Deb and I don't always agree on restaurants. Golden Corral is a buffet style restaurant that I like with a really nice and huge salad bar and has an okay but huge, hot food bar. I like the salad bar and not the hot bar part so much. Deb hates them both. When Deb drags me to a restaurant that I find despicable, it costs her one trip to Golden Corral. It ain't negotiable. We both worked late yesterday and decided to go out to eat. Deb had already decided the restaurant which was a Greek restaurant whose name shall remain anonymous. She had diplomatically declared I was along for the ride and to sit down, shut up, and hold on.. This restaurant is ten minutes from home, and we have been there a time or two. Dinner was around $50 which isn't crippling but rather pricey. The food last night didn't taste like butt but was a Greeked up version of spaghetti and $50 for spaghetti is a little pricey. Deb liked it, and I sort of liked it, but it didn't cost her a Golden Corral token. So tonight we both worked late again, and yet again Deb picked another restaurant that we have tried at a time or two in the past, and each time she had to drag me to it. The place is a vegetarian, Indian restaurant. I would rather have a blind man give me a vasectomy than eat at this restaurant, but I agreed to go tonight. Because it is vegetarian and Indian restaurant, the food is hot enough to melt the polar ice caps to cover up the lack of meat. Regardless of what you order from this place, it has chickpeas, tons of onions, curry, and varying degrees but liberal amounts of hot spices. Deb had some coupon that required her to get four different things for dinner. So, she ordered four of her favorite dishes and let's see how do I describe them? Well the first dish had yogurt or something in it and tasted like hot butt. The second dish had a pancake or somesuch in it and tasted like flaming pancake butt. The third dish had what looked like rice crispies in it and tasted like intensely hot rice krispie butt. The final one, my personal favorite, looked like a onion sub sandwich and tasted like nuclear meltdown butt. Holy guacamole that dinner sucked and worse yet was excruciatingly hot. After "dinner" we went to the car and started for home, and my breath was hot enough to melt paint off parked cars. Directly across the street from the Indian House of Pain was an independent, old style ice cream parlor. So, I decided that I would gets something cold to cover the plutonium rods that I ate for dinner from the Yuck-o-mat Ice Cream Parlor across from the Indian House of Pain. So, I ordered a chocolate "freeze" which resembled a milkshake but tasted like chocolate icey butt. In all honesty I was grateful that Chocolate Butt Shake was cold and kept helicopters and fire cannons from shooting water into my mouth to cover the Indian nuclear meltdown. Dinner tonight cost Deb nineteen Golden Corrals. It ain't negotiable.
I've had a couple people comment on the number of toilet pictures that I posted recently. No, I do not have an obsession with toilets. What I was trying to convey and did so poorly was how the hotels and airports had Toto Washlet Toilet Seats installed. I have a plumbing license and was familiar with washlet toilets prior to our travels in Asia. I found an interesting Wikipedia article that stated 72% of Japanese households have Toto Washlet Toilet Seats. Go figure. Here is the fascinating Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilets_in_Japan The link mentions the lack of hand drying towels which basically is true for every public bathroom. A few bathrooms had hand dryer blowers but most did not. Westerners just used their pants to dry their hands. In China and occasionally in Japan, toilet paper in public bathrooms was extremely rare. So ladies, if you visit China, don't pee on your shoes, don't whine or tell us about it if you do,but do carry toilet paper with you, and do wash your hands then wipe your hands on your pants. Remember you heard it here first.
Friday, March 18, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Dalian, China and Shanghai Photos (click photo to enlarge)
The control panel for the Shanghai Heated, Buttwashing Toilet 9000. The blow dryer was interesting but you might have to stick your head into the toilet to get it to dry your head. I was too chicken to push the "Oscillating" button.
The Great Wall Northeast of Beijing (click photo to enlarge)
Pictures from Osaka, Japan and Vladivostok, Russia (click photo to enlarge)
This is the control panel instructions to the Heated, Buttwasher 9001. Note you can enable the "extra deodorizing" option for those days when you really need extra special buttwashing. I was scared to push the "For Ladies" button because I thought that woman would announce, "Money, money, money" and away would go parts of me that I might need. Traveling can be really stressful for men.
of
Saturday, March 12, 2011
Shorts, Communism, Russian Women and Cars-- Raleigh Mar12, 2011
I got to wear shorts today. It was 70 Degrees F which is about 21 Degress C for you Canadians. For you Canadians that are freezing your rears off right now, I have one thing to say to you. I got to wear shorts today. The weather in the South rocks. As for you Canadians, you certainly will dethaw in a few months when the weather warms. One last thing before I change the subject, I got to wear shorts today.
Now that Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy (moi) is home, I can discuss a few things that I found interesting on our trip but thought it unwise to discuss during said trip. One thing is China's communism. Before we left for China, we had to buy a visa ($100 each) from the Chinese government. On the visa form it asked if we had any sexually transmitted diseases. Now why would they ask that? Wouldn't the bubonic plague be a better question? On the plane while flying into China, we filled out a form that wanted to know where we were staying which is par for the course in many countries. In China, if you are staying at a private home and not a hotel, you are required to inform the police precinct in your final destination of your stay. While we were traveling on a bus tour in one of our Chinese ports of call, the tour bus English speaking guide would not discuss certain questions in front of the bus driver. Deb had the guide tell her away from the driver that the bus drivers were often communist party implants that keep tabs on the people on the bus and speaking in front of them was unwise. I read an English language Chinese newspaper--actually a few of them--while I was in China. The paper was full of rubbish about how the Chinese government was doing glorious projects that would benefit the people. One newspaper had a huge article about Chinese doctors and hospitals. In the article it said family doctors are not trusted or rather all doctors for that matter, and the masses go to hospitals for routine medical conditions instead of family practices. The paper had photos of a huge, waiting room at a hospital and every square inch of the waiting room was filled with people. The photo showed hundreds of people waiting to see a doctor. The article said that a normal visit allowed the doctor only two minutes per person due to the quantity of people the doctor must see in a given day. To complicate matters, the hospital must dispense the medicine and usually will not dispense enough medicine to fully treat the person without more trips to the doctor. Go figure. I am a veteran and a flag flying American citizen that is extremely proud to have served MY country, and I love MY country. You should be happy with what you have. The next time you start complaining about your country and what you have to put up with, take a trip to China. On your way out take a democrat or two with you. Geez Louise that joke took a while to set up.
I would like to declare the next week as Fork Appreciation Week. You have no idea how difficult it is to eat with pencils. The entire time I spent in China and Japan, I didn't see a dinner knife. You might think that their food came in bite sized pieces. Right? Wrong. They expect you to pick up the bigger pieces of food and gnaw off a piece while holding the food with small pieces of lumber. Every dern thing that I ate had noodles in it in some form. Oh eating noodles with chopsticks reminds me of eating spaghetti at age six where you pick up the noodles, sorta kinda, and slurp in up. Gross. On the airplane on the trip home, a Chinese guy was in the seat in front of us eating a piece of pizza that was in a cardboard box given to him by the flight attendants. The flight attendants didn't give him chopsticks but did give him a knife and fork. The esteemed gentleman had the cardboard box up at mouth level gnawing off pieces of pizza and raking it into his mouth with the dern knife and not the fork. He didn't want to use the fork and was using the knife as a chopstick. When ChopKnifeStick Boy was in God's assembly line in heaven prior to being born, he thought God said train instead of brain and said, "Give me a slow one". ChopKnifeStick Boy almost got his picture taken by me so that I could prove he was eating with a chopknifestick, but I didn't want him to start jabbering and possibly stab me with his plastic chopknifestick. Yeah right. For the love of Sam, why do I always seem to get these folks? If it weren't for these kind of folks, I wouldn't have anything to talk about would I?
