You American Funny

I havent seen the beach or an ocean in almost a month, which is a little weird for me. The most water Ive seen in the Li river, which is a medium size slow moving river through areas of Guilin. Im used to being by the ocean everyday and going on a boat fishing all the time. People fish here but Ive never seen and havent talked to anyone who has ever witness a caught fish, so I dont want to get a pole and not have any chance. They fish here to kill time because they have nothing else to do, not for the sport like I do. There is a relaxing soothing feeling living by and being on an ocean, I think, and I miss that. Some of us are planning a trip to the province Hianan which has the best beaches and most tropical areas in China right on the South China Sea. I hear they have wild monkeys everywhere too and its an amazing place. We want to go for spring festival in February. Should be awesome. I gotta go to the Guilin Aquarium nearby soon to get my ocean fix I think cant wait til Feb.

Thursday night a few of us guys decided to go out and party at Yi Ren club for a while. Its seriously the same night every time I go there with the same people. The DJ plays the same songs and the same performers do there little song and dance at the same times I feel. Its really funny bc its always packed and everyone always seems to be having a great time, shit I still do. I end up meeting a bunch of new Chinese people every time I go out so now I recognize a lot of people in the clubs and they all recognize me even more. I stick out like a sore thumb to them and I feel Im tagged between all of them. Everyone knows who I am and who I hang out with because every other foreigner here has gotten the same feeling when they came here, so all the people who know them now know who I am and blah blah blah. Its like Im always in the spot light when I go out or do something, people watch and stare at me because they are interested and curious. Chinese people are usually very shy and get nervous easily also, so sometimes its even harder to communicate because they cant find the words to say or just dont try and speak English bc they are scared to screw up. I feel the same way about Chinese sometimes around certain groups or people too.

So back to Thursday night.. We bought 6 beers for our table of three, drank, danced, and hung out until the beers were gone. We decided to go buy more beer outside on the street and sneak it in to save some money, so we did. Our waitress lady was on to us but couldnt speak to us in English and we couldnt understand her so she just dealt with us drinking beer they didnt sell at the bar. She was really nice about it though and I guess allowed us to do it because they wanted to keep us there. She did get on her headset and speak with, I assume, the manager at some point bc she would get in serious trouble if she didnt report it. I wind up chillin with a group of people I know and see around all the time. I bought this table a round of beers bc they are cool and usually give me shit when they see me. My friends decided to bounce and call it a night and of course I cant do that at 1am on a Thursday night not having to work until 6pm the next night, right. I stayed with this group, who besides one, cant speak English until the place shut down a little after 2am. As Im saying goodbye and leaving, another group of people grab me by the arm and pull me with them, pointing one way saying 'bar' in Chinese. There were 8 of them, 4 guys and 4 girls and they took me to a different club's VIP room which they rented for the night. They ordered a bottle of Jack Daniels, a shit load of beer, and some green tea with scotch. Man, I was pretty tipsy when I met these people who cant speak a word of English and now they are handing me shot after shot of JD. We played dice games and they blasted the serious VIP room sound system which bumps like you wouldnt believe. We were all dancing and having a great f-in time. The guys got a kick out of me dancing with there girlfriends which was a little weird at first. They would be dancing with the girl and then just throw her towards me and let her dance while they sat down talking to each other laughing and giving me the thumbs up sign. Fuckin Chinese! Whatever though, I was happy, drunk, and having fun. Chinese people Ive learned are harmless and Ive never gotten a bad response or negative vibe yet, other than one dude who was mad at his gf for turning around a lot looking at us one night out. The girls at this after party werent smoking hot either, just decent ok looking, nice girls. They were all a lot more wasted then I was at the end, I tried to pace myself bc I didnt want to end up naked and drunk with my wallet missing in an empty VIP room. I bet one guy 20 UN that I could chug a beer faster than him, using body language and hand signals. I whooped his ass and he made his gf pay me, sucker. He said 'you american good'. I still dont know what he meant by that but we had a good laugh. We drank for hours until about 5am when we were all hammered and could barely walk anymore. We basically carried each other out onto the street where we jumped in separate taxis and left. Just like that.

As soon as I jumped in my taxi I turned to the guy and said 'Ni hao, mi fan, mi fan, mi fan' while pointing to my mouth. This means 'hello, noodles, noodles, noodles.. lol. I wanted him to take me to get some of these Guilin noodles, a staple here for every meal, seriously they eat that shit for breakfast. I have. He laughed and repeated what I said shaking his head yes. I think he even said OK at one point. It was funny as shit bc I was wasted, he would talk to me in Chinese and I would respond to what I though he said in English and then he would respond again in Chinese. I swear we were on the same page though. I was just talking about how much I wanted some damn noodles and I was happy he was taking me. I think he said something like, your such a cool dude wanna eat noodles together and find some pretty ladies. So we get to the noodle place and we both get out of the car and I walk to the noodles, he was gonna wait by the car but I waived to him and said 'mi fan for you' and pointed to him. He shook his head yes and walked in with me, I ordered two noodle bowls and paid the woman. We ate our noodles on the curb by the taxi together. It was classic, still talking to each other like we knew what the hell the other person was saying. We finished shook hands and jumped back in the taxi. I told him if he was a little younger I would consider hanging out more often, lol. Of course he didnt understand, said something in Chinese, and nodded his head laughing. I then told him where I live and he took me home. We talked the whole ride just about laughing at each other.

Friday I felt like shit and slept most of the day, ate lunch with Michelle, and went to work at 530. After work I didnt feel like parting too much so we watched a movie at home and relaxed. Tonight is Saturday night and we have a Couch Surfing dinner every weekend for all the CS'ers who live in Guilin, as well as the CS travelers, which I think there are 2-3 right now. Tonight should be a good turnout though, like 15 ppl or something, FUN. I dont know what the plan is after dinner, but I have to work 9am Sunday morning, OUCH. If ppl want to go out IM THERE! Michelle and I are going to a nearby city called Yangshuo which is about an hour and a half bus ride away for Monday and Tues. Its the best scenery in Guangxi province and the best rock climbing in China I hear. They do a lot of outdoor activities in Yangshuo too, but its a little chilly now for most of them I think, at least for Michelle it is. I want to go rock climbing if I can and its not super expensive. Everyone thats been there loves it and says its soo beautiful so Ive been wanting to get there soon. We will probably stay just Monday night, unless I can convince Michelle to stay Tues night also. This is the place to take all the breath taking karst landscape pictures surrounded by water you will find on the Internet. I just hope the f-in weather cooperates.