Safety is always on my head!

Alright people. It seems as though I’ve refrained from blog posts this last week for several reasons. The first reason being that my camera is broken, thus, no new pictures. I figure people who view this blog are more of the picture-book type rather than the lengthy-mediocre-novel type…hell, I was, and still am, all about the pictures. I flipped my (insert omitted cuss word for the sake of my grandy-pa here) when I bought Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and saw that practically every other page had some glorious illustration on it. Anyway, that is reason number one for my lack of posting.


Reason number two is that I have absolutely no idea where the week went. I guess it went a little something like this: Oh! Hi Monday! What's Up?! I’m going to frolic all around town and- what. Is. That.

Dear world, I thought the apocalypse was upon us. I had gotten out of Chinese class, eaten a deliciously nutritious lunch in order to prepare for many hours without food as I anticipated my trek through the concrete jungle. I was zipping up my bag to head out when someone turned the sun off. I had this momentary lapse of judgment where I began frantically running around in circles in my room, wondering if I had just suffered a seizure or perhaps a mini-coma and missed out on the day. I run frantically out onto my balcony and look towards the sky for answers- welp. I got ‘em. A massive gust of wind which I would like to equate to the hand of God smacked me across the face as I watched clouds of death roll over the city.

Since I am an Odom, it is required that I put myself in some sort of idiotic/slightly dangerous position in order to watch the natural disaster that is about to happen. This basically meant that I went inside, got my water bottle, and brought a chair out onto my balcony. I had my book in hand, and had just pulled up my hair when the sky threw up. I heard screams from the frilly Shanghainese girls below, and high pitched whining as they shouted for their boyfriends to bring them their umbrellas. I giggled.

The storm ensued for the next several hours, although it was mid afternoon, I had to return inside because I no longer could see the book in front of me due to the utter darkness of hell that had befallen this insidious city (which I love). I sat grumpily on my floor cursing the weather under my breath. When I had finally had enough, I jumped up, scuttled over and out onto my balcony and began loudly giving the weather a piece of my mind.

Yeah…I never anticipated the rain to actually respond, but apparently cursing the living daylights out of a storm is a bad idea. The wind immediately changed directions, and pelted rain water at me. I barely was able to retreat back into my room and close the door in time. The rest of the afternoon was spent with me in a soaking wet puddle in the middle of my floor giving the sky an angry death stare.

So…that was Monday. Tuesday was my internship, and Wednesday was spent studying for my Chinese final that happened yesterday. After my final yesterday, I was once again trapped inside due to the stupid rain (I ran out of adjectives for the moment, "stupid" will have to do). Today, I have my internship again (I am actually typing this blog post at my internship, but it will be posted once I return home…maybe.

But that is why this week has been lacking in updates and nonsense. I will head to a particular place tomorrow to pick up a particular item that I am having custom made for a particular person that I plan on seeing particularly soon. Hint: It is for a girl, her name starts with an H.

YUP. So…I’ve received word that Saturday and Sunday we are supposed to maybe sort of kinda get a TYPHOON. Awesome. So…my plan for visiting the pandas may be absolutely squelched…but the main issue with that was I have two (three if you include picking up something) gifts to still get people, and if the weather is going to be evil again, vendors will probably flee from the streets and gifts will disappear with them. So…apologies in advance?

As for wrapping up classes and my internship, it all went smoothly. Well…I hope the next hour will go smoothly here. I spent my last day looking over two separate contracts and hunting for the disparities and making little notes…complicated stuff. I seriously hope they are not relying solely on my suggestions…I hope they know that lawyers are here for a reason…


I have a farewell dinner tonight…here is how I’m going to get there:

1. walk until I find a taxi in this strange industrial park.

2. convince the taxi to take me to the nearby metro station.

3. ride the metro for 17 stops.

4. wander aimlessly until I find the restaurant.



Total travel time? Oh…just two hours.

Dude...you are OOOOLD

Happy Happy birthday, best Grandy-pa in the world!

So…I’m sitting here in China, celebrating my grandy-pa’s birthday all by my lonesome. How does one celebrate an old-dude’s birthday?