In Vladivostok, Russia I made note of a couple interesting things. Let's see where do I start? I know, let's talk about their women folk. We were told their women were supposed to be prettier than a speckled puppy sitting on a firetruck. The women were actually closer in looks to a great dane riding on a garbage truck. Well I guess they were pretty in a chainsaw toting, lumberjack sort of way. Personally I wouldn't want to have a woman that is more manly than me, but what do I know? Well I know I wouldn't kiss a lumberjack with more hair on her chest than I have--as opposed to a lumberjack with less chest hair. That didn't come out right did it? Now, let's talk about the cars in Vladivostok. It seems there is a shortage of non-Russian cars there. Russian made cars are pieces of junk I've read. A great deal of Vladivostok's cars are actually used cars that are imported from Japan. What you may not know is that Japanese cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car similar to Britain. So we would see the locals driving around town on the right side of street with right hand steering wheeled cars. I must admit that looked strange. I imagine Ivan loves his new found privileges like driving his clown car to pick up his lumberjack girlfriend. But, if you think about it, having a girlfriend like that wouldn't be too bad. Since Ivan's car is used and could easily break down. I can just hear Ivan say, "...first we drink vodka then let girlfriend push car to get motor running". Actually to be perfectly honest, the Vladivostok women's looks were not that bad. I might describe them as a Chinese mink coat wearing puppy on a firetruck. You can extrapolate from that image, and feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
I still have not messed with the photographs yet. I have been too busy thinking about Russian cars, Chinese doctors, and wearing shorts. I promise to get to the photos soon.
Al
Now that Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy (moi) is home, I can discuss a few things that I found interesting on our trip but thought it unwise to discuss during said trip. One thing is China's communism. Before we left for China, we had to buy a visa ($100 each) from the Chinese government. On the visa form it asked if we had any sexually transmitted diseases. Now why would they ask that? Wouldn't the bubonic plague be a better question? On the plane while flying into China, we filled out a form that wanted to know where we were staying which is par for the course in many countries. In China, if you are staying at a private home and not a hotel, you are required to inform the police precinct in your final destination of your stay. While we were traveling on a bus tour in one of our Chinese ports of call, the tour bus English speaking guide would not discuss certain questions in front of the bus driver. Deb had the guide tell her away from the driver that the bus drivers were often communist party implants that keep tabs on the people on the bus and speaking in front of them was unwise. I read an English language Chinese newspaper--actually a few of them--while I was in China. The paper was full of rubbish about how the Chinese government was doing glorious projects that would benefit the people. One newspaper had a huge article about Chinese doctors and hospitals. In the article it said family doctors are not trusted or rather all doctors for that matter, and the masses go to hospitals for routine medical conditions instead of family practices. The paper had photos of a huge, waiting room at a hospital and every square inch of the waiting room was filled with people. The photo showed hundreds of people waiting to see a doctor. The article said that a normal visit allowed the doctor only two minutes per person due to the quantity of people the doctor must see in a given day. To complicate matters, the hospital must dispense the medicine and usually will not dispense enough medicine to fully treat the person without more trips to the doctor. Go figure. I am a veteran and a flag flying American citizen that is extremely proud to have served MY country, and I love MY country. You should be happy with what you have. The next time you start complaining about your country and what you have to put up with, take a trip to China. On your way out take a democrat or two with you. Geez Louise that joke took a while to set up.
I would like to declare the next week as Fork Appreciation Week. You have no idea how difficult it is to eat with pencils. The entire time I spent in China and Japan, I didn't see a dinner knife. You might think that their food came in bite sized pieces. Right? Wrong. They expect you to pick up the bigger pieces of food and gnaw off a piece while holding the food with small pieces of lumber. Every dern thing that I ate had noodles in it in some form. Oh eating noodles with chopsticks reminds me of eating spaghetti at age six where you pick up the noodles, sorta kinda, and slurp in up. Gross. On the airplane on the trip home, a Chinese guy was in the seat in front of us eating a piece of pizza that was in a cardboard box given to him by the flight attendants. The flight attendants didn't give him chopsticks but did give him a knife and fork. The esteemed gentleman had the cardboard box up at mouth level gnawing off pieces of pizza and raking it into his mouth with the dern knife and not the fork. He didn't want to use the fork and was using the knife as a chopstick. When ChopKnifeStick Boy was in God's assembly line in heaven prior to being born, he thought God said train instead of brain and said, "Give me a slow one". ChopKnifeStick Boy almost got his picture taken by me so that I could prove he was eating with a chopknifestick, but I didn't want him to start jabbering and possibly stab me with his plastic chopknifestick. Yeah right. For the love of Sam, why do I always seem to get these folks? If it weren't for these kind of folks, I wouldn't have anything to talk about would I?
In Vladivostok, Russia I made note of a couple interesting things. Let's see where do I start? I know, let's talk about their women folk. We were told their women were supposed to be prettier than a speckled puppy sitting on a firetruck. The women were actually closer in looks to a great dane riding on a garbage truck. Well I guess they were pretty in a chainsaw toting, lumberjack sort of way. Personally I wouldn't want to have a woman that is more manly than me, but what do I know? Well I know I wouldn't kiss a lumberjack with more hair on her chest than I have--as opposed to a lumberjack with less chest hair. That didn't come out right did it? Now, let's talk about the cars in Vladivostok. It seems there is a shortage of non-Russian cars there. Russian made cars are pieces of junk I've read. A great deal of Vladivostok's cars are actually used cars that are imported from Japan. What you may not know is that Japanese cars have the steering wheel on the right side of the car similar to Britain. So we would see the locals driving around town on the right side of street with right hand steering wheeled cars. I must admit that looked strange. I imagine Ivan loves his new found privileges like driving his clown car to pick up his lumberjack girlfriend. But, if you think about it, having a girlfriend like that wouldn't be too bad. Since Ivan's car is used and could easily break down. I can just hear Ivan say, "...first we drink vodka then let girlfriend push car to get motor running". Actually to be perfectly honest, the Vladivostok women's looks were not that bad. I might describe them as a Chinese mink coat wearing puppy on a firetruck. You can extrapolate from that image, and feel free to talk amongst yourselves.
I still have not messed with the photographs yet. I have been too busy thinking about Russian cars, Chinese doctors, and wearing shorts. I promise to get to the photos soon.
Al
Friday, March 11, 2011
Breakfast and Taxi Cab ride--Raleigh, NC Mar 10, 2011
Hello from Raleighwood. We got home last night about 10pm local time. The flight home was uneventful for the most part except for a few things along the way.
Our last day in Osaka, we got up and went downstairs (money, money, money) and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Breakfast was expensive ($18 each) but they had something that made it worth Alsan's time--a fork. Yes, I said a fork. I knew there were forks in Japan but somebody was hiding them to torque me off. I found one of the forks and $18 later had breakfast. This was not your normal Golden Corral buffet, it looked sort of the same but it wasn't even close to it. There was octopus balls, miso soup, noodles, funky looking rolls that had bacon in them , and a few things that I actually recognized like fruit and yogurt. And of course they had my favorite, a fork. So, I got me some octopus balls and rolled them around on my plate and played putt putt golf with them before I dunked them in miso soup to drown the octopus inside. During breakfast, I played solo and eagled two holes on my plate.
