Well, since it may be some time before I go online again, here are a few interesting facts about China and my company.

1) Zebra crossings and traffic lights in China are not really pedestrain crossings, more like a legal jaywalking area. Generally traffic here follows the "biggest rules" law in this order: buses, cars, motorbikes/bicycles, humans. I have discovered the safest way to cross is to walk quickly with a large group of people, so that you won't be the one knocked down first.

2) During mealtimes, we have this strange habit of either a) talking about shit and various disgusting stuff, or b) describing the lives of whatever animal we are eating. Here are a few examples:

(while eating sparrows)
"Think of all those cute little birds."

(while eating goat meat)
"Hey, remember the goat we were petting just now?"

And this conversation during dinnertime which prompted me to type all this (we were having a KFC meal to see the difference between SG KFC and China KFC):

Chengping: "This chicken tastes very fresh."

Brenda: "Really? How do you know it's fresh?"

Chengping: "Erm, because it's tender?"

Me: "Aiyah, it just tastes fresh. There's no need to analyse it."

Amanda: "But maybe it's tender because it's fatty chicken."

Me: "Young chicken?"

Amanda: "But you never get young chicken. I mean, they'll be quite old."

Me: "Ok, adolescent chicken."

Amanda: "Ok, adolescent chicken."

Brenda (in her usual, pessimistic way): "They're probably just injected with hormones."

Amanda (catching our looks and trying to be reassuring): "Don't worry, they're probably female hormones so it's good for us."

Me: "Erm..."

Brenda: "Full of antibodies."

Anyway, that's about it. The rest of the conversation was somewhat less exciting. You get the idea of the general theme of our talk.

3) 4/5 of us are rather addicted to the computer, something that was not that evident until one was available to us. Brenda, especially, looked like she had struck gold and was not going to let go of it. You should have seen her oozing insincerity while asking Amanda if she wanted to use the computer.

Day 4:

Monday, I think. We met Nankun, who reached around midnight the night before. We toured bei hai gong yuan and walked around some old residential buildings. In the evening we went to this food street, where we ate sparrows, silkworm coocoons, smelly tofu and BBQ lamb. Generally I just liked the lamb. When we returned we met Chengping, NK's friend and another girl we're going with, and we ate Peking duck.

Day 5:

Flew to Chengdu. It was free and easy the day we landed so we went to a park and visited a teahouse. I loved the park--it was one for locals and not a touristy place we were all so used to. I was watching the senior citizens dance and I was contemplating how they seemed to be enjoying themselves so much. At night we got treated to this ma la huo guo by this friend of Mrs. Huang.

Ok, I'm a bit sick of blogging. Will continue another day.