- Woke up with no power and no electricity
- The thing is, when you come out of the train station and it's only a dirt road that leads you to from the railway station to the hostel, you're already prepared for this but still it was kind of inconvenient
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| Baihe Railway Station with said dirt road |
- I did get what I paid for though, I only spent 40.5 yuan for the room for the night which is a little more than $10 so I actually wasn't that mad
- Plus, I actually got to sit down and actually study Chinese for the first time in probably two weeks so now I (might) know a little more Chinese if people speak in a perfect Beijing accent (which they won't but I can always hope)
- The breakfast buffet made everything alright
- Somehow without electricity the people at the hostel kept things going by serving this awesome breakfast buffet for 8 RMB (a little more than a dollar)
- It was actually kind of funny when I asked the old lady for hot water to drink (I didn't feel like getting diphtheria straight from the tap because I know that cold water is unsanitary in northeastern China) and the lady just pointed at the broth and said, "There you go"
- I went "oh" and like a good complacent American I slurped my broth like a true Chinese-loud enough for the entire room to hear
- Plus that was the best tofu I ever had (in the second picture on the right)
- In America the tofu is pretty bad but oh man I could eat that tofu every day and not feel like a sissy because it was so good
- I found out how good the staff at Chang-Bai-Shan Woodland Youth International Hostel are
- In a country where a lot of teenagers where some pretty ridiculous English t-shirts that make no sense, the guy at the front desk was up there singing to himself, "Wherever you go, whatever you do, I'll be right here waiting for you"
- I guess he couldn't see me around the corner from him but I had to hold my hand over my mouth because I was laughing so hard
- I can tell that just like Americans who sing it, he felt ashamed of himself for singing it because as soon as I got up he saw me and he had a surprised look on his face and stopped
- If I ever come to Chang-Bai-Shan again it's for the food at this Hostel
- After studying Chinese for a good 2 hours I got hungry and I had wantons and egg noodles for the first time in China and they were really good (all for 16 RMB-$2.50)
- I sipped the bowls dry they were so good
- If you're uncomfortable in your masculinity, get chap stick before you leave for China
- So I didn't realize how dry it can get in northeastern China and my lips got so chap it hurt to smile (and I like to smile a lot)
- Therefore, seeing that I had a lot of free time before a 36-hour train because I'm too cheap to buy an airplane ticket, I really needed chap stick and tried to find some in downtown Baihe
- Oh the Chin-glish in downtown Baihe was absolutely fantastic
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| This is what downtown Baihe looks like |
- Downtown Baihe was actually quite handy-except for finding manly chap stick
- I found everything else I needed just fine-shampoo, mouthwash, shower gel, etc. but every time I tried to find lip balm it was always this girly looking thing with sparkles or the package had flowers on it
- I need something to keep my lips from getting chap, not more estrogen
- Now I know why at least the men in China don't smile-they're too manly to buy the girly lip balm
- I looked everywhere trying to find a place that didn't have girly lip balm and after about an hour of looking I finally gave up and just bought this blue lip balm with no glitter or anything
- I won't lie, this lip balm is pretty strong as I can smell it and now people are going to think Americans are effeminate
- I'll just tell people I have a Chinese wife or something, I think they'll believe me
- Traveled around a bit with two Chinese young people
- There were these two young Chinese people (a guy and a gal) and they wanted to go to a park and they invited me along
- The first impression of the girl was weird only because she held the door open for me, I said "Thank you" and she said, "It doesn't matter"
- After I gave her a strange look she looked up, said "Oh", looked back at me and said, "Sorry, wrong phrase"
- She was a horticultural student and she liked to talk
- We talked a lot about cooking and she was surprised that a male member of society like myself actually liked to cook
- It was a ton of fun to actually do something with a group of people (and have an intelligible conversation in English)
- Plus she pointed out this really cool flower I never saw before called a "Bleeding Heart"
- Another game of "What did Bruce eat?"
- So the waitress recommended this, a guy gave his thumbs up when she recommended it, and it was quite tasty but I don't even know the type of meat that was in it
- Plus the best part of these restaurants were giving me free food (so I got another good helping of dog meat before I head to Hohhot) for what I hope is just being good hosts but I think it might be out of pity that I look like the sad attempt of mating John Ritter and Kelly Osbourne
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