After breakfast golf, we went back upstairs (money, money, money), packed and left, We walked outside and caught a taxi with the aide of the engrish speaking hotel lady. She explained to the taxi driver that we wanted to go to the airport and Homebodysan nodded and commenced to trying to put our luggage into his clown car sized taxi. That is when the fun started. Homeboysan (taxi driver) was dressed in a Miss Manners outfit with white gloves like all taxi drivers in Japan. Homeboysan had on a suit and was afraid of getting his pretty little suit dirty which is totally contradictory to US taxi drivers who seem afraid to wash their clothes much less take a bath. Homeboysan put the bags into the trunk, and packed, adjusted, packed, adjusted, packed, AND adjusted until I had about enough and looked around for a different taxi to put our ugly, American, dirty bags into. Then Homeboysan decided to go with the flow and try and close the trunk lid which wouldn't close due to our bags being too large. You would have thought I wanted him to solve differential equations or something by his difficulty with the luggage. Homeboysan pulled out a pretty little strap that he hooked, rehooked, hooked, rehooked, hooked, and rehooked the strap until I wanted to Three Stooges slap the pretty, little, ugly off his face. By now I was hunting in my electronic Japanese translator a phrase for something along the lines of "I'm going to put my huge, American foot up your butt if you don't quit messing around with that stupid strap and get me to the stupid airport" but there wasn't any phrases in the translator that quite expressed the urgency that I felt. As it turned out, Homeboysan must have understood his pending doom and ran around and opened the rear, passenger door with his little, control handle from the driver's seat. I kid you not, Japanese taxis have a lever that they can open the rear door with a lever. Isn't that special? We got into the taxi and Homeboysan pulled away then started saying something in Japanese while waving his hands. This went on for couple minutes, then I used my huge, American brain and figured out that he wanted me to put on the seatbelt. Well La De Da. The fun started up again here. I pulled the belt around me and couldn't get the buckle to catch. I tried and tried, even Deb tried but we could get the belt to latch. Homeboysan was jabbering and waving and having a Japanese dying duck fit in the front seat. Homebodysan decided to stop the clown car on the side of the road to come back and do it for me when the buckle caught. At this point all diplomacy drained from my usual diplomatic person, and I wanted to give Homeboysan five good reasons upside his Miss Manner's head to get me to the airport and quit playing games with us. He jabbered, waved, jabbered, waved, jabbered, and waved until he started driving again. To add to our stress level, Homeboysan jabbered about some nonsense all the way to the airport which took about twenty minutes. When we arrived at the airport all of the stupid, airport signs were in Kangee (Japanese characters) which were impossible for us to read. Homebodysan started jabbering and waving his arms again, and we deduced he wanted to know which airline we were on. We told him JAL (which is Japanese Airlines) about ten times and even wrote it down but Homebodysan didn't give us a clear indication that he understood. Ultimately Homeboysan stopped at an arrival gate (not our airlines BTW) and jabbered and waved at a guy standing there until Homeboysan nodded yes and drove us to the JAL terminal. Miss Manner's then opened the door with his pretty, little handle to let us out. We got out, I sneered at him, and we went inside and flew to Tokyo.
What we didn't know was an earthquake had hit north of Tokyo while we were in the air from Osaka (western part of Japan) to Tokyo (eastern part of Japan). We found out about the earthquake the next day when Deb's mom told us. The Tokyo airport was buzzing as most airports and didn't show any signs of trouble. We checked in at the American Airlines desk and went to lunch in the airport with several hours to wait. The restaurant was like any restaurant in the US except it served Japanese style food. Yes it only had chopsticks much to my dismay. We stood and looked at the plates in the restaurant's window and picked something that looked like food then pointed our choice to the waitress who nodded she understood. I remember thinking that maybe she should drive a taxi. A few minutes later the waitress brought out the Bento boxes. I wouldn't eat anything that I ordered so Deb switched with me. I poked at the stuff and there were several, and I do mean several, things on the tray. I tried something that looked liked pickled turnips. It was pretty but tasted like butt. I tried something that looked like pickles. It too was pretty but tasted like pickled butt. I tried the miso soup. It was good but it had little clams floating around in it with the shells on. Then I tried the other stuff and each item had the commonality of being pretty but tasted like butt. So we finished the Japanese McButt food and decided to head toward the gate and flew home.
Again, we are home and The Puppies are glad we are home too. It has been a long and fun two weeks. I plan to add some photos as soon as I can. See Yall later.
Al
Our last day in Osaka, we got up and went downstairs (money, money, money) and had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. Breakfast was expensive ($18 each) but they had something that made it worth Alsan's time--a fork. Yes, I said a fork. I knew there were forks in Japan but somebody was hiding them to torque me off. I found one of the forks and $18 later had breakfast. This was not your normal Golden Corral buffet, it looked sort of the same but it wasn't even close to it. There was octopus balls, miso soup, noodles, funky looking rolls that had bacon in them , and a few things that I actually recognized like fruit and yogurt. And of course they had my favorite, a fork. So, I got me some octopus balls and rolled them around on my plate and played putt putt golf with them before I dunked them in miso soup to drown the octopus inside. During breakfast, I played solo and eagled two holes on my plate.
After breakfast golf, we went back upstairs (money, money, money), packed and left, We walked outside and caught a taxi with the aide of the engrish speaking hotel lady. She explained to the taxi driver that we wanted to go to the airport and Homebodysan nodded and commenced to trying to put our luggage into his clown car sized taxi. That is when the fun started. Homeboysan (taxi driver) was dressed in a Miss Manners outfit with white gloves like all taxi drivers in Japan. Homeboysan had on a suit and was afraid of getting his pretty little suit dirty which is totally contradictory to US taxi drivers who seem afraid to wash their clothes much less take a bath. Homeboysan put the bags into the trunk, and packed, adjusted, packed, adjusted, packed, AND adjusted until I had about enough and looked around for a different taxi to put our ugly, American, dirty bags into. Then Homeboysan decided to go with the flow and try and close the trunk lid which wouldn't close due to our bags being too large. You would have thought I wanted him to solve differential equations or something by his difficulty with the luggage. Homeboysan pulled out a pretty little strap that he hooked, rehooked, hooked, rehooked, hooked, and rehooked the strap until I wanted to Three Stooges slap the pretty, little, ugly off his face. By now I was hunting in my electronic Japanese translator a phrase for something along the lines of "I'm going to put my huge, American foot up your butt if you don't quit messing around with that stupid strap and get me to the stupid airport" but there wasn't any phrases in the translator that quite expressed the urgency that I felt. As it turned out, Homeboysan must have understood his pending doom and ran around and opened the rear, passenger door with his little, control handle from the driver's seat. I kid you not, Japanese taxis have a lever that they can open the rear door with a lever. Isn't that special? We got into the taxi and Homeboysan pulled away then started saying something in Japanese while waving his hands. This went on for couple minutes, then I used my huge, American brain and figured out that he wanted me to put on the seatbelt. Well La De Da. The fun started up again here. I pulled the belt around me and couldn't get the buckle to catch. I tried and tried, even Deb tried but we could get the belt to latch. Homeboysan was jabbering and waving and having a Japanese dying duck fit in the front seat. Homebodysan decided to stop the clown car on the side of the road to come back and do it for me when the buckle caught. At this point all diplomacy drained from my usual diplomatic person, and I wanted to give Homeboysan five good reasons upside his Miss Manner's head to get me to the airport and quit playing games with us. He jabbered, waved, jabbered, waved, jabbered, and waved until he started driving again. To add to our stress level, Homeboysan jabbered about some nonsense all the way to the airport which took about twenty minutes. When we arrived at the airport all of the stupid, airport signs were in Kangee (Japanese characters) which were impossible for us to read. Homebodysan started jabbering and waving his arms again, and we deduced he wanted to know which airline we were on. We told him JAL (which is Japanese Airlines) about ten times and even wrote it down but Homebodysan didn't give us a clear indication that he understood. Ultimately Homeboysan stopped at an arrival gate (not our airlines BTW) and jabbered and waved at a guy standing there until Homeboysan nodded yes and drove us to the JAL terminal. Miss Manner's then opened the door with his pretty, little handle to let us out. We got out, I sneered at him, and we went inside and flew to Tokyo.