Well…First, I looked through all the photos I have of our family on my computer. Then I creeped on facebook for more. Then I got all sad. Then I imagined everyone eating cake and ice cream and being together, and I was happy again. Even though I am not there, I know that my whole family is together, and they are celebrating the main man- Grandy.

To Grandy,

You’ve always been a constant in my life that I can absolutely, without a doubt, count on. Some kids know their grandparents are distant figures in their lives. They know them only as people who appear at special occasions and give strange out-dated gifts on birthdays. I’m one of those rare kids who is lucky enough to have a grandfather who has made an effort to get to know me.

I don’t think you know how important of a person you are in my life, and in the lives of everyone else in our family. Even though it seems I get to see you less and less as time passes (can we change this?), you are always on my mind. I’m not even exaggerating- I think about you, and wonder how you are doing, have you gone to Wal-mart yet, or are you waiting until later? How’s Buster holding up, and the like. You are in my prayers before I go to sleep, and part of the reason I can smile so easily each day.

I’ve never felt an unconditional love that can rival yours. Sure, my parents love me unconditionally, but they are also the ones whom punishments fall upon. But between a grandparent and a grandchild, there is a special, unbreakable bond. I know that when you call, no matter what I’ll be laughing at the end of the conversation, and all my worries will be put on pause for a bit. I am so lucky to have someone like you, who can see me for all my faults and mess ups, but look through those and focus on the strengths. It’s a love I can always count on, and a love I’ll never know anywhere else. You’ve made me a better person, you’ve made me stronger, and you’ve shown me that I can do practically anything I set my mind to. You are the invisible strength that gets me through hard times, and one of the first people I think about when something wonderful happens.

While it breaks my heart that I am not there in person for your birthday, I’m gonna love you twice as hard today so maybe you can feel it given the distance that separates us. And if you haven’t dug into the cake yet- eat an extra slice for me (and if you have, well…eat another one anyway).

I love you Grandy. Obviously you know that, but sometimes I wish you knew just how much. Unfortunately, when we most need them, words tend to fall short of their ability to express what we really want to say.

LOVE YOU!

Turtle butts and the K.G.B.- known to others as “Nanjing”

(yes, that title will eventually make sense)

Lalala, 4 hour bus rides are so wonderful, lalala

HI NANJING!!!

Sometimes, you gotta love my USAC director. We get off the bus, and I ask her “So what should I expect with the weather here?” Her response: “Oh, well Nanjing is known as one of the four furnaces of China.”

Great.

The not-so-purple PURPLE MOUNTAIN

Our first stop of the day was the “Purple Mountain” area. We gleefully hop off the bus and everyone has a mini-spaz session after 4 hours of being cooped up on a bus. This ranged from some kid running around in circles, two people flipping out to Dub-step music, and one girl who walked off into the distance and sprawled out on the ground.

After about ten minutes, we gathered our wits, recalled that we were “civilized” human beings, and began our march into the deathly heat.

Here’s something I’ve noticed regarding China and its historical sites. This country really loves their insanely long, paved with uneven rocks, no shade, death walks from hell that you have to take every time you want to get to some site. Seriously. Tian’an Men Square: giant shadeless square. The Forbidden City: Massive long walkway until you get inside, then it is walkway after walkway until you reach the end. Heavenly Palace? Yup. Tiger Hill: yup. Random place inside Purple Mountain? Hellz yup. I don’t even know what it was that we were walking to see, and for the life of me, I cannot find it, even with the assistance of the all-powerful Wikipedia. Shucks. Welp, it was something that looked like this:

-----Giant passageway and huge wall (a.k.a. Ming Xiaoling Mausoleum)-----

-----Take care of the lawn and enjoy the charm of Nature-----

-----Why yes, that is a turtle butt sticking out of a wall...-----

After visiting this place (which ever-so shockingly reminded me of ALL the other historical buildings in China), we re-walked the walk-of-death in the beating sun, cried that we had no water, and began the forever-long walk down the semi-shaded, mostly-not shaded path of the Ming Dynasty famous tombs or something like that.

