'I cant believe my brother is eating this shit!'

Guilin's landscaping and upkeep around the city center and downtown areas is at a really high level. All the bushes, trees, plants, and flowers are all trimmed perfect, all healthy and vibrant. They use a lot of granite and nice stone tiling for sidewalks and walking areas in the popular spots around the city. The problem is, the people who installed a lot of it sometimes didnt do the best job. Not everywhere, but some places the tiles or stones arent cut perfect or not layed correctly or the grout is all screwed up. Guilin is one of the most popular tourist destinations in China and people use it like New Yorker's use Florida. They will buy a vacation home or apt here and come in the spring or summer, or whenever they just need a vacation. This time of year is the off-season. Chinese people are a lot less waste full than most western cultures, Ive noticed. Nothing goes to waste here. Like when they cook they take all the ingredients and chop them up, if its peppers, tomatoes, a duck, a chicken, a fish, or whatever they eat it all. Talk about recycling, people recycle everything in Guilin, not sure about bigger cities in China though. If your rice cooker breaks, you bring it to the rice cooker repair man on your street, if your iron breaks you bring it to the iron fix it man on your block. It keeps people working and saves a lot of people money. I know my carbon footprint has been cut in half, at least since I moved to China. I dont use a dryer, I drive an electric scooter, I eat food from local farmers who bring it to market by bicycle, I havent had AC or heat on at all, and other than charging my electronics, taking a hot shower, and having energy saver light bulbs on, I dont use too much energy. I guess its still a lot though, but not near as much as back home. Another note, the people of Guilin are a lot more mainstream or up to date than I expected before I came here. Its a pretty modernized city in the downtown areas, but the buildings arent really tall like in cities back home. Dont know if I mentioned this but people here like to use a lot of neons and flashing lights, so the city is all lit up like Las Vegas. There are also a lot more bars and clubs than I imagined, which is great. People told me before I came here that there was no nightlife in Guilin, but thats rubbish! Guilin nightlife is alright for me, maybe most people leave the clubs earlier than Im used to but they do still stay open late as hell. It seems that most people want to go out and listen to Chinese techno/pop music and those clubs that play it stay slammed. Michelle knew a guy who plays good house music, and he got a gig at Regazza and spun some sick shit, she tells me, but the place was never packed those nights. Then they changed management and the new manager wanted more Chinese techno/pop and now its packed as hell most nights, we even went on a Monday and it was slammed. The djs throw in a good trance or house song every once in a while so its all good with me, as long as we are having fun, im cool.

The other night Michelle, Gou, and I went to the local night market to buy some food for dinner, like all Chinese do. They have small refrigerators here because they buy food fresh everyday to cook, they only keep staples and some drinks in the fridge. This night market is pretty cool to see. All the fame rs lined up like at a flea market selling their own crops or livestock that they biked in, using handmade baskets or carrying things they balance over their back, like scales. Its outside so the ground is dirty, not a place most Americans would want to buy there fresh food at I dont think. You can get anything here from rice to tofu, from different live fish to turtles, frogs, and eels, you can get live chickens, ducks, and all the different body parts of the animals. At one point I turned around to locate Michelle and a freakin goat head was staring me down all skinned and funny looking. It was actually only half, they had cut it down the middle between the eyes and were selling two halves. We bought some veggies, fruits, and a half a duck, which was cut directly down the middle, so we got one leg, one wing, half a head and one eye. The lady took it and chopped the whole thing up into small pieces, threw it in a small bag, and handed it to me and I handed her 13UN or 2 dollars. Haha. That was our last purchase so we walked back home to cook.