What we didn't know was an earthquake had hit north of Tokyo while we were in the air from Osaka (western part of Japan) to Tokyo (eastern part of Japan). We found out about the earthquake the next day when Deb's mom told us. The Tokyo airport was buzzing as most airports and didn't show any signs of trouble. We checked in at the American Airlines desk and went to lunch in the airport with several hours to wait. The restaurant was like any restaurant in the US except it served Japanese style food. Yes it only had chopsticks much to my dismay. We stood and looked at the plates in the restaurant's window and picked something that looked like food then pointed our choice to the waitress who nodded she understood. I remember thinking that maybe she should drive a taxi. A few minutes later the waitress brought out the Bento boxes. I wouldn't eat anything that I ordered so Deb switched with me. I poked at the stuff and there were several, and I do mean several, things on the tray. I tried something that looked liked pickled turnips. It was pretty but tasted like butt. I tried something that looked like pickles. It too was pretty but tasted like pickled butt. I tried the miso soup. It was good but it had little clams floating around in it with the shells on. Then I tried the other stuff and each item had the commonality of being pretty but tasted like butt. So we finished the Japanese McButt food and decided to head toward the gate and flew home.
Again, we are home and The Puppies are glad we are home too. It has been a long and fun two weeks. I plan to add some photos as soon as I can. See Yall later.
Al
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Cliff, Bullet Train, Money, Money, Money--Osaka, and Kyoto, Japan Mar 9, 2011
Hi de ho Kmart shoppers. I'm sitting in Osaka, Japan as tired as a big ole Southern boy can be after hoofing it all over hell and half of Kyoto today. The ship said sayonara to us today and let us off in Osaka. The taxi we took from the ship's terminal to the hotel was driven by a Dale Earnhardt wannabe and succeeded in scaring the pants off me. We dropped our bags at the hotel in Osaka and were joined by The Nice Canadian Couple, and met our Goodwill Guides Kiyoe and Yoko. Kiyoe and Yoko spent the day showing us around Kyoto which is about fifty miles from Osaka. In Kyoto we visited a shrine or temple (I ain't even sure which type it was) that dated back to 765AD but was rebuilt in the 1700s, likely because some woman didn't unplug her hair curling iron and burnt the building to the ground. I'm not sure how the temple burned down, but the curling iron idea sounds feasible to me having been married for fifteen years to a woman that uses a hair curling iron. Anyway, there is a cliff of sorts on the grounds of the shrine or temple (whatever) that overlooked a natural spring. The spring had all kinds of legends associated with it that I won't go into now, but the reason I mentioned it is because it was at the base of the little cliff that is next to the temple. The cliff was about seventy-five feet straight down which wasn't really much of a cliff but enough for idiots to jump off of. Kiyoe told us that it was illegal to jump off this cliff-- like I was contemplating it. When she said that we all looked at her like she was a democrat, until she explained that the locals used to jump off the cliff for sin cleansing or somesuch and eighty percent survived the fall. A pessimist might say twenty percent broke their stupid necks, but I tend to look at the bright side and say eighty percent of the idiots survived. Well duh, with odds like that I wanted to give cliff jumping a go, but after finding out the act was illegal poof goes all my aspirations of being a cliff jumper and cleansing me of all those evil thoughts of pushing democrats off that cliff. I think the democrats need a cliff like that in Washington except a little higher, oh let's say 750 feet so they can test out firsthand BO's and Nancy Perogi's socialized medicine. Anyway, I didn't fall or jump off that stupid cliff. The shrine and the surrounding city were spectacular and worthy of Alsan's, Debsan's, and Nice Canadian Couplesan's time.
We had lunch at a stereotypical Japanese restaurant that had short tables without chairs. Before we sat we had to take our shoes off, and I watched Kioyo take off her shoes and put them together with the heals together and toes pointing away from the table. Mr Nice Canadian Couple took his shoes off and didn't line them up the same way and the waitress lady corrected that mistake after we sat down. Man there are so many rules of this nature to follow in Japan. The waitress should have considered herself lucky as I mimicked Kiyoe's shoe placement, and had the waitress tried to move Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy's (my) shoes, she would have had to call one of those little guys in the back to come help her lift them. Lunch was fun right up to the point we had to use chopsticks again. Can somebody please introduce Japan and China to forks please? Thank you.
We rode The Bullet Train today, and it was faster than John Edwards at a skank chasing contest. The Bullet Train moved along at 180 MPH which is almost as fast as the first taxi we took in Osaka, but the train was much smoother. The fare for The Bullet Train was ten times more expensive than the regular train ($30 vs. $3) and took a quarter of the ride time. I've ridden on bullet trains for years in NC, but you would call it Deb driving her car--kind of like our kamikaze taxi driver earlier in the day. During the day, we rode in a ship, several taxis, a few buses, subway, and The Bullet train, and good times were had by all.
Our hotel was interesting and full of fun games. First, after checking in at the main desk, we spent several minutes playing where is the elevator. The lobby of the hotel was under construction and the elevator was camouflaged. Inside the elevator, we played how do we operate the elevator as the room key card had to be put into a slot to make the elevator buttons work. That little option was fun. Just before the elevator doors closed a female voice on the intercom would say something in Japanese that sounded like "money, money, money". She repeated "money, money, money" on each floor and like clockwork the elevator doors would close. Good Lord I have no idea what "money, money, money" meant in Japanese, but the voice got me to saying "money, money, money" on the elevator. Anyway, after arriving on our floor (money, money, money) we played where is our room after stumbling around in the dark hallway (painted black BTW) with very little lighting for some reason. After we finally found the room door, we played how do we open the door since the door opened magically with the plastic room key, but the key didn't want to cooperate, Well duh, this door wasn't your everyday card reader door like our No Tell Motels at home. After opening the room door, we played where is the light switch which we never did find, and where is the bathroom as the bathroom door was camouflaged to be cutesy or something architecturally idiotic. At home we are allowed to backhand architects that design stupid buildings like this hotel, but in Japan it is artistic. Whatever. And last but not least, we played how do we flush the toilet which was my personal favorite of all the games we played. It turns out the toilet had a written instructional manual with an electronic control board with wall mounted pushbutton switches that flushed the toilet. Yes I said it had pushbuttons to flush the stupid thing with different buttons to change the intensity of the flush. I'll bet a democrat invented that thing. Oh, it had the same electronic, heated, butt washing and drying toilet seat the Shanghai hotel had. This toilet was like playing a juke box. I was afraid that if I sat on it and pushed the wrong button the woman would announce "money, money, money", and I would loose something vital to the closing doors hidden under the toilet seat. "Money, money, money" and I would sing in the Vienna Boys Choir the rest of my life. Oh, believe me in saying that I will have fond memories of that hotel for years to come. Money, money, money.
Tomorrow, we leave for home and will see The Puppies again. Oh boy.
Al
We had lunch at a stereotypical Japanese restaurant that had short tables without chairs. Before we sat we had to take our shoes off, and I watched Kioyo take off her shoes and put them together with the heals together and toes pointing away from the table. Mr Nice Canadian Couple took his shoes off and didn't line them up the same way and the waitress lady corrected that mistake after we sat down. Man there are so many rules of this nature to follow in Japan. The waitress should have considered herself lucky as I mimicked Kiyoe's shoe placement, and had the waitress tried to move Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy's (my) shoes, she would have had to call one of those little guys in the back to come help her lift them. Lunch was fun right up to the point we had to use chopsticks again. Can somebody please introduce Japan and China to forks please? Thank you.
