It's like the Island of Lost Toys, but worse. Everyone is starting to set up decorations for Christmas here, which is strange for several reasons. One, no one really celebrates Christmas here, so it is all very superficial feeling. Two, the decorations are all
done "Chinese-style", which in this case just means as tacky as absolutely possible, with possibly an advertisement thrown in. Three, I just can't believe it's almost Christmas, time is just going so fast. And, as usual, many things have happened in the past two days. Sunday Ben and I went to a restaurant supply store that our cooking teacher told us about because Ben wanted to buy a new knife and that is where our teacher bought his knife. We didn't really know where it was, but we had the address and I had asked Li Juan about it so we set off. It was in the very Northwest corner of Chengdu, pretty far away. Once we got to the general location, we only had to ask for directions twice
before we found it. The store was amazing. Ben and I were the only customers, which is weird for China. It was filled with three floors of rows and rows of every cooking or restaurant ware you could ever think of. Including sign boards and little cocktail straws. I had to buy some of the straws, they have pineapples on them. I also bought some cookie cutters (not fun shapes, just a triangle, a circle, and a square) and a new knife. That evening after swimming my swimming friends and I all went out for dinner at a lamb soup restaurant by my house. I was really excited about it because I always ride past these restaurants and wonder what they are like. Unfortunately, it was not that good. The soup was really gamey or farmy tasting and was like 90% innards. The meat that was in there was really tough because
it had been boiled for so long. The experience was great though. Everyone kept walking around trying to get each other to drink more bia jiu (I escaped this time). Very
renao, which is a great Chinese word that means chaotic, loud, and jubilant. At one point in time a teenage boy walked in with an amplifier on his back like a backpack, carrying an electric guitar, and had a microphone around his neck kind of like Dylan's harmonica. I thought it was very strange, but no one seemed to think anything of it and I didn't get to hear him sing because no one bought a song (which I think was the idea). Today we had our meeting again and we all went out to Indian food, which was a welcome change.
done "Chinese-style", which in this case just means as tacky as absolutely possible, with possibly an advertisement thrown in. Three, I just can't believe it's almost Christmas, time is just going so fast. And, as usual, many things have happened in the past two days. Sunday Ben and I went to a restaurant supply store that our cooking teacher told us about because Ben wanted to buy a new knife and that is where our teacher bought his knife. We didn't really know where it was, but we had the address and I had asked Li Juan about it so we set off. It was in the very Northwest corner of Chengdu, pretty far away. Once we got to the general location, we only had to ask for directions twice 
before we found it. The store was amazing. Ben and I were the only customers, which is weird for China. It was filled with three floors of rows and rows of every cooking or restaurant ware you could ever think of. Including sign boards and little cocktail straws. I had to buy some of the straws, they have pineapples on them. I also bought some cookie cutters (not fun shapes, just a triangle, a circle, and a square) and a new knife. That evening after swimming my swimming friends and I all went out for dinner at a lamb soup restaurant by my house. I was really excited about it because I always ride past these restaurants and wonder what they are like. Unfortunately, it was not that good. The soup was really gamey or farmy tasting and was like 90% innards. The meat that was in there was really tough because
it had been boiled for so long. The experience was great though. Everyone kept walking around trying to get each other to drink more bia jiu (I escaped this time). Very renao, which is a great Chinese word that means chaotic, loud, and jubilant. At one point in time a teenage boy walked in with an amplifier on his back like a backpack, carrying an electric guitar, and had a microphone around his neck kind of like Dylan's harmonica. I thought it was very strange, but no one seemed to think anything of it and I didn't get to hear him sing because no one bought a song (which I think was the idea). Today we had our meeting again and we all went out to Indian food, which was a welcome change.
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