 hours with all the fucking traffic). Anyway, we walked to the square, wisited all the sites, looked at all the monuments until lunch, where we walked away from the square & found a small restaurant, where we had three delicious dishes (this is how you eat in China, not one per person, but however many and all share) & a couple beers, all costing 53 RMB (1 USD = 7.6 RMB). Awesome, we walked back to the square & walked to the Forbidden City & deliberated whether or not to buy the admission tickets (it was 60 RMB, and just eating all of that delicious food I was skeptical). Well, I decided that it would be silly as shit to come to China and not go to the Forbidden City, so I decided to buy the entrance ticket and I think I made Ruoya feel bad enough to buy a ticket too. I'm glad we did go in, it's only once in awhile that a poor farm boy like me can go there. Inside the forbidden city, were relics from the various dynasties & emperors, and, of course, the palace (winter). You can't really go into parts where the emperors lived. After that we took a cab to the Silk Street Pearl Market, which is a huge building of counterfeit goods, where I'm going to buy a lot of gifts & things for myself. After we left (Ruoya bought a pair of adidas for less than 20 & felt ripped off), we walked around outside & some guy approached us asking if we wanted to buy some 'DVD movies' & we did, so he took us to a nail salon, where he went to the back, and returned with suit case with a retarded amount of DVDs. I ended up buying 4 DVDs ($2.50 each). After we that we got some over-priced coffee, took the subway to meet his aunt at a restaurant. the subway is pretty shitty, similar to MARTA, but it's trying to be Tokyo's subway (but it is not, not by a lot). We rode it & when we got off, we took a taxi, to the restaurant in a four-block U-turn (haha) we had dinner, it was pretty good, but I liked lunch more. After dinner, Ruoya's aunt took us to her office at her hospital to use the internet. Now we're back at the apartment, watching Rocky II, which is awesome.

Day Five

Without an alarm, I woke up exactly at 4:30, my desired waking hour. We ate a bit of breakfast, consisting of salad, sausage, grapefruit, milk & 'really thin pancakes'... We then took a taxi to one of the out-lying elevated train stations then we waited for a train (~20 minutes) & rode it to Narita (~90 minutes). My experience in the airport was rather hectic, but eventually we got through customs, immigration & security (which is a lot less ridiculous than the US). Despite our ridiculously early departure from Nerima, we didn't have to sit around the airport for too long. Now I'm sitting on the airplane enjoying some non-peanut snack mix & a Sapporo Draft (in a can). I think iPods are prohibited but I'm bored so I'm going to use mine anyways. // OK, the Beijing aiport was pretty crazy, we got off the plane & had to deal with security & customs immigration, but it really didn't take that long. When we got out, Ruoya was surprised that there wasn't a subway at the airport. So we looked around & decided that a shuttle could set us close enough to the city to take a taxi to his aunt's apartment. So we rode the shuttle for a long time & finally, at the last stop, we got out & tired to cross the road (we almost died), but as I forgot to mention, Chinese drivers are retarded. More retarded even that WDW drivers. Anyway, we got to the apartment there are rather a lot in the area) Ruoya was unsure of both the building & which apartment it was...So after 3 incorrect attempts, Ruoya found the right apartment. Inside were his grandparents, who were really nice but they didn't speak English, which makes things interesting. Anyway, we waited for his aunt to get home from work in order to take us to her old apartment where we were to live. While we waited, we showered & checked our email, then sat around until dinner. We had dumplings & some other things, it was good. I think I forgot to mention how fucking dirty Beijing is, so here it is, it's really, truly, a dirty, nasty city (or so I thought at the time). Anyway, so his aunt. who speaks English with a British accent, took us to her old apartment way across town to stay there. The surrounding area is pretty crappy, but the apartment itself is pretty nice. We were both pretty tired after the day of traveling (oh and the traffic is the worst too!) so we went to bed shortly after arriving.