We rode The Bullet Train today, and it was faster than John Edwards at a skank chasing contest. The Bullet Train moved along at 180 MPH which is almost as fast as the first taxi we took in Osaka, but the train was much smoother. The fare for The Bullet Train was ten times more expensive than the regular train ($30 vs. $3) and took a quarter of the ride time. I've ridden on bullet trains for years in NC, but you would call it Deb driving her car--kind of like our kamikaze taxi driver earlier in the day. During the day, we rode in a ship, several taxis, a few buses, subway, and The Bullet train, and good times were had by all.
Our hotel was interesting and full of fun games. First, after checking in at the main desk, we spent several minutes playing where is the elevator. The lobby of the hotel was under construction and the elevator was camouflaged. Inside the elevator, we played how do we operate the elevator as the room key card had to be put into a slot to make the elevator buttons work. That little option was fun. Just before the elevator doors closed a female voice on the intercom would say something in Japanese that sounded like "money, money, money". She repeated "money, money, money" on each floor and like clockwork the elevator doors would close. Good Lord I have no idea what "money, money, money" meant in Japanese, but the voice got me to saying "money, money, money" on the elevator. Anyway, after arriving on our floor (money, money, money) we played where is our room after stumbling around in the dark hallway (painted black BTW) with very little lighting for some reason. After we finally found the room door, we played how do we open the door since the door opened magically with the plastic room key, but the key didn't want to cooperate, Well duh, this door wasn't your everyday card reader door like our No Tell Motels at home. After opening the room door, we played where is the light switch which we never did find, and where is the bathroom as the bathroom door was camouflaged to be cutesy or something architecturally idiotic. At home we are allowed to backhand architects that design stupid buildings like this hotel, but in Japan it is artistic. Whatever. And last but not least, we played how do we flush the toilet which was my personal favorite of all the games we played. It turns out the toilet had a written instructional manual with an electronic control board with wall mounted pushbutton switches that flushed the toilet. Yes I said it had pushbuttons to flush the stupid thing with different buttons to change the intensity of the flush. I'll bet a democrat invented that thing. Oh, it had the same electronic, heated, butt washing and drying toilet seat the Shanghai hotel had. This toilet was like playing a juke box. I was afraid that if I sat on it and pushed the wrong button the woman would announce "money, money, money", and I would loose something vital to the closing doors hidden under the toilet seat. "Money, money, money" and I would sing in the Vienna Boys Choir the rest of my life. Oh, believe me in saying that I will have fond memories of that hotel for years to come. Money, money, money.
Tomorrow, we leave for home and will see The Puppies again. Oh boy.
Al
Cropdusting, A-bomb, Entertainers--Hiroshima, Japan March 8, 2011
A day or so on the ship, I was walking along on the main floor where all the shops were when one of the Chinese men on the ship lets go a huge fart beside several of the ships officers and cropdusted about 25 people waiting in line. The dude could have cared less and walked like he was on an Easter parade. The Italians just giggled. I was dumbfounded though. Asians have different customs though.
Hiroshima had a huge park dedicated to the A-bomb drop at the epicenter of the blast. There were all kinds of monuments, fountains, and a couple museums commemorating the event. Inside the main museum there was a huge model of how the area looked after the blast which would be best described as raking the land clean except for a couple buildings only "lightly" damaged just under the epicenter. Had I not known the area had been damaged I would not have guessed it by the reconstruction efforts. It was amazing to see the place where horrific history was make. I would recommend a visit here if you have an opportunity.
Japanese people are far easier to be around than Chinese. Chinese will push you out of their way and Japanese will apologize for wanting to be in your way. Japanese respect your personal space where Chinese could care less. What is amazing is how the Japanese and Chinese cultures are so different and the countries are located so close geographically. Come to think of it, Yankees are pushy and shovey too, and they are only a short drive from home. Yeah, now that I think about it, Yankees are worse.
When we were preparing to leave Hiroshima's port the locals came on board to do a show for us. There were a couple three geisha that performed for us with fans, danced, and sang. The geisha were fun to watch and while they performed a woman played the Japanese guitar called a Shamisen. She was fun to listen to for the first couple songs, but soon became a Japanese Billy Ray Cyrus (Achy Breaky Heart boy), and it became apparent that I would have to stick a sharp stick in my eye to act as a pain reliever. So I just sat there thinking about democrats and wished I had dysentery. After Yoko Ono finished, a three piece band came out. The show’s announcer described then to us as the best something or other that Japan had to offer and “the band” had awards to prove it. One person in the band had a saxophone, one person had a snare drum of sorts, and the third had a drum on his chest with a set of small cymbals that he clanged enough to make me want to walk up and Three Stooges slap all three of them. By the time “the band” finished I had a sharp stick in each of my eyes and wanted Billy Ray Cyrus woman to twang her magic twanger some more while I stuck bamboo shoots under my fingernails. Geez, I could have had dysentery.
We had lunch in port at an authentic okonomiyaki or YokoOnoYucky whatever they call it kind of place. Basically, this place had a griddle that the dude piled a pancake, noodles, an egg, pork, sweetened teriyaki sauce, and a bunch of other stuff on top of each other. Then the concoction was grilled a few minutes raked off the main grill and raked onto a smaller griddle built into our table. Let's see how do I explain the taste. I know, I would describe it as noodles, teriyaki, and butt. Deb said she loved it, and I thought it tasted like butt. But what do I know. Well I know it tasted like butt. To add insult to Southerner injury there were no forks, and I had to use the Japanese wooden male torture apparatus called chopsticks. I would weigh ten pounds if forced to use them every day. I thought about stealing a fork off the ship to carry around with me but was afraid I would get caught and kicked off the ship in a place where they ate with chopsticks and women peed on their shoes. So, I used the chopsticks.
Chatty Cathy has been nice the last couple of days. She has enlightened us with stories of going to the ship's doctor and other tales from the crypt. I sat next to her at dinner the other night and actually enjoyed speaking with her. She craves attention like Bill Clinton craves skanks. However, when Chatty Cathy is engaged in conversation in a one on one manner, she was very entertaining. Her past was entertaining enough that she wrote an autobiographical book that Deb bought not out of necessity more so out of curiosity. What got me to thinking was how many writers carry around multiple copies of their own book like Chatty Cathy did. Nope, I am not going to comment on the real name for Chatty Cathy nor am I going to say the name of the book. I promise to try to give you a book report.
We had a talent contest onboard the ship recently and for the life of me I can't remember which night, but Whiney Girl sang the song My Guy which I knew was a dern lie as no guy would want any part of her. The show's announcer introduced her and asked her with whom she was traveling, and she said, "...I don't have any friends or family on board". After being around the wench for greater than a week, I know why. Her own family must have bought her the cruise to get away from her. Whiney Girl wasn't talented but I didn't want to watch reruns of the democrat National Convention (lower case d as intended as always) rather than her. I did have nightmares for a couple nights thanks to her and woke up screaming, but I do that every time I watch Glee, so Deb wasn't concerned. Deb just rubbed my belly like she does The Puppies, and I went back to sleep. I might have to get electroshock therapy to keep me from laughing every time I think of Whiney Girl peeing on her shoes and telling us about the experience. Deb probably peed on her shoes too while using the concrete holes, but she knows better than to tell me. I took a few photos of Whiney Girl and will post them when I get home. But in the meantime, you can visualize her as being a brunette Teletubby.
While in town, I thought about stopping at a Japanese teahouse and having the elaborate Japanese tea ceremony. In the Japanese tea ceremony the woman dresses up in the kimono and scurries around making her man happy. Deb said we could have the American version at home where she dresses up in the kimono and I get up and get my own tea. To heck with that.
