Snippets of My Week

It's amazing the wild things I see on a daily basis.  I don't think this is unique to China, but China does have it's share.  Let me share some things I have seen in the past few days.

--We went to a warehouse type store that sells some import items.  As we were trying to enter the security gate to park, we noticed that the cars ahead of us weren't moving.  There were some people standing in the way of the gate yelling at each other.  They were definitely arguing about the rules of the parking lot, but I couldn't hear everything they were saying.  I was getting pretty tired of waiting, and decided to go up to the parking attendant's cubicle and ask why traffic wasn't moving.  She pointed to the people yelling and said, "She is in the way."  I said, "Can she move so we can come in?"  She shrugged her shoulders, so I went to the woman and asked her to move over to the side of the road so we could go in.  She said no.  I turned back to the parking attendant and asked if she could get the security to come get her out of the way.  She pointed to the man arguing with the woman and said, "He's the security".  He wasn't having any more luck than anyone else.  Everyone was honking, and people were getting out of their cars.  So finally the security guy got some parking cards out of the machine and swiped them to activate them for us.  We backed up and entered the lot through a side entrance.  As I walked to the front of the store, I could still see the woman standing in front of the gate, refusing to budge, and arguing with the people there.  She was gone when we came out of the store.  My husband said that this is the way they resolve problems in China.  Hmm....  I said to him, "You know what I call this kind of thing?"  He said, "What?"  I said, "Blog fodder."  ;)

--We had to go to the "Southern China" hospital to refill some prescriptions.  This is a hassle with a capital H.  It involved first going to the pharmacy to find out if they had the drugs.  Then we went to register, but were told that we should go downstairs and find out if the doctor would be willing to refill the drugs for us before registering.  The nurse downstairs told us to go back upstairs and register first.  So this time I just told him we were set to register.  He told us to go back downstairs and see the emergency room doctor since all of the other doctors were out to lunch and wouldn't be back until 2:00.  But the nurse downstairs had told us to go up to the 5th floor and see the doctor, so I did.  And the guy was right, they weren't there.  So we went back down to the first floor and asked the emergency room doctor to write the prescription.  But she couldn't write mine since it is a dermatology prescription.  Story continued in a moment....

--We decided to go to the "Walking street" to get some lunch since we still had some time before the doctors would return from lunch.  This street has a lot of foreign stores.  We misread the sign on the restaurant where we ate.  We thought it was the Japanese Ramen place we like, but it turned out to be  a Chinese "SPICY" noodle place.  Yup, it was spicy!  But it was good.  We saw some really funny store names as we walked along the strip.  One store was called PLORY.  They had decided to combine the words "Pride" and "Glory".  They could just as easily have called the store "Glide".  ;)  Then there was the store called "Teenie Weenie".  Some of the names were so weird that I can't even remember them.

--Back we went to the hospital, but this time my husband waited in the car while I went to the dermatology department to get my prescription.  As I was standing waiting to be seen, I noticed some posters on the bulletin board that showed different skin conditions.  I guess my eyesight isn't the best, because one picture I couldn't quite make out.  I stared at it a minute before I realized it was a picture of a body part that is unique to the male body.....  The photo was cropped funny, so I hadn't quite figured out what it was at first.  I wonder if anyone noticed how long I stared at it.  Seriously, I was just trying to figure out what it was a picture of..... 

--Last night my husband decided he wanted to make dinner.  I was in the other room taking a nap.  I woke up when I heard the sound of little children playing outside.  I looked out the window and could see about 4 three year old kids walking up the steps to my house.  I saw the kids come up to my front door.  Then I saw one of the  mothers come scrambling up the steps after them.  The kids had come right in to the house!  The woman came in and apologized profusely.  My husband told her not to worry about it.  I have a couple of neighbors who think it's okay to just walk in my house, so I always keep my door locked.  But my husband had come home from taking someone home, and hadn't locked the door after him. 

--The weather is turning cooler here, but we often don't need to wear a sweater.  But the Chinese are very cold blooded, and they are wearing long johns already!  It usually is in the high 60's during the day, or even low 70's.  I realized that we have something in common.  They stare in shock if I come outside in short sleeves in this weather.  In the same way, I stare in shock when they wear a coat in 75 degree weather.  lol

I really need to carry around a video camera because there is much more I see on a daily basis that you would not believe unless you saw it for yourself.  Most of it has to do with the way people drive.  Maybe someday I'll video it and post the video.  :)