11/1 Wednesday

Apparently the ‘candy bombs’ were a big hit.

Today I went with Colm to Zhong Guan Cun. We brought his Palm smart phone in hopes of it getting repaired. We were also looking for some cool gadgetry.

We found a place to get his phone repaired after visiting a couple stores. The screen wasn't working, and all of the other vendors said it was broken, but the guy at this final place opened it and reconnected a cable in a few seconds and voila it worked! It still needed work, and the man agreed to do it for a very low cost. He also replaced the phone’s scratched casing for Colm.

Pirated software lives on. After asking around, we finally found a guy who would give us a copy of XP Pro for around 15 yuan, but made us promise we wouldn't tell anyone (especially the authorities!!). It appeared, because they took so long to get it to us and it was on a CD-RW with the key written in magic marker, that they had just burned the disc on some computer in another part of the building. Colm needed a copy to attempt to restore his old laptop computer. He had lost the disk, but still had a legitimate CD-key.

I bought a mouse pad for 3 yuan. It is extremely flimsy and of poor quality, but it does the job.

We found a really cool gadget that can play scrolling pictures on an LCD screen like a picture frame. There were many models but we eventually picked a Philips one because it was high resolution and bright. Colm ended up buying it, fulfilling his requirement to walk out with at least one cool piece of technology.

Coming home from Zhong Guan Cun, we went looking for an inflatable mattress (for me and future guests at Colm’s) but ended up at a camping store which was very expensive. I hardly even knew that camping was something that was done in China, and to find such a store devoted to it (it looked like a small version of a Trail Blazer) was a real surprise. Apparently there must be a market for the stuff.

Colm invited a friend to come along to a restaurant from Singapore next to his apartment building called My Humble House. It was anything but humble, and the food was really good. The desserts are all served with a steaming chunk of dry ice that is floating in water. The friend who came along used to work at Humble House, but now is working at IBM. She takes English classes near the apartment, and seems really nice.