The next morning, okay, noon – Bill and I woke up to well, if we had to do a breathalyzer, we probably would have failed. New Years day was spent on the sofa watching movies and drink gallons of water and orange juice. Even Derek, who celebrated between his friends’ house and our gathering, was not interested in leaving the house. Hmmmmm? I am not going to ponder that too hard.
Friday was a better, physically. Tammy had called and asked about flooring. It seems that a couple wine glasses were broke in the living room and dancing plus glass equals bad scratches on the hardwood floors. Chris was trying to fix the damage and Bill being jack of all trades jumped right in…..Tammy and I went around town and returned some loaned items and ran some other errands while Bill and Chris went to B&Q which is like a Home Depot. The project started at around 10am and by 5pm it was looking 100% better. It was a mess. Word to future host/hostess, plastic cups and no shoes on the hardwoods equals a much better clean up situation.
Saturday the weather was a little dreary but Bill and I went out to a ceramic market. Bill bought me a huge bowl on a stand similar to a bird bath that we have set up with water and it is going to be the fish bowl. I am collecting these jade rings that are about 3” diameter that I am putting in the bottom of the bowl along with some shells that we collected in the Dominican Republic during Nicole’s wedding trip. In the afternoon we met up with Green, a property manager for JRE, to look at apartments available in Yulan Villa. We looked at 4, two of which we are interested in and we are going to back to see them on Monday. The one I really liked is on the third floor (no elevator) so I need to decided if I am willing to commit to the stairs. I will tell more after Monday. That evening Bill and I went for a few hour walk around downtown. One of my favorite places is an open air market in the Choatian Palace. It has many names to the expats: Jade Market, Antique Market, Ming Market but my personal favorite is the Dirt Market. There is a 100 venders set up daily selling all sorts of knick knacks and jewelry. Most of it is not fake, they don’t like that work, call them copies. In Nov. the gov’t came in and closed it down. No one really has the full story but rumor is that they are going to clean it up. Remember we call it the Dirt Market. It wasn’t open when we were there but it was around 5pm which may be why, but outside of the enclosed area there were numerous people selling odds and ends out of suitcases and boxes. This is my favorite place to find the stone rings and oddities. I spent a little time talking to the venders and haggling over a couple pieces, which is always a riot. By the time Bill got me out of the mess I had about 15 Chinese men around me showing me items, repeating what I said or haggling on my behalf. It is so much fun to get into these situations. Bill walks off and leaves me to my negotiating, the men are better with me and the women work better with him…now that my vocabulary is a bit more diversified the locals are becoming great entertainment. For dinner we met up with our “gang”, Tammy and Chris, Susan and Jim, unfortunately Erica and Jamie were not able to make it. We ate at Les 5 Sens, a French place that has the best tenderloin that we have found in our area.
Now we are on Sunday, Bill and Green have been negotiating on the apartments. EVERYTHING is negotiable in China. We went to the grocery store this morning and stocked up the basics for the week only to arrive home to the bird cage laying on the floor. Mao, the cat, seemed to hit his great hunter hormone. Birdie 2, was in the cage still but Tango (Birdie One) was not. We followed the feather trail and found him in the hallway. He was still alive but we didn’t know if he would make it. His wounds were minor but he is just a little bigger then a Finch, fragile. I ripped up a bunch of paper and set up the travel cage for him. He laid there for several hours but eventually got on to his feet and perched on the water bowl. He is now in the big cage with Bird One. He ate and is drinking which means he has to go from perch to perch. I think he may be okay but time will tell. Otherwise, we picked up a bunch of our BlackMarket DVD’s and have spent a great day watching movies. It is cold and rainy and a wonderful day to snuggle in the blankets and let the world pass by.
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