I watched Gou cook dinner because I want to learn this style of cooking, all with a wok. He cooked a dish with tomatoes and eggs, which is a staple over here. He also cooked a spicy eggplant dish, a mushroom dish, and of course rice. When he got to the duck he only took out the liver because neither one of us wanted to eat it and he threw the rest of the chopped up duck into boiling water. Never looked into a pot of food I was about to eat and saw a duck head, foot, and neck in it, figure it would only taste better though. So chewing on animal parts, be it a frog, chicken, duck, or whatever is getting easier and easier for me. Im definitely not scared to try some 'different' shit thats for sure. Michelle couldnt eat once she seen me gnawing and sucking the meat off the duck parts and spitting the bones out. She sat there and watched me and Gou devour this bird like monsters with a disgusted look on her face, it was great! She said at one point " I cant believe Im watching my fuckin brother eat this shit like they do!" I smiled and threw the ducks ankle into my mouth with the chopsticks. :D I wasnt going to eat the head this time though, I left it up to Gou.
After dinner I get a call from Wendy and she wants to know if I want to go out and meet some of her friends at a club called SoHo. What do you think I said...? After a 15 min taxi ride I arrive at the walking street area to meet her at the big clock tower and we walk to the club. The place is packed because its singles night, I guess. She found her friends and we hung out with them playing dice drinking games for a while. I got my ass kicked, but that only means you drink a lot, so in my case I really won. haha. At one point the club gave ever table a firework, which was a mix between a flare and a sparkler. These things are cool I never seen one before and in America the bars would never hand them out and let people dance around with them, they are dangerous as shit! Then the bartenders lit the bar on fire and the place was crazy! It was pretty phat. We left the club with her friends to go have Chinese BBQ, sit on outside drinking, and playing the dice game. We sat in the smallest stools Ive ever seen, seriously they had like a 6" by 4" seat and only like 6" off the ground. Tiny. In China usually one person pays for the food or the beer and next time its someone else's turn. It takes a little getting used to because westerners always want to split everything and pay equal amounts all the time. Dont know which is actually better, but this way is less stressful and easier it seems. So they ordered all kinds of BBQ and cooked veggies, like a whole fish on its own cooker, a bunch of meats and animal parts, broccoli, and greens. At one point they hand me a thing on a skewer that looks like a long worm or something and I ask Wendy what it is because they are laughing and talking Chinese, and she says 'take a bite and then Ill tell you'. I was going to eat it no matter what it was because all the other guys were chewing on them, so I bit a nice size piece off and started chewing on it, it was really chewy and tasted pretty damn good, I thought. Wendy then told me it was pig penis.. haha. I figured it was something like that before I committed to it and I ate the whole thing. I also had some pig throat or pig lips, not sure which was which, and some really good lamb. Everything was delicious and they though it was funny that I ate it all, I think.
It was getting late for a week night so her friends went home and me and Wendy decided it was a perfect night for a massage. We walked to a bunch of different ones that she knew were good, but none were open, so we found a different one and went in. My first Chinese full body massage in China was amazing! We got a room with two beds, she got a guy and I got a girl for one hour. It was definitely full body too and at one point my girl asked Wendy if I wanted it harder or softer, I told her to tell here 'I like it rough!' haha. She was strong as hell and I think she put her whole body into it, because it was just at the hurting point, but perfect. She started on my head and worked her way down my back to my feet. Whenever she got to a ticklish spot, and I would twitch, she just giggled and kept massaging that spot, I think she was f-in with me. After my feet, she had me get on my back, started on my face, and made her way back to my feet again. Ohhh man it was the best, soo relaxing and stress relieving. After an hour, when the magic was over, me and Wendy laid there talking for a min enjoying the peaceful state we were in. Nice thing about it was Wendy paid and I think it was like 30UN a piece or around $4.50. You gotta be kidding me, all that for less than $5?? Ill be getting one every damn day! You can even fall asleep in the bed and they wont wake you, so you can sleep there for a while. Wendy had to teach early in the morning, so we left the massage place and jumped in different taxis to go our separate ways at around 3:15am.

The next day I woke up so refreshed, feeling really really good. I think these hard as mattresses keep my back straighter too which helps. We had a work meeting at 3pm and after the meeting Michelle had to teach a couple classes till 9pm, so I decided to take the electric bike around the city. I wanted to do some of my own exploring to find my way around a little better, and also take some more pictures. Of course around 6 is rush hour, when I decide to go and there are about a million damn motorbikes and scooters on the road. It really is pandemonium driving in China. The motorbike lane is about 8ft across and at one point there were like 4 bikes driving parallel one behind another, bumper to bumper. Its a little ridiculous really but somehow it works and I havent seen accident or someone get hurt yet. Our moto is "Just Go" and dont look back. Sounds silly but thats the safest way to do it because people yield to the person whose there first. I rode around for about an hour and a half before the bikes battery started going dead and I noticed that I didnt know what street I was supposed to take back. Its not good being lost on an electric bike that needs a charger to work. I had to call Wendy, to come to my rescue, and tell me which way to go (just an excuse to talk to her) :) She didnt know exactly where I was, so she taught me how to say the bridge I needed to go over, and then she text it to me. She's the best and the more I hang out with her, listen to her laugh, see her contagious smile, or look into her beautiful eyes the more she gets to me. Every foreigner that lived here tells me that Ill be here longer than 6 months, maybe they are right. China is an awesome place thats soo soo big and the culture is soo soo deep that it takes people a long time to learn about it and experience it. And the more I think about it, a crazy street bike would be sick here, although it would probably get stolen really quick, dammit. I was going down the stairs to the electric bike just as someone was trying to steal it, but they heard me and ran off with the charger, f-in bastards! Michelle has had two bicycles stolen since in this apt complex. Now we have to get a new f-in charger for the electric bike and whats gonna keep them from stealing it?? Beats the hell out of me.