Oh-right. I am quite aware that at this moment I sound like I couldn’t care less about Nanjing. This is a false impression. I enjoyed it. It was great. I just spent the whole time drenched in sweat and questioning if that kiosk in the distance was a mirage or a for-realz place where I could consume liquids. I’m all for culture expeditions. Don’t get me wrong. It’s just that it’s summer. It is summer and I am visiting one of the four furnaces of China. It is summer, visiting a furnace, and I forgot a water bottle. It is summer, I’m in a furnace without water, and as far as I can see, a semi-paved path lies before me, with no happy greeting at the end because I cannot actually see the end.

With that said- I shall continue. Along this pathway, there are random statues. The statues flank each side of the maybe-there-was-once-a-pathway-here path, and alternate between standing and sitting. I chilled with the horses for awhile, before going to hang out with the camels. Then I met the dog-lion-dragon creature and decided he was going to be my buddy for the next few minutes while I leaned against his flowing stone mane and surveyed my surroundings. In the distance I could see one of the boys of our group defiling a statue through odd gestures involving his pelvis. Further on I could see the rest of the group stumbling forward, as though they were slaves to the heat. I blinked, whipped the sweat from my eyes and trudged on.

-----SURPRISE! Another forever long passage way. At least this one is super pretty and shaded.-----

-----Why yes, they are weed-whacking the ENTIRE hillside...exhibit A of China's labor policy-----

About an hour into walking, our leader (FeiFei, my Chinese teacher whom I adore) informs us that we have reached the end, and a trolley will be picking us up. We all cheer with joy. Salvation at last! Water! Bathrooms! FREEDOM!

…but no.

Fifteen minutes into us waiting, we are all now sprawled out on the ground, picking at the stones like small children. Half of us are crying, the other half is whining incessantly. I picked myself up and crawled over to a dead bush, hoping that if I cowered beneath it I might be able to shield at least every other centimeter or so of my back from the sun. Silly me.

Feifei gets a phone call. It goes like this “Wei? Mm, mm. Dui. Women shi zher. Mm. SHI MA?! NOOOOOOO. Mm. mm. hao,hao, baibai.”

…I await the verdict.

Turns out we walked exactly the wrong direction for thirty minutes. Cool game, China, you got me again.

Dr. Sun Yat-Sen's Memorial

After our glorious thirty-minute trudge back, we arrive at the trolleys that transport us to Dr. Sun Yat-Sen’s  tomb site. I reload on water, murder any inkling of dehydration and take stock of the situation.

If you lived inside my head (and could hear my thoughts), this is how the next hour went: Yeah. Bring it on China. I’ve got this. I’m gonna get cultured whether you like it or not. Creator of New China, here I come! ...seriously. ANOTHER FOREVER LONG PATHWAY? Okay. That won’t get me down. No way, No way. I’m gonna do this. Slight incline of the pathway? No biggie. I know I can do this…I can do this…I think I can do this…I…When.Does.It.End. After the long pathway from hell, I was greeted by about twenty stairs. I had arrived. I MADE IT. HAHAHAHA, No one can defeat me! 

----impostor.-----

Take that, China Sun. I win. La,la,la, just gonna walk around this “mausoleum” now…la,la…

WHAT. What. Is. That.

-----The real trek up to the mausoleum-----

Oh…okay. Dear Legs of Mine, I’m sorry ahead of time. Here we go again. As I was walking up the stairs, I decided to curse the architect of Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s memorial. He had to know that people would think they had arrived when they reached the end of the death-pathway (please note: when I make mentions to death-pathways, that is seriously how you feel on them. And when I say “long” I mean, three or four football fields at a minimum. No shade. Dark stone. You do the math.) they would think that this was it. But no, you positioned the pathway perfectly so that no one could see the seemingly insurmountable stairs that await. Had I known this, I would have gone pee first. This is gonna take awhile. 

-----half way up!-----

-----getting closer!-----

Finally, my body reached the top. It took my brain a little while longer to register because it had gone into “survival mode” which is what I tend to do when I see annoyingly long or cumbersome tasks before me. Once my brain clicked back on, I looked around.

