At An Internet Cafe In Nanchang
Well, this is the slowest machine I've sat at in years. Not only that, but I think I just paid for 10 hours of usage on it. The place is filling up with the hip young Chinese right now as the day is finally getting cranked up here in sleepy ol' Nanchang.

Nanchang is a lot like Alabama. Things move a little slow. When we were in Hong Kong, I realized that the southern stereotype of being fairly, not really slow, but metered in our presentation and demeanor, well, it just wasn't present in Hong Kong.

Nina Pei Xi
Well, Nina and Alison are the two best things that have ever happened to me in my life. Nina now is very strongly attached to both of us, but moreso to Alison. In order for Alison to take a shower, I have to challenge Nina with walking while I hold her hands, or maybe feed her.

She eats rice cereal mixed with formula. The formula has some strange name, it's made by Nestle and it's like Nestulaplast or something like that. Well, actually, nothing like that, but it's Nestlocord or something.

She takes three 210 ml bottles of that mixed with five little scoops of rice cereal a day. Maybe four. Maybe five is she wants it. Also, in the morning before I make up her formula proper, I'll fix a bowl of just rice cereal. She's also crazy about watermelon, which she can't have due to her diarrhea.

She doesn't have diarrhea anymore, but she has the glue butt. It's green/grey and like a mix of ectoplasm and glue. Very smelly too. Oy vey, ziplock bags are a wonderful piece of technology as far as getting rid of the horrible smell. That, and I bought an air freshener in the shape of a yellow rose that smells like lemons the other day in the department store that Alison hasn't been to yet.

Oh, and Alison is Going to Kill Me
I'm sick. Pretty darn sick. Nina came with a cold and a very strong attachment to her foster parents. She didn't want us and we were all she had. (note: Holy crap, the dudes playing counter strike here are freakin' brilliant. Har har har.) But that cold, I totally understand her crying. I feel really bad, not so much now in the internet cafe, but last night I was really horrible and same with the night before. I keep overdoing it during the day.

Hey, you know that stylized Chinese painting style. The horses painting at Ding How II is one of those. We went to the temple dedicated to that guy today. I think it was either 2000 or 500 years old. But it looked great. But the mosquitoes were eating a member of our group.

After that, we went to a very fancy restaurant. Actually, probably more fancy than anything I've ever been to. The best stuff though, was the simple stuff. Noodle soup. The corn dish. I really didn't dig the crab legs. Heck, too much work. But one of the teenagers with us really liked it.

Today, Alison is at the Notary's office. She'll be back soon. She has Nina with her. This will be the last thing we have to do in Nanchang, oh, which by the way is pronounced Nan-Chung. I'm supposed to be taking a nap, but the house cleaning was coming around and I didn't want to be hanging out there then. Besides, this place is air conditioned, and for 10 yuan (but it says it's 1.5 yuan and I was told it was 2 but they took 10, whatever) per hour, I'll pay for that. 10 Yuan is about $1.10. They want a lot more in the hotel, but, if I recall. It's not that much either.

Things Are Cheap Here
And by here, I mean Nanchang, not in the hotel. In the hotel, a canned coke cost 11 yuan, but if I walk across the street to the corner beverage shop that sells only beverages (seems that each store only sells one thing, the wire store, the pump store, the fan store, the tea store) they are 3 yuan for a 16 oz one. I also keep getting Mr. Chang's green tea. I only know that because the URL for it is on the bottle and it's the only English.

Oh, and nobody knows English here
But everyone is super friendly. This internet place is the first place I've been where I may or may not have gotten ripped off. But I don't think I did. Alison was told when she bought a IC card to call home that it had four minutes, for 50 yuan. Mucho crapo prices, but beats the $2 per minute if you use the hotel phone, which Alison did do for 5 minutes one night. However, it seems that it's a 4 yuan (which are actually written RMB but I am just going to say yuan) per minute, so very good prices.

Crap, these Counter Strike guys are kick butt. I pity the fools who are playing against them.

The plan is, I get back to the hotel room before Alison gets back. We'll go to the department store that's about 1/2 mile from our hotel and get some stuff. I need Motrin. Then a relaxing day teaching Nina to walk and feeding her and waiting for her to get tired, which takes forever. She's eating and learning very fast, but is having so much fun that she hates to go to sleep at night, so, we let her stay up until she's exhausted, which is actually only about 7:30.

Tomorrow we leave the hotel for the airport at 2 or 2:30. Nanchang's airport is much smaller than even Huntsville's. We'll get to Guangzhou where we'll be staying at another 5 star hotel. I doubt it will be as nice as the Kowloon Shangri-La we were at in Hong Kong. And it is much more Western oriented than it is here, what wouldn't be really, but I love it here. Though it's odd to have no ability to read and little ability to talk.

Chinese lesson:
Boo Koo = Don't Cry
Mee Shou = Your ok
Holla holla = It's ok, it's ok

A gal was just reading what I'm writing over my shoulder. I think I'll take off soon. Like as in now. I've only been here 30 minutes.

I think I'll go by Pbase and look at the pictures I posted for family before I leave though. I didn't have much time to look before when I was using Jeff's computer.
- posted by Nick Postagulous @ 8:54 PM