Al
Monday, March 7, 2011
Bobbles, Countess, Shrines--- Vladivostok, Russia and Hakata , Japan Mar 7, 2011
Geez, where do I start? How about with Vladivostok? Vladivostok, Russia used to be a strictly Russian military town and only persons that lived there and military could enter the town until 1992 or so. After visiting there I understand why they didn't allow people to see it. Vladivostok is like owning a moped. It's fun to ride but you don't want your friends to see you on it. Except Vladivostok isn't fun to ride, and you still don't want your friends to see you ride it. I remember this town from my army days, and it was "respected" for its military might. Today it is just mighty ugly. The Vladivostok women walked around in beautiful mink coats with short skirts and boots high enough to use for fly fishing. Where the women bought their clothes was a huge mystery as the stores in town were stocked with touristy junk. Vladivostok's oldest, multifloor department store, Gum, had the look, feel, and merchandise of Myrtle Beach's Gay Dolphin--bobbles and trinkets. Good Lord, Vladivostok sucked.
On the bus we took to Vladivostok from the ship, Deb and I were seated behind a couple from Austria, The Baron and The Countess or at least they thought they were. Deb saw The Countess' coat and reached forward and touched the coat and asked her if the fur was beaver. Well The Countess didn't care for that at all. The Baron stood and informed Deb that The Countess' coat, "...was worn by all of the Austrian women, shaved mink". Geez, that really put Deb in her place. On the way back from Vladivostok, Whiney girl was showing off her $200 new purchase of a fur hat that had flaps over each ear and a flap in front. You've likely seen police in this style hat. Whiney Girl's hat made her look like a Russian Barney Fife. Shoot she would be at home on The Red Green Show. Good times.
The gang, which consisted of The Nice California Couple, The Nice Canadian Couple, Deb, and Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy (me) toured via foot downtown Hakata today. Japan is truly civilized but the Japanese drive little clown cars that go beep, beep, beep and look about the size of toaster. They must wind the cars up in the morning and away they go all day. Anyway, we visited a few temples and shrines today. I won't explain the difference between a shrine and a temple other than to say The Baptists would say one was for indigenous heathens and the other was for the mainland heathens, neither of which understand fried chicken on a cosmic plane. During our tour, the gang visited one shrine that had a really cool shed out front that had a horse trough of sorts with bamboo baskets on long sticks that the folks would dip into the water and pour onto their hands to ceremoniously cleanse themselves. I guess you might call it holy water of sorts. The water got me to thinking that I should bring some of that holy water home to give John Edwards to cleanse away the stink from that skank with whom he sired the little democrat. Edwards might need to take a bath in it and gargle with it too. I've seen that skank and he's gonna need some holy soap. Yall thought I had forgotten how to tell democrat (no capitalization intended) jokes, didn't you? Well, I haven't.
Hiroshima is tomorrow and we will be heading home soon thereafter. We miss The Puppies and toilets that you don't pee on your shoes.
Al
On the bus we took to Vladivostok from the ship, Deb and I were seated behind a couple from Austria, The Baron and The Countess or at least they thought they were. Deb saw The Countess' coat and reached forward and touched the coat and asked her if the fur was beaver. Well The Countess didn't care for that at all. The Baron stood and informed Deb that The Countess' coat, "...was worn by all of the Austrian women, shaved mink". Geez, that really put Deb in her place. On the way back from Vladivostok, Whiney girl was showing off her $200 new purchase of a fur hat that had flaps over each ear and a flap in front. You've likely seen police in this style hat. Whiney Girl's hat made her look like a Russian Barney Fife. Shoot she would be at home on The Red Green Show. Good times.
The gang, which consisted of The Nice California Couple, The Nice Canadian Couple, Deb, and Big Ole Dumb Southern Boy (me) toured via foot downtown Hakata today. Japan is truly civilized but the Japanese drive little clown cars that go beep, beep, beep and look about the size of toaster. They must wind the cars up in the morning and away they go all day. Anyway, we visited a few temples and shrines today. I won't explain the difference between a shrine and a temple other than to say The Baptists would say one was for indigenous heathens and the other was for the mainland heathens, neither of which understand fried chicken on a cosmic plane. During our tour, the gang visited one shrine that had a really cool shed out front that had a horse trough of sorts with bamboo baskets on long sticks that the folks would dip into the water and pour onto their hands to ceremoniously cleanse themselves. I guess you might call it holy water of sorts. The water got me to thinking that I should bring some of that holy water home to give John Edwards to cleanse away the stink from that skank with whom he sired the little democrat. Edwards might need to take a bath in it and gargle with it too. I've seen that skank and he's gonna need some holy soap. Yall thought I had forgotten how to tell democrat (no capitalization intended) jokes, didn't you? Well, I haven't.
Hiroshima is tomorrow and we will be heading home soon thereafter. We miss The Puppies and toilets that you don't pee on your shoes.
Al
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Cheaters, Japanese Helicopters, and Cheap Drinks--Sea of Japan Mar 3, 2011
Dude, we're off the coast of North Korea. I've worried the nut in North Korea would decide the international statement he wanted to make was torpedoing the big ole white boat the big ole dumb Southern boy was on (translated as my ship and me), but so far so good. I can't say I am too scared as I mooned him this morning (all puns intended). I just stuck my big ole dumb hairy butt off the poop deck and yelled, "Tune your satellites on this pointy-head". You might call that action Southern Boy diplomacy. Now you know why I'm not a Washington diplomat.
Last night we had formal night on the ship where big ole dumb Southern Boys dress up in monkey suits and act civilized or even grown-up for that matter for a while. We went to a "Captain's Circle" mixer where the captain got up and said some speech while we drank free mixed drinks. Now you know fully well that it didn't happen like that. But, if they called it "The Captain's Watered Down, Cheap Drinks Party", big ole dumb Southern Boys wouldn't attend. Since I have a San Andreas Fault running through my head, I didn't even get to drink the watered down drinks. Bummer. Deb drank mine and hers though. While we attended the monkey suit dressup ball, the captain introduced a couple that virtually lived on this ship. This couple from Victoria, BC had 148 cruises on Princess Cruise Lines. One of the crew told us the couple have spent the last four months on this ship. The last couple of days, one of the asinine things that we did was go to a Trivial Pursuit type of gathering. You know, the host asks questions and big ole dumb Southern Boys try and act interested, and it lasts 30 minutes and big ole dumb Southern Boy's wives get all warm and fuzzy inside. I stuck bamboo shoots under my fingernails to take away the pain of having to sit through it. Anyway, the Victoria couple without any life that I mentioned above, came to the twice daily Trivial Pursuit things with a book where they recorded all of the questions and answers from the past gazillion times they "played" the game. These cheaters always won the game thanks to their magic book and not their memory. Cheaters, cheaters, cheaters. Moron, morons, morons. Losers, losers, losers. Dude! Today after I finished sticking bamboo under my fingernails, a six year old kid that had been hanging around with our group decided to talk with us. The kid chit chatted with us for a few minutes then informed us the winners had cheated thanks to their book. Out of the mouth of a babe came wisdom.
Chatty Cathy sat on the opposite side of the dinner table last night virtually out of ear shot of me. Rich (1/2 of the nice California couple I mentioned days ago) took one for the team and sat next to her. After dinner, Rich looked like somebody had put a bag over his head with a angry, wet cat in it. He had been emotionally clawed for hours. Poor Rich. Chatty Cathy had enlightened him with her problems about eye makeup, doctor visits, and all grades of nuclear emotional waste. Rich was peeved and with good reason. Personally, I think we should do with Chatty Cathy what the kid said we should do with the Canadian Cheaters, and drop her overboard. Chatty Cathy would wash up on North Korea's shore and commence to bombarding the North Koreans with her stories. You might call that torture worse than waterboarding.
