Traveling the World

I expect to do most, if not all the things I’ve never done in life, so expect to hear crazy stories and see crazy photos and videos. I’m going to snorkel, dive, bungee jump, ride elephants bareback, to name a few. That’s it for now

I ended up winning on the 2nd game, so I made my entire class get up and go into the next room. I made them get down on one knee and profess their love for 1 male student and 1 female student (all the boys said to the girl, all the girls said to the guy). Tons of pictures and videos were taken by the students of the other class, and Trey and Sylvia were the teachers for this class. We were all cracking up and it rocked. Good times. 4 days til Thailand!

So Friday I taught from 3 to 9pm and then met Lucia at my apartment. Since we only see each other on Sundays because that’s her only day off, I asked her to sleep over so we’d have more time together. Soon after she arrived, I took my shoes off and noticed one of my toes had a lot of puss in it and could quite possibly be infected. I took one of her bobby-pins and stuck it under a flame until it turned red, but in the end I was too much of a baby to stick it into my skin far enough so I could squeeze the puss out.

We walked a few minutes to the nearest private hospital, and after a drawn out translation, the guy took a syringe and stuck it in my toe to make a few holes, then took the puss out and cleaned it up. I asked for a prescription for an anti-biotic/inflammatory, but he told me that these medications don’t work (remember, he’s a Chinese man in his late 40s, only doctors in my generation might have an understanding of Western medicine). After yelling at him–this seems to be the only way to get anything done in this country–he gave me the prescription.

The moron gave me 6 pills (3-2x daily), and I demanded an extra 6 pills because as we all know, 3 days for this stuff doesn’t cut it. He said in Chinese that I shouldn’t act like a doctor, so I screamed in his face (in English), “well in America we have this thing called medicine and it works pretty damn well… I probably know more about medicine than you!” That guy pissed me off. So at the end of the night with the toe all better, I paid 40rmb ($6)for the 6 days worth of medicine and 1rmb ($0.10) for the syringe he used to get the puss out.

I looked at Matt and Nick like “damn,” because I thought it was straight vodka or whiskey like we do in America. Turns out it’s 95% apple juice and 5% whiskey. Chinese are wussies when it comes to drinking! He called a girl over and practically forced her to dance with me, proving just how drunk he was. An Arab guy with sunglasses on pulled the girl away, leaving me to think they came here together. The Chinese guy turned his attention to the first girl’s friend. I told him, “wo bu yao,” which means “I don’t want.” He said “wei shen me ya? Ni shi zai zhong guo!” This means, “why not? You’re in China man!!” Soon after the debacle we cruised on over to another bar.

This one is called Babi. Babi sucked so we went to Babyface. Babyface sucked so we went to Soho. Soho rocked, except there were many foreigners and a few old expats who were dancing like they were 20 years old and hitting on the teenagers. Besides the constant reminder of what I didn’t want to become later in life, I enjoyed myself. We left around 2 and I returned home exhausted at 2:30. I got to bed around 3, only to wake up at 7 to prepare for the lesson being taught at 8:30am!

On the way to class, I saw construction signs and decided to write about it for Jason and Scott, my brother and cousin. Wuhan is in the process of constructing several things. First, an underwater tunnel across the Yangtze river to connect Hankou and Wuchang. There are already 2 bridges, but the traffic is so heavy that the underwater tunnel is necessary. Second, they are building a subway system from scratch. Third, they are completing an intercity highway in Wuchang. The tunnel should be completed in December, the subway within the next 5 years, and the highway within the next year.

Some news about my trip in August. Cambodia is cancelled because there are fees we have to pay that aren’t worth paying, so instead we’ll be in Thailand for the entire trip. Several notable activities are Bangkok (elephant ride, ping-pong show, ladyboys) and Ao Nang (beaches). We’ll be in Bangkok for 10 days and Ao Nang (a beach resort for expats) for 9 days.