-----VICTORY.-----

Holy goodness me. The view was stunning. Off in the far right corner, you could see the distant city of Nanjing (obviously not so distant if it could be made out through the China-smog). In front of the memorial were the Purple Mountains (really big hills) jutting out to meet the sky. It was beautiful. 

After walking back down the 400-or so stairs, I enjoyed another one of those Bahahaha-I’m-so-glad-I’m-here moments when I saw this:

-----Note the confused cat and the peak-a-boo nipple. Classy.-----


Oh. I also found this:

-----"KGB biscuit"....Do they know?.....-----

The Nanjing Wall 

The Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall

-----The devils have sent the bombers again….

The poor orphans,

Frightened by the vicious laugh of the brutal devils.

Terrified by the corpses piling up in the alley

Have lapsed into numbness…-----

-----a fraction of the records from the massacre.-----

The memorial was painful, and the interior of the museum was, to say the least, difficult to get through. Not only did they display the typical artifacts from the time, but there were quotes and images and an entire section reserved to commemorate the atrocities and horrific acts that were done to women of all ages.

I am angry with how our society seems to almost ignore rape (and don’t try to tell me otherwise), and makes it nearly impossible for young girls to feel comfortable expressing the violent acts that have happened to them. Seeing the residual effects in photographs right before me in this museum physically hurt. It is sad to know the only thing that has changed regarding some men’s treatment of females, small girls and women alike, is time.

Pick pocketed on Yancheng

Yup.

I'm walking along after buying my dinner from a street vendor when I feel like something is wrong. I immediately check my bag (which is a satchel that goes along my side) and notice that the zipper is unzipped. Upon looking inside I realize my wallet is gone as well.

The annoying thing? I know exactly who did it. I pursued him, yelled in Chinese "you took my wallet", but he ducked into an alley.

This is about the time where Taylor's sensible side kicked in. Without myself fully noticing, I had taken stock of the situation and realized about twenty things at once, the important ones being:

1. I don't know what is in that alley. He obviously trusted it enough to go into it, thus I should NOT put faith into it.

2. I don't have the vocabulary/enough knowledge to hold a confrontation with someone. Had he decided to flatly deny it, what could I do? Absolutely nothing.

3. Do I really want to deal with the police in China?

3. I'm not dumb enough to keep anything valuable in my wallet.


So, angrily I turned around, came home, and set in motion getting a new student I.D. I'm grumpy about the whole thing, mad at myself, but also partially relieved.

I know exactly why I was pick pocketed. I was a foreign female, wandering around alone with a side-bag. Not only that, but I had JUST bought my dinner, so the man was able to see exactly what my wallet looked like, and exactly where I put it. Additionally, due to just purchasing food, my hands were full and my attention was clearly not on my bag. I never heard it unzip, I didn't feel him take it. I just remember a little click in my head saying "that man's movement out of the corner of your eye is out of the ordinary. Check yourself." and then I felt my mouth go numb and my brain went into "Oh dear something important is happening" mode.

Short story longer, I'm mad that I appear to be an easy target, but glad that I'm not dumb enough to fulfill easy-target status, a.k.a. keep important things on me or in my wallet. I did lose about 100 yuan, and a newly loaded metro card, but at least I am not in a foreign country with a canceled debit and credit card and no form of I.D.

Yay for planning?

On a happier note, my family should all be rousing from bed in an hour or so and preparing to start the birthday festivities of my awesome Grandy-pa!

I do believe that I am holding off until his actual birthday for a formal blog post were I will spazz-out because he is SO OLD and yet also immortal.

Until then- I love you all. Be glad I didn't pull an Alice in Wonderland and duck into a rabbit hole (dark alley) after a white rabbit (shiny red wallet).

Dear Blogspot- STOP IT

I don't know why, but this WHOLE week, each time I try to make a post, I can only write in HTML format. This means I cannot upload pictures, nor can I do anything but write words.

Thus...I'M SUPER GRUMPY.

This is for several reasons, mainly that all the people I love are gathered together, without me, or they are scattered about this world, but still without me. How 'bout this: Everyone I love is NOT HERE and it is bumming me out.