After dinner last night, we went to the lounge and listened to the band. A Japanese couple got up and danced a few times. The woman would bend her back almost at a right angle and grimace like she was in pain while the guy acted like The Iron Chef all business like. He would spin her round and round like she was a propeller on a helicopter. A grimacing propeller but a propeller. Deb and I got up and impersonated them and poked some well deserved international fun at them. Would you expect anything else from me? I am certain this couple learned all of their dance moves at Althul Mullay (Japanese Authur Murray) or some nonsense place like that. Good Lord, I think that Japanese couple should quit watching round-eye television and get a life.
Tomorrow we dock in Vladivostok, Russia which should be interesting. See Yall later.
Al
Last night we had formal night on the ship where big ole dumb Southern Boys dress up in monkey suits and act civilized or even grown-up for that matter for a while. We went to a "Captain's Circle" mixer where the captain got up and said some speech while we drank free mixed drinks. Now you know fully well that it didn't happen like that. But, if they called it "The Captain's Watered Down, Cheap Drinks Party", big ole dumb Southern Boys wouldn't attend. Since I have a San Andreas Fault running through my head, I didn't even get to drink the watered down drinks. Bummer. Deb drank mine and hers though. While we attended the monkey suit dressup ball, the captain introduced a couple that virtually lived on this ship. This couple from Victoria, BC had 148 cruises on Princess Cruise Lines. One of the crew told us the couple have spent the last four months on this ship. The last couple of days, one of the asinine things that we did was go to a Trivial Pursuit type of gathering. You know, the host asks questions and big ole dumb Southern Boys try and act interested, and it lasts 30 minutes and big ole dumb Southern Boy's wives get all warm and fuzzy inside. I stuck bamboo shoots under my fingernails to take away the pain of having to sit through it. Anyway, the Victoria couple without any life that I mentioned above, came to the twice daily Trivial Pursuit things with a book where they recorded all of the questions and answers from the past gazillion times they "played" the game. These cheaters always won the game thanks to their magic book and not their memory. Cheaters, cheaters, cheaters. Moron, morons, morons. Losers, losers, losers. Dude! Today after I finished sticking bamboo under my fingernails, a six year old kid that had been hanging around with our group decided to talk with us. The kid chit chatted with us for a few minutes then informed us the winners had cheated thanks to their book. Out of the mouth of a babe came wisdom.
Chatty Cathy sat on the opposite side of the dinner table last night virtually out of ear shot of me. Rich (1/2 of the nice California couple I mentioned days ago) took one for the team and sat next to her. After dinner, Rich looked like somebody had put a bag over his head with a angry, wet cat in it. He had been emotionally clawed for hours. Poor Rich. Chatty Cathy had enlightened him with her problems about eye makeup, doctor visits, and all grades of nuclear emotional waste. Rich was peeved and with good reason. Personally, I think we should do with Chatty Cathy what the kid said we should do with the Canadian Cheaters, and drop her overboard. Chatty Cathy would wash up on North Korea's shore and commence to bombarding the North Koreans with her stories. You might call that torture worse than waterboarding.
After dinner last night, we went to the lounge and listened to the band. A Japanese couple got up and danced a few times. The woman would bend her back almost at a right angle and grimace like she was in pain while the guy acted like The Iron Chef all business like. He would spin her round and round like she was a propeller on a helicopter. A grimacing propeller but a propeller. Deb and I got up and impersonated them and poked some well deserved international fun at them. Would you expect anything else from me? I am certain this couple learned all of their dance moves at Althul Mullay (Japanese Authur Murray) or some nonsense place like that. Good Lord, I think that Japanese couple should quit watching round-eye television and get a life.
Tomorrow we dock in Vladivostok, Russia which should be interesting. See Yall later.
Al
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Toilets Humor --Beijing Feb 28, 2011
We arrived in Tianjin yesterday morning then boarded a bus for a 2-3 hour ride to The Great Wall which was about two hours from Beijing in another direction. The wall was neat to see. The section of the wall we visited was constructed in the 1500s. I'm told that certain portions of the wall date back to 600 AD. Dude, talk about paranoid, this wall is 6000 kilometers (Canadian readers know that is about 3700 miles) long. It took forever to build, so it must have been a union job. We weren't in port long enough to go to Beijing. Bummer.
The voyage to Tianjin was really rocky. I actually put on a sea sickness patch. Seasickness isn't usually a problem for me, but I have worn them at times. The last time I got that nauseated was for the last presidential election as I got horrendously sick and had the patches stuck all over me, The Puppies, Deb, and the UPS guy. Night before last when the sea was so rough, we went to dinner and the entire gang showed up less Chatty Cathy who was seasick. Thanks to her seasickness, we actually got to hear Mumble's voice, and he turned out to be a nice guy. When Mumbles gets home, I'll bet he buys himself a boat to get Chatty Cathy to shut up once in a while. Last night at dinner, Chatty Cathy was back in full force yacking at supersonic speeds. While Deb and I made our way through the dining room on the way to our table, my Spidey Powers were all tingly, so I knew Chatty Cathy was near by and likely would join us for dinner. So I told Deb to take one for the team and sit next to her because the other dinner mates were already there and had left two huge spaces for us adjacent to Chatty Cathy. I kind of snarled at the other table guests as they were likely snickering at us under their breath. Dirty rats.
About an hour from the wall during the bus ride we stopped for lunch. Let me tell you real Chinese food is very different from the US version of Chinese Food. Good Lord these people must be part Thai because they really like hot spices, or maybe they just enjoy cremating round eyes. Our lunch was hotter than Monica Lewinsky near a cigar store. In the center of the table was a huge lazy susan where the waitresses put small, food platters served family style. The restaurant was a little slow in bringing out the dishes, but most of us were having fun and didn't much care. There were eight of us at the table including a 21 year old American girl that whined the entire time during lunch. Whiney Girl would rake a good portion of the food from the platter onto her plate as the dish came by her on the lazy susan and whined about not getting enough. By the time the platter got around to those of us on the other side of the table, the platter was empty. What I should tell you was the platters were small but were multiple. Whiney Girl was served first food by the waitresses. What tickled me was how Whiney Girl got mad and screamed she wanted more food and stated, "I don't like Chinese food". Well you could have fooled my side of the table. My side of the table organized then drew straws to see who would tell the communist party observer that Whiney Girl was actually an American spy. What we didn't know was Whiney Girl was going to do something that made really, really made us laugh.
Lots of places outside of North America don't have flush toilets. I know the American readers are all appalled by this so get over it. In China, public flush toilets are less common than porcelain covered holes or just concrete holes often without running water. Americans might think of Chinese toilets as johnny houses but Chinese public toilets don't have seats just a hole in the ground. I lived in Europe for two years and got indoctrinated into the hole theory a long time ago. Well, it seems there is an art to or rather a trick to using these elongated holes especially for females. I am laughing so hard right now it is hard to type. Anyway, some of the women on our tour received a lesson from the female tour guide in the art of using the hole, but Whiney Girl must have been playing with her Ipod instead of listening to the art of using Ihole. At the restaurant during lunch, Whiney Girl had visited the hole and announced to the persons at the table upon her return that she had not squatted beside the hole instead of over the hole and had peed on her shoes. Really, I am having a hard time typing due to me laughing.
At The Great Wall, Deb and I decided to use The Great Hole and went around behind the gift shop where it was located. The building looked like a little tool shed without but without any halfmoon on the door. A que of two German ladies had formed waiting their turn at peeing on their shoes. Deb and I chit chatted with the German ladies passing the time when suddenly Whiney Girl flung open the tool shed door holding her nose screaming, " ...don't go in there, it is horrible. I think I'm going to be sick. Oh God it is gross". One of the German ladies told her, "...to get over it and shut up". Adding insult to injury the German lady stated, "American children are so spoiled". Deb and I started laughing and almost peed on our shoes. OK, I need to change the subject as I am about to laugh myself into a brain hemorrhage and having had one recently is enough.
On the way back from The Great Wall we stopped at a roadside rest stop/ gas station. This gas station had the look and feel of a US rest stop except the store was filled with stuff with no Roman lettering only Chinese lettering. Some of the stuff in the store we figured out what was inside by the pictures on the package or simply recognized the contents through the packaging. Deb, being Deb, was going into the store to buy something, because Deb can't pass a store without buying something. Anyway, Deb was going in as another lady from our bus was coming out with a package the lady had just bought. The lady walked up the Chinese, English speaking tour guide and asked him what she had just bought. The tour guide looked at the package and told her it was donkey skin. The woman was appalled and asked him to clarify what he said and the guide repeated donkey skin. The woman got more upset and asked him again for clarification and the tour guide put a finger to each side of his head like ears and said, "Hee haw". The woman got even more upset then returned to the bus. When we got back to the ship Deb caught up with the woman and asked her about the donkey skin. Of course the woman had not eaten it but her husband had and said it was fine. I almost lost it when he said that. Then Deb looked at him and said, "Hee haw". Of course Deb made donkey noises all through the terminal while walking back to the ship and by now the lady was laughing as well. Had I bought the donkey skin, I would have opened the package and handed it out to the people on the tour bus, then got them to pose for a picture after eating it but just before I told them what it was. I would have gotten some humor from that mistake regardless.
Oh, one last potty story before I go. While Deb was in the rest stop resthole, another woman had dropped her sunglasses into the hole and wanted to retrieve them. Oh my, I am laughing again. The woman ran up to the Chinese workers and told them and they ignored her. She somehow got the worker's attention and they got out their sewer snakes and poked the tools into the hole. Of course, she didn't retrieve her sunglasses before the bus left.
We are on course now for Vladivostok, Russia. We have three nights at sea until we arrive. I'll update the blog in a day or so after I quit laughing.
See Yall later.
Al
The voyage to Tianjin was really rocky. I actually put on a sea sickness patch. Seasickness isn't usually a problem for me, but I have worn them at times. The last time I got that nauseated was for the last presidential election as I got horrendously sick and had the patches stuck all over me, The Puppies, Deb, and the UPS guy. Night before last when the sea was so rough, we went to dinner and the entire gang showed up less Chatty Cathy who was seasick. Thanks to her seasickness, we actually got to hear Mumble's voice, and he turned out to be a nice guy. When Mumbles gets home, I'll bet he buys himself a boat to get Chatty Cathy to shut up once in a while. Last night at dinner, Chatty Cathy was back in full force yacking at supersonic speeds. While Deb and I made our way through the dining room on the way to our table, my Spidey Powers were all tingly, so I knew Chatty Cathy was near by and likely would join us for dinner. So I told Deb to take one for the team and sit next to her because the other dinner mates were already there and had left two huge spaces for us adjacent to Chatty Cathy. I kind of snarled at the other table guests as they were likely snickering at us under their breath. Dirty rats.
About an hour from the wall during the bus ride we stopped for lunch. Let me tell you real Chinese food is very different from the US version of Chinese Food. Good Lord these people must be part Thai because they really like hot spices, or maybe they just enjoy cremating round eyes. Our lunch was hotter than Monica Lewinsky near a cigar store. In the center of the table was a huge lazy susan where the waitresses put small, food platters served family style. The restaurant was a little slow in bringing out the dishes, but most of us were having fun and didn't much care. There were eight of us at the table including a 21 year old American girl that whined the entire time during lunch. Whiney Girl would rake a good portion of the food from the platter onto her plate as the dish came by her on the lazy susan and whined about not getting enough. By the time the platter got around to those of us on the other side of the table, the platter was empty. What I should tell you was the platters were small but were multiple. Whiney Girl was served first food by the waitresses. What tickled me was how Whiney Girl got mad and screamed she wanted more food and stated, "I don't like Chinese food". Well you could have fooled my side of the table. My side of the table organized then drew straws to see who would tell the communist party observer that Whiney Girl was actually an American spy. What we didn't know was Whiney Girl was going to do something that made really, really made us laugh.
Lots of places outside of North America don't have flush toilets. I know the American readers are all appalled by this so get over it. In China, public flush toilets are less common than porcelain covered holes or just concrete holes often without running water. Americans might think of Chinese toilets as johnny houses but Chinese public toilets don't have seats just a hole in the ground. I lived in Europe for two years and got indoctrinated into the hole theory a long time ago. Well, it seems there is an art to or rather a trick to using these elongated holes especially for females. I am laughing so hard right now it is hard to type. Anyway, some of the women on our tour received a lesson from the female tour guide in the art of using the hole, but Whiney Girl must have been playing with her Ipod instead of listening to the art of using Ihole. At the restaurant during lunch, Whiney Girl had visited the hole and announced to the persons at the table upon her return that she had not squatted beside the hole instead of over the hole and had peed on her shoes. Really, I am having a hard time typing due to me laughing.
At The Great Wall, Deb and I decided to use The Great Hole and went around behind the gift shop where it was located. The building looked like a little tool shed without but without any halfmoon on the door. A que of two German ladies had formed waiting their turn at peeing on their shoes. Deb and I chit chatted with the German ladies passing the time when suddenly Whiney Girl flung open the tool shed door holding her nose screaming, " ...don't go in there, it is horrible. I think I'm going to be sick. Oh God it is gross". One of the German ladies told her, "...to get over it and shut up". Adding insult to injury the German lady stated, "American children are so spoiled". Deb and I started laughing and almost peed on our shoes. OK, I need to change the subject as I am about to laugh myself into a brain hemorrhage and having had one recently is enough.
On the way back from The Great Wall we stopped at a roadside rest stop/ gas station. This gas station had the look and feel of a US rest stop except the store was filled with stuff with no Roman lettering only Chinese lettering. Some of the stuff in the store we figured out what was inside by the pictures on the package or simply recognized the contents through the packaging. Deb, being Deb, was going into the store to buy something, because Deb can't pass a store without buying something. Anyway, Deb was going in as another lady from our bus was coming out with a package the lady had just bought. The lady walked up the Chinese, English speaking tour guide and asked him what she had just bought. The tour guide looked at the package and told her it was donkey skin. The woman was appalled and asked him to clarify what he said and the guide repeated donkey skin. The woman got more upset and asked him again for clarification and the tour guide put a finger to each side of his head like ears and said, "Hee haw". The woman got even more upset then returned to the bus. When we got back to the ship Deb caught up with the woman and asked her about the donkey skin. Of course the woman had not eaten it but her husband had and said it was fine. I almost lost it when he said that. Then Deb looked at him and said, "Hee haw". Of course Deb made donkey noises all through the terminal while walking back to the ship and by now the lady was laughing as well. Had I bought the donkey skin, I would have opened the package and handed it out to the people on the tour bus, then got them to pose for a picture after eating it but just before I told them what it was. I would have gotten some humor from that mistake regardless.
Oh, one last potty story before I go. While Deb was in the rest stop resthole, another woman had dropped her sunglasses into the hole and wanted to retrieve them. Oh my, I am laughing again. The woman ran up to the Chinese workers and told them and they ignored her. She somehow got the worker's attention and they got out their sewer snakes and poked the tools into the hole. Of course, she didn't retrieve her sunglasses before the bus left.
We are on course now for Vladivostok, Russia. We have three nights at sea until we arrive. I'll update the blog in a day or so after I quit laughing.
See Yall later.
Al
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