You all are trying to hijack my thread
I planned my trip to correspond with the 7 days that Mei was going to have off. It has been great so far.
Today I got the guitar I wanted. It was interesting. We parked her car, went up some dark alley, then upstairs to a music studio, I guess. There we had tea while the assistant brought out some beautiful guitars. I thought I was about to get real lucky, but when I inquired about the price he said that we were waiting for his boss to get back.
Well, I am only looking for a second hand guitar to have when I am in China and when the boss got there I found out that I was playing some lovely 9500 RMB guitars - about $1500 USD. I thanked him and told him that my price was about 1800RMB. He brought out a simple guitar for 1600 RMB.
It was suitable and I asked him to put on new strings. We waited while he changed the strings and tuned it and cleaned it. All the while I am in the same situation - I can't drink more than a sip of tea before my cup is being filled up again, only this time it is his assistant doing the filling.
Anyways, it was very interesting. All of this time I was picturing going to, well, an American music store, only set in China. but things are very different here. For instance, yesterday I saw a little shop that sells only bearings...nothing else.
This morning Mei and I spent a lot of time communicating. I am using youdao.com and she is using her Iphone - which is also youdao but she writes her chinese characters on the screen and it has chinese character recognition. It is the most fascinating thing I have ever seen to watch how she writes.
I was in a hotel for the first two days, and the bed wasn't that bad. I was starting to think that all of you guys are softies. Well now I am at her apartment and her bed is like a slab of stone with a layer of cloth stretched over it!! Okay, it is not that bad, but I tossed and turned last night. Now I know what you all mean.
We hung out with her friends last night and the gentleman who speaks a little English told me that he likes foreign movies, in part because there are not that many words in the Chinese language, and Chinese movies lack depth because of that. I did not know what to say. This is the first time I have ever heard that.
Anyways, I see everything, and I see the cultural differences, and I see so many similarities. It is a fascinating place, and I am having a good time.
This is the first picture I have of us together. She has taken so many more than I have taken, and she said that she will send them to me when I get home. Tomorrow her daughter starts her vacation and we will all do something fun together. Hopefully her other daughter can also join us.
I will write more when I get time... Oh, and I got a chance to speak with Lisa, Patrick's gal, on the phone. I am hoping to invite her and her daughter to meet us one night for dinner.