So make Grandy's B-day super freakin' spectacular, okay?

I was going to post stuff from Nanjing, and all that jazz...but seeing that blogger wants to make my life sad (although it is failing) I cannot complete this.

GRRRRR. That is all. OOOOH. One more thing:

I CAN SEE THE STARS!!!! This is a first since I've been here and it is spectacular. Not so spectacular that I realized this while crossing Gonghexin Road, and stopped to stair in the middle of the street...when will I learn? NEVER TAKE THAT WORLD.

But it was pretty freakin' awesome.

Okay, Love you all, and one of these days blogger will stop wrecking havoc on my life and I'll show you pretty things!

Fish-heads, Contract Law, and Chinglish

I do believe I have yet to inform you all of my internship. So…here we go:

I wake up around 5:30am, somehow apply make-up, get clothes on, and eat breakfast in a comatose-state. I make my way to the subway where I pile into a car along with all the other morning-commuters.

I’d like to stop and take note as to how compact Asian people are and can be. It is like they have collapsible ribcages. I am smooshed in the middle of the car, with no room to move AT ALL, like, I don’t even need anything to hold onto when the subway car starts and stops because all the other people around me absorb the sudden jolts. Then, the car doors open, and MORE PEOPLE GET IN. I feel a slight increase in pressure, and I question the amount of available oxygen surrounding me. I close my eyes and pray to all goodness that there are not more people wanting to get on at the next stop. My prayers have yet to be answered.

After performing moves a contortionist would be proud of, I exit the subway car and make my way to the bus stop. I then wait for the bus to arrive, hop on and enjoy a ride full of honking, sudden stops, random yelling and questionable driving maneuvers. After I see my life flash before my eyes several hundred times, I finally arrive at my destination. The time is now 9am.

I follow the green brick road until it leads me into work (you have to walk on the green path, no matter where you go. It hugs the buildings and makes you take about five minutes to clear a distance of 100 feet due to all the zigzagging, but it was recently created because some machinery decided to run over a worker…woopsies) and head up the stairs to turn on my computer.

So that is how my day starts, and it ends the same way but in reverse order. Now then, for what happens at work:

Dear everyone, I am not a contract lawyer. I do not know how to ensure a company’s rights are properly protected. I am not a real person yet. I do not have a degree which proclaims that I successfully attended classes for four years, thus translating into my only credible skill- that I can attend work regularly as well. Yet, everyone at my internship seems to believe that because English is my native language, I know everything.

So you can grasp what I do each day I am there, let me briefly mention how my first day at work went: Oh hi! Yup, I know English. Yup, I can tell that you don’t. I guess I can help teach your IS Department English as well. Oh…you want me to read over this 30 page contract? Well…okay. You want me to ensure your intellectual property rights are protected? …sure…because you don't need a professional to do that or anything...you want me to meet with Microsoft’s lawyers? Eh…what. Oh dear…oh deary me.

And that was all before lunch.

Ah, yes- Lunchtime. So, I follow the green-brick road to the cafeteria, where I put my badge over this little scanner, it beeps meaning “you have successfully earned a lunch today.” I then watch as a lunch lady takes a metal tray from a stack, and smacks 5 different blobs of “food”, one fish head, and some rice onto it, and hands it back to me. I steal a banana and a tea and sit down. Little to be said, I eat about 2 of the 5 blobs, none of the meats, and a little of the rice.

Periodically, when I look up I have the pleasure of noticing practically everyone else's eyes staring at me. Yes, white girl eat food. I keep my banana for the bus ride back when I will inevitably feel like passing out due to hunger.

Back to my work area, where the day proceeds in an equally spastic manner as before lunch, where everyone assumes I can do just about anything as long as English is involved.

. . .

So…that’s my internship. A whole lot of English teaching, and a heck of a lot of editing formal documents, and between 4 and 5 hours of commuting each day. Yup.

Suzhou "For the sake of life!"

Whoa dang. I thought South Carolina was muggy until I met Shanghai. Well…I have now realized that China still holds gloriously obnoxious weather surprises for me to discover. Suzhou wins the “Can I Actually Breathe Here?” Game, hands down.

Apart from questioning death every step of the way, my trip was entertaining to say the least. I’m kind of bummed that I experienced the most awesome place China has (in my opinion) within the first week of my trip. You all remember the water village with the beautiful photos of absolute awesomeness? Yeah…I miss that place. No other location has lived up to it. BUT- Suzhou is nice for its own nonsense, which I will now blab on and on about:

The day began with me stumbling out of bed (I feel like most days start this way…)- oh! PAUSE. I have to tell you all about this CRAZY dream I had…first of all, NEVER NAP IN CHINA. I swear- each time I awake thinking, OH HELL NO IM NEVER DOING THAT AGAIN…then, the next day I’m all like “eh…maybe it won’t happen again?”… Each time I have taken a nap during the day, I’ve dreamed of horrific things happening or being done to my teeth. I looked it up on some “Let Me Tell You All About What Your Psychotic Dreams Mean” website and dreams about teeth apparently mean that I am self- conscious about my appearance…eh? I’M IN CHINA. The last thing I’m thinking about is how I look. Goodness. BUT- apparently I am freakishly self-conscious given the dream I am about to retell: So…I am wandering around in the world of Alice in Wonderland meets post-apocalyptic construction site, trying to find books. Even when the world ends, I have priorities okay? I meet up with Dream Family (not Dream as in, ohhhh you are the bestest ever- dream as in…are you for real or are you going to morph into a gopher?) and they shove this contraption into my mouth. Awesome. Apparently I need my jaw stretched and this thing makes it so my mouth opens super wide, and I have no hopes of shutting it. Yay life. When they take the contraption out, my teeth begin trying to rearrange themselves- yet they do this by cracking, shattering, and popping out of my mouth. I am doubled over in dream-pain (a.k.a. lots of pressure and weird feelings), as little shards of teeth sprinkle down to the ground. Best part of the day-mare? I look up to see the crazy rabbit from Alice in Wonderland pointing and chuckling at me. Also, all the houses in the background keep sinking into the earth and resurfacing…Sometimes I wonder what drugs would be like if this is what my brain comes up with on a normal day…

Okay…Suzhou time!

First of all, how to pronounce Suzhou à “Sue- joe”. Tada!

Bumpy bumpy bus ride…oh look! An ungodly massive water tower. Who said China was running out of water? Lies.

-----Giant water tower. Do you see all those stairs?-----

The Humble Administrator’s Garden

Get this: I looked up this place in Wikipedia so that maybe I’d have some facts to tell you all…the first line states “it is the largest garden in Suzhou and generally considered the finest garden in southern China.” ...Quite humble if you ask me. So basically, the history of this garden is that it belonged to, you guessed it, an administrator in China. He was all like “I’m gonna retire now, and all I want is to chill in my massive garden.” So, that’s what he did. Eventually he keeled over and his son took control of the place, but acting how most rich, spoiled kids act today, he lost the garden due to gambling debts.

Jerk.

Eventually it got back into the hands of the Chinese government, and they turned it into a tourist spot (to squeeze all the money out of it that they could). So, let me tell you about my adventure through the humble wilderness…

First, an Asian child spots Romelle (a large black man)…Romelle and small Asian child have a stare-off, where the child simply stands and points with a facial expression a mix of sheer “WHAT IS THAT?!” and horror, while Romelle sits there and laughs. After the mother fears for her child’s life and whisks him away, we continue onward into the labyrinth over teeny-tiny bridges and around ponds, up through rocky passageways and down into the dark depths of- well…reverse rocky passageways?

-----Romelle dueling a small child.-----

As we are wandering, I see off in the distance a vague blue shape upon a high rock. I decide to investigate. Turns out some kid decided that the ideal study place is perched on top of a massive rock in the middle of a bustling tourist destination. But of course. This makes perfect sense.

-----Studying Asian.-----

There were so many people everywhere that it was near to impossible to get a picture without a person in it, so eventually I gave up and started taking pictures of the people and having my own picture taken. Generally I fight my way through the crowds to get a solid picture, but I guess I’ve grown more accepting and “Chinese” and now just sort of go with the flow and not question things. DEPRESSING. Honestly, this was the day after my fight home from work, and I was exhausted…CHINA WILL NOT WIN. Fear not, my mentality is as stubborn as always (some of you may sigh or say “well…shucks”, but shut up and deal. I’m an Odom, after all).

-----Me with others in the group-----

-----Me and a building. Wow.-----

Oh yeah, I also saw this river thing:

-----River.-----

Eventually we resurfaced from the humid-death-trap, and piled back onto the bus to wander on over (after making a detour for lunch) to a silk-making factory.

Suzhou Silk Factory

So…I learned how silk is made. Yup. It is actually kind of crazy how much work goes into it. I completely understand why silk is super expensive now- daaang that stuff takes forever to make. Short summary?

1. Find worm. Make worm eat mulberry bush.

2. Make worm want to not be worm anymore.

3. Worm makes cocoon because it is sad with life.

4. Boil cocoons. Worm subsequently dies due to evil human intervention.

5. weed out bad cocoons. Steam good cocoons.

6. Start to unravel super tiny silk thread from one cocoon, combine with five others. Insert into machine.

7. Machine twists the 6 silk threads together to get one “for-real” thread. Near to impossible to break- I tried.

8. I sort of got side-tracked by something shiny in the corner during this phase of the explanation…

-----Pulling silk thread.-----

Then he went on to show us how you make the stuffing to pillows or comforters:

1. Wet cocoon. Pull out sad, dead worm. Stretch cocoon to create “single-ply” cloth-thing.

2. Wet single-ply cloth-thing. Stretch single ply on arch-thingy. Do steps 1-2 6 times.

3. Take this 6-ply arch-thingy, and stretch over larger arch-thingy. Do this 6 times.

4. Take this, and stretch out once, to be the size of a comforter. Do this 400 times.

5. You now have a silk comforter’s inside-ness.

Yup…also apparently they put the silk worm’s poop inside the pillow because they think it is good aromatherapy. Surprise!

Upon leaving, I was admiring the silk clothing on the mannequins when I was accosted by this one:

-----Mannequin from hell.-----

Tiger Hill

So, Wikipedia claims that Tiger Hill got its name because it looks like a crouching tiger. What. Whoever wrote this article has apparently never seen the GIANT TOWER on the hill…so much for “crouching”…

In actuality, or, mythology, or ancient story-time, or whatever there’s a dude, Wu King Helu, buried on the hill, and apparently three days after his burial a white tiger showed up out of nowhere and decided to chill on the guy’s grave for awhile.

Okay, Wikipedia needs an overhaul on this one. It also goes off on a tangent to claim that some great Jin master “traded his calligraphy for lovable geese”…what this has to do with Tiger Hill, or dead buried guy, I have no idea. All I do know is that they cannot uncover the dead-dude’s tomb because the critical rock to open the tomb is also the rock holding up the giant tower- a tower that has been standing for over 1,000 years and is also known as the “second leaning tower” in the world (probably also the only other leaning tower…everyone else fixed theirs.)

So, basically, we have a lot of rocks. One famous rock called the “Sword-Testing Rock”…you test swords there. Another giant rock called “Thousand People’s Rock”…you put people there. There is also this pond, dubbed Sword Pond because it is claimed that 3000 swords are buried under the pond, but this legend cannot, once again, become known because of that darned leaning Pagoda being so finicky with its foundation. Honestly, I think we can blame all of this on the architect who decided to stick the pagoda on all of this cool and mysterious nonsense. For the second time in this post- Jerk.

-----Leaning pagoda-----

But this place did have some awesome signs…Get ready for this!

-----Please Don't Climb Trees and Pick flowers for the sake of life-----

-----Loving care cultural relic Please do not climb up-----

-----Fire off in scenic spots!-----

-----You care for the lawn is appreciated.-----

-----Protection cultural relic Surmounts the danger-----

-----Boundless Clouds-----

-----Only in the Sun of Civilization Can Trees Maintain Evergreen-----

After all that philosophizing, I think I'm going to go to sleep...