The Eagle Has Landed

They do things different in China. I have been here almost a week, but it doesn't take very long to notice the differences. Little things that are difficult to describe. I arrived in Qingdao at 7:00 PM Monday night. My roommates decided to introduce me to the China and its culture by taking me out to eat at a very nice restaurant, KFC. Even though I have eaten at KFC many times before and also worked there for several months, the one here is very different. It is more of a sandwich shop with fried chicken sandwiches and French fries. After KFC we went to a bar to get a few beers. The local hang out where the teachers at my school like to go is a place that translates to Banana Bar. We order a round of Beers that costing 6 Yuan, or 75 cents each. That however is very cheap for beer in a bar. In nicer bars beers cost 15 Yuan, or $1.87. On the street in a store you can get a big bottle of the local TsingTao beer for 3 Yuan or 37 cents. Pretty affordable even for someone as cheap as I am.

The biggest problem that I have had while in Qingdao has been ordering food at restaurants. Fast food places are really easy because they have picture menus that allow me to just point at what I want. However, all they really have is fried food and I can only eat so much of that stuff, plus I didn't come to China to eat at KFC and McDonald's every day. About once a day I try to go to a restaurant and order some food. One example of me having a difficult time ordering occurred when I was exploring the city by myself. I was walking around Qingdao just doing some exploring and looking around the city. That day I was walking for six hours, partly because I wanted to see the city but mostly because I was lost. I was walking fairly close to the beach and got hungry and decided I should find something to eat. I found a place that was fairly nice and decided to stop in and get some food. I walk in and the waitress sits down a menu that has no pictures and only Chinese characters, which of course I can't read. I have a menu guide that I got out of a Chinese workbook(A gift from Stephanie Hudson) that has different dishes of food and ways to pronounce them. I took that out and picked something that looked good, I settled on a chicken dish and mumbled it to the waitress. She looked at me like she had no idea what I was saying. I decided to try something else so I ordered something with pork, and again she gave me a blank look. Next I tried to order some kind of beef noodles. On the third attempt she kind of gave me an expression that led me to believe that she knew what was going on. In a few minutes I discovered that she knew exactly what I was trying to order all three times. She came back and brought me three dishes one chicken, one pork, and some beef noodles. All three were generous portions and they all tasted amazing. I was barely able to eat any of it because there was so much. Needless to say that meal was not a cheap one. Each order was 20 yuan, or $2.50, in a very nice restaurant. 60 yuan is a ridiculous amount to spend on a meal in China.

I have only been here a week and I probably have 100 stories to tell. Check back often and I will put some up as often as I can.

I would have put this one up earlier but the internet was down for a while in my apartment. I put some pictures up on photobucket.com. I will put a link up on the right hand side of my blog. Also, for some reason I can't actually view my blog. When I type in the address I get an error message. I guess I was censored or something. I am still able to get on to edit and put up new posts and stuff but I can't check to see if all the pictures look right after I post.

Anyway post comments and drop me emails. I would really like to hear how everybody is doing back home!

Quote of the Week

I wrote a letter to my dad - I wrote, "I really enjoy being here," but I accidentally wrote rarely instead of really. But I still wanted to use it so i crossed it out and wrote, "I rarely drive steamboats, dad - there's a lot of shit you don't know about me. Quit trying to act like I'm a steamboat operator." This letter took a harsh turn right away... -Mitch Hedberg