12/3 Sunday

I slept at Colms place last night. I thought about going to a hotel to write my blog, but decided that it would be too tight with my upcoming soccer game.

I joined the Barbarians 11-11 A team for a second time to play soccer against a Japanese team. We tied them, but played horribly. We should have beaten them easily. It was our last match of the season, and we ended up in 2nd place in the 1st division of the Club Soccer league.

Terry came to watch the second half of the game, and afterwards we went out to have dumplings and warm soy milk.

12/2 Saturday

Today we had the Amazing Race for Cummins employees. In the competition, people are given clues to go find different locations and once there receive another clue about a new location. One team wins by making it to the final destination. The race was fun, and I was assigned to stand at two of the clue points and help direct people to the next ones.

I returned to Zhongguancun to get my phone. They had unlocked it, but in order to use it, I would have to enter in a pin number every time I turned it on.

I bought a bootleg copy of Windows XP Pro sp2 for 5 yuan without bargaining in order to install the Asian Language pack function on my computer. I had forgotten my own Windows XP cd at home.

12/1 Friday

I went to Zhongguancun to attempt to get my cell phone unlocked. It was hard to find a place where they could do it, and they said that they’d have to keep my phone overnight because it was more difficult than most to unlock.

I went to Du Xiao Chen’s house, hung out there with him, and had dinner with his family.

11/30 Thursday

I stayed overnight near the office at San Yuan Qiao, and got back to my place in the morning. Using a single 20 yuan bill, I was able to take a ten minute cab ride to the subway station, a 15 minute subway ride, eat breakfast at a stall on the street, and take a 45 minute bus all the way back to my place.

I spent much of the day talking on MSN, catching up with people from the states, and also talking to new people I have met in China.

I went to the small restaurant I frequent for dinner and had egg soup and steamed dumplings.

Finally my Construction Bank bank account is working again.

11/29 Wednesday

Today I went shopping for some warm clothing. To do this I went to Du Xiao Chen’s place where he showed me some good clothing shops. I bought a sweater, some long athletic pants, and a sweatshirt.

I figured out a good bus route to get to the subway from the music school. The route takes around 45 minutes, where as a taxi takes 10, but it only costs 1 yuan.

Later I went to do a test run of a social activity that the interns were doing at Cummins. It involved going to various places in Beijing and doing activities there such as taking pictures with a certain monument. The game is based on something called Amazing Race.

11/28 Tuesday

I went to have lunch with a girl named Wen Yang from Hai Nan, the Hawaii of China. She is currently interning at a law firm in Beijing. We went to a Cantonese restaurant and had a really good meal. We had some leftovers so I took them back with me on the bus. At the exchange station, there was a beggar asking for money, so I gave him my leftovers instead. Wen Yang commented that there are beggars in Beijing who are really millionaires trying out a different lifestyle or something. I find that hard to believe.

In the evening I went to play 5 on 5 soccer at Chao Yang Park with the Barbarians. There were about 4 tiny soccer pitches for 5 on 5 soccer near the east entrance to the park. The games are short, having only 15 minute halves. We played two teams, winning the first and losing the second. By doing this, we secured 3rd place in the 1st division of the league.

11/27 Monday

I went to see my old host family from 2004. The son of the family is named Du Xiao Chen, and we still recognized each other. The family still lives in the same apartment, although they renovated it to make it nicer and feel more spacious.

Du Xiao Chen and I tried to go out to play ping pong but there were no centers left that had tables. We tried at least three places that had had ping pong tables in 2004. They were all devoted entirely to pool. Apparently it’s the new fad.

I ate a nice meal at their house before returning home.

11/26 Sunday

Colm, Terry, Lac, Caroline and I went out to lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant. Colm also brought a long a couple who were moving to Beijing soon and were in the process of looking for an apartment. The husband works for a partner of Cummins called Foton which makes industrial trucks.

In the evening I went over to my Malaysian friend’s apartment next-door. He had a bunch of friends over, mainly fellow Malaysians and a couple Singaporeans. They made dinner together, and we ate some delicious dishes from both Malaysia and Singapore.

11/25 Saturday

In the evening I headed to a hutong near the Lama Temple to go to a Thanksgiving dinner party. It was a woman’s house named Susan Jakes who is a reporter for Time magazine here in Beijing. The party was large, and there were tons of lawyers and journalists there. I was able to meet tons of interesting people, including a woman who works at the Canadian embassy, an environmental lawyer (also a beginning squash player), and a woman who runs an abroad program for American students that focuses on kung fu and Chinese language. I also got to eat another Thanksgiving meal, which was quite good.

11/24 Friday

I called up some of my family in the states to with them a happy thanksgiving. The connection seems to cut out very often when using Skype Computer-to-phone. When I was calling Pittsburgh it seemed to cut out whenever people were poking fun at China, so we though maybe someone was tapping in on the conversation from the censorship bureau. It was probably just a very busy internet time in China, making the connection more unreliable than usual.

I posted some ads in That’s Beijing about language exchange, and have been getting tons and tons of requests to meet up and practice Chinese/English. I have already added a number of Chinese people on my MSN messenger, and talk to them when I go online in Chinese.

After the phone calls I went on a long bike ride in the morning, around north west parts of the 3rd and 4th ring roads.

I finally got a massive load of laundry done for 3.5 yuan. It is now drying on racks on my porch, probably getting filthy again from the Beijing air.

For dinner I decided to try a tiny restaurant (seats about 7) near the school. I had dumplings and meat buns (6 yuan all together) and they were delicious, especially after being dipped in a lot of vinegar. After dinner, I dared to buy a sweet potato from a woman on the street. She was cooking a bunch of them on something that basically looked a trashcan fire with a grate for a lid. When I pointed to the one I wanted she scooped it up and weighed it with a handheld scale and charged me 3 yuan for it. I had picked out a small one (which was still pretty large) and the woman started complaining that foreigners such as me who are big and have lots of money come here to buy just one and the smallest one at that. I bought an apple for 1 yuan a little farther down the street.

Later I posted an ad on That’s Beijing about finding a travel companion for the spring. I am now thinking of traveling to all 23 provinces in the spring, spending 3-4 days in each, for a totally of 2-3 months. I will take trains, buses, motorcycles, boats, whatever is most convenient and cheapest. I will find places to sleep, even if I have to pay a family some nominal fee to sleep on their floor. I am not sure these plans are very realistic, so I will consult with other foreigners and Chinese who have traveled around China.

I couldn’t finish the massive sweet potato. Maybe it’ll be for breakfast.

11/23 Thursday

I went to find a tripod for my camera. Terry has a photographer friend at CCTV and she called him up and asked him where I could get. I rode a motorcycle for the first time in my life to get there. The building that I went to was entirely devoted to photo/video, with hundreds of stalls filled with cameras, tripods, shooting accessories, costumes, photo paper, and anything else photo/video you can think of. I found a really sturdy all-metal tripod for around 40 USD.

Cummins had a Thanksgiving party for its employees in the evening. I helped set it up, and got to enjoy some of the turkey. As you can expect, it wasn't anything like home.

...

For the month since thanksgiving day, I have been very busy. I will now take the time to give you all a summary of what I have been doing since then…some entries may be short.

11/21 Tuesday

I finally told my land lady about a mysterious brown liquid that was spreading across my kitchen floor and towards my living room. She said that a repair man would come look at it today or tomorrow.

I went to interview at an English school in the Korean Town of Beijing, in an area called Wang Jing. The school, called Top Academy, is mainly for Koreans, and teaches other subjects such as Chinese and Math.

It was very hard to find, and I took an eerily-empty public bus to the stop that the school was located at. There were Korean restaurants all over the place, and tons of signs that were written in Korean.

The interview went well, and they said they’d call shortly about employing me.

I took the bus back to the station and continued home on the number 13 subway line, and then on the number 2 line to the station that is located below the music school. I took a cab from there and returned home.

11/20 Monday

I could barely move in the morning from playing soccer.

While I lay in bed, I worried that I would find a band of taxi drivers camping out in front of the school gate, waiting for my return, and I would still have no money to pay the driver I had run away from last night.

The first thing I had to do was get some money. I went to the Construction Bank again, but the ATM still wouldn’t allow me to withdraw any money. I talked to the manager there but he was really unable offer me any advice other than to wait. I decided to give up on the Construction Bank and biked to a Bank of China farther to the east. I knew the surcharge would be large, but I desperately needed the money.

After finally withdrawing money I went shopping for clean drinking water, a new phone card, and food.

I spend the rest of the day recuperating from the hectic weekend.

11/19 Sunday

I woke up early to catch an 8:50 train out of Datong, and stopped to get a meager breakfast along the way to the train station. Noticing it was 8:48, and Chinese trains do start on time, I had to run to the station and through the gate to hop on the train. The doors closed about a minute after I got on. It was a good thing I didn’t have to carry any luggage.

We had seen a group of American students at the Grottos, but hadn’t made anything of it. It turns out that my assigned seat was directly across from theirs. There were two boys and a girl. I introduced myself to them. They turned out to be University of Chicago students on a term abroad. They were all from the US, but the girl, Angelica, was an American born Chinese, and still had relatives on the mainland of China. They had been enjoying their time in China so far, but their program would be ending on the 8th of December. We talked and played cards for much of the long train ride back to Beijing.

We arrived in Beijing at around 1:30, and I caught a ride with them back to where they were studying, in the west of the city, and continued on to the music school. By the time I reached my place, it was already 2:30 and I was supposed to be at the soccer pitch at 3:30.

I rushed and got another cab to the pitch. I didn’t know where the field was, and since my phone was dead from the weekend in Datong, I had to borrow my cab driver’s to call one of the guys on the team. Upon arriving at the field, I realized I didn’t have enough money to pay the cab driver. I had to run to the pitch, and after introducing myself to the rest of the Barbarians, I had to ask for some money to pay off the driver.

I realized that I hadn’t eaten any lunch, and that my breakfast had consisted of some pieces of break and a small bottle of orange soda. I would have to play on an empty stomach.

I didn’t tell everyone that I hadn’t played in over 3 years, and they put me on as a starting player at center back. I had good confidence that I remembered how to play though. The other center back was a guy from Germany called Christoph; it turns out that most of the players on the Barbarians are foreigners from Europe and America. I had a great game, stayed in the entire game, and ended up bloodying up both of my knees. We won handily, 6-2, against a Chinese team called Snickers, obviously sponsored by the candy bar manufacturer. There was one white guy on their team and when I asked him how he communicated with his team mates, he said, “I don’t, I just score goals.” I am not sure how well that works out, but it may help explain why we beat them so badly.

We all went out after the game to a pub and Christoph was nice enough to buy me a pint of Guinness. We stayed there for a while watching soccer, and later headed home.

I was almost totally out of money at this point (I had kept the change of what one of the Barbarians had given me so I could pay him back with a solid 50 yuan bill), but knew that I would be able to get some cash out at a 24 hour ATM near the school. As it turns out, there was a problem with the electronic communication between the bank and my account in America. I was unable to withdraw cash, even though other Chinese customers were able to. I was really stuck, and I could only pay the cab driver 20 out of the 27 yuan I owed him. We stayed in the cab for a while unsure of what to do, and he was getting mad. I didn’t have any money in my apartment, and I wasn’t sure if anyone would lend me money at the music school. I decided to see if my landlady was in, or if my Malaysian neighbor was there. I told the cab driver to go back to the music school, and I told him that I would go in and see if I could get some money. He wanted me to leave my back of soccer equipment, in addition to my camera, in the car as security of my return. I told him that I would return repeatedly, and finally got out with all my stuff. I went inside and couldn’t find my land lady or my neighbor. I went into my room to frantically scavenge for semi-valuable stuff that I could give the driver in exchange, but could only come up with some food items and 1.20 in loose change. After about 10 minutes of looking, I went back down to the gate of the school, carrying a back of offerings, but found that the cab had gone. I felt really bad, and knew that I had marred the face of foreigners across the city. Luckily, I didn’t have to deal with the problem any more. I was dead tired from a long weekend and a 90 minute soccer game.

The brown liquid I discovered on Thursday in my kitchen is advancing farther towards my living room, and giving me less space to move around in my kitchen

11/18 Saturday

We arrived in DaTong at around 7:30 in the morning. Before getting off we ate some food on the train that we’d packed.

DaTong is known for being very polluted as well as extremely cold. Ali brought along filter masks for all of us, and some of us donned them as soon as we got off the train. It was indeed freezing cold there, and I borrowed a second jacket from Lac to wear underneath my 130rmb main jacket (bought this week at a supermarket). I had luckily been wearing my hat all day, and was able to keep my head warm.

In the street right outside the station was a motorcycle-on-taxi accident, and of course both vehicles were left sitting in the middle of the street, blocking most of the passage. Luckily it was still early and there was not much traffic buildup because of it.

After looking for about half an hour, we found a cheap but comfortable hotel to bed down in that night. The man at the front desk was downing some 120 proof alcohol at 8:20 in the morning. The place stank but it was really cheap, coming to 35 yuan a night per person. We got 2 double bedrooms and a triple to accommodate everyone. We dumped most of our stuff in the rooms and set out to do some sightseeing.

There were swarms of cab drivers who offered to drive us to go sightseeing, but we ended up taking a bus to the Yungang Grottos, one of China’s world heritage sites (http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1039). The bus ride cost 2.5 yuan for each of us and lasted about an hour long.

I was very sad not to have brought my camera along, but hopefully the great Buddhist carvings out of the rock face will survive for a long time and I will be able to return. For being over a thousand years old, the statues have stood up relatively well to the wind and rain that they have been exposed to. Recently, I suspect, they must endure much acid rain as well.

After the grottos we at some cut noodles, which are thick noodles cut with a knife and mixed with vinegar, in a small shop near the bus stop. I really like the noodles, but was the only one to finish an entire bowl.

We returned to the center of Datong, and started to look for a bus that would take us to the Hanging Monastery, which was located around 90km away. Unfortunately, we were unable to find an appropriate bus and hired two cabs, after much haggling, that would take us there, wait for us, and take us back for around $30 a car.

The ride was long, and we thought we’d be killed on multiple occasions as we went into the oncoming lane to get by slow trucks while rounding extremely sharp, blind corners. We eventually arrived in one piece, and were amazed at the monastery that was literally hanging several hundred feet up on the side of a cliff. Again it was painful not to have my camera along with me to capture the splendor of the scene.

While purchasing our admission tickets to the Monastery, there was an option to buy “insurance” should the structure collapse or should we lose out footing and plummet to the rocks below. The insurance cost 1 yuan, and we were wondering if, should we actually die, they would send a 1 yuan bill to our parents in the post. A couple of us bought insurance for fun, but I didn’t because I really couldn’t afford it.

Fortunately it didn’t matter that I didn’t buy insurance, as I survived the ascent and entire tour of the monastery. The structure was pretty firmly secured to the rock face, with massive wooden beams stuck into the rock supporting a couple small buildings. The passageways were extremely narrow, and we were all suffering from some vertigo as we filed along a couple hundred-foot drops.

The monastery was situated in a river gorge that had been recently dammed about a thousand meters upstream of the monastery. I am pretty sure the monastery used to be only accessible by water, but am not sure why they dammed the river. There is now an enormous set of steps one must climb to get to the entrance of the monastery.

We had another perilous journey on the way back to Datong, and made it back just as the sun was setting. You could not see much of the sunset, however, because it was too muffled by the smog.

At a large restaurant near our hotel, we all got a room and ate a decent dinner. We looked for some type of nightlife in the city, but were unable to find it. We assumed that there either was none, or that we were in the totally wrong part of town. Instead, we went to a pool saloon and played for around an hour before heading back to our hotel. We fell asleep pretty quickly after such a long day.

11/17 Friday

In the morning, I rode my bike to interview at an English School called Oriental Youth group. The bike ride took about half an hour, but I was bundled up and comfortably warm. I met the woman who I had been in contact with over email at the classroom space they owned in an office/apartment building. She was extremely nice, and told me all about the teaching methods they use, but how they are small and can only afford to pay teachers 100 yuan and hour. They are opening more branches and constantly getting more students, so she told me that they would probably be increasing the salary in 2007. The teaching methods seemed like really nice ones, ones that would be very comfortable and fun for both the teachers and the students. For example, at the beginning of every class for the younger students, the teacher leads the children in singing a western children’s song. Because of this, I had to sing at the interview, and chose Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Apparently she thought it sounded good enough. The rest of the interview went well, and she said that I should call her if and when I move from the music school, because I might be moving closer to one of the school’s new branches. She also said she might need me as a substitute teacher sometimes. I biked home and had lunch at the school cafeteria.

Later in the evening, I went out to have dinner with Caroline and Terry as well as one of their co-workers from the office. We went to an Italian restaurant and had pasta and pizza.

I then decided to go say goodbye to everyone at the train station before they took their 11:30 train. Caroline, Terry and I met up with the rest of the group and headed to the Beijing train station on the subway. They all had backpacks packed for the weekend, with extra clothes and food, because apparently Da Tong is very cold even though it is almost level with Beijing on the map.

On the subway ride, Lac told me that actually there was an earlier train on Sunday from Da Tong that could get me back to Beijing at 1:30. My soccer game would start at 4:00, giving me enough time to get back to my apartment to get my soccer kit. They also told me how much I would be missing if I didn’t come, and that they were going to see some famous World Heritage Sites. So as we were arriving at the train station by subway I decided to go along with the group. I didn’t have time to pack anything obviously, and would have to survive with what I was wearing at the time. I didn’t have my camera or anything I would normally bring traveling. Luckily I had been wearing my warm hat all day, and had my 130 yuan fake down jacket on. I also didn’t have very much money and didn’t even have a train ticket.

We asked about buying my ticket, and they said it could be done on the train. At around 11:05, we headed to the gate and tried to get through the gates to get on the train. Caroline was the first one to try to go through, and was stopped. The woman said we had gone to the wrong station! Our tickets were for the Beijing West Station, and we were at the normal Beijing Station. Having 25 minutes before our train left, we frantically asked what could be done, and they said we could not exchange out tickets and would have to try to make it to the correct station before our train left. We ran out of the station to the street and tried to get into two taxis to go to the West Station.

At this point, we experienced something like a living nightmare. It was corruption and capitalism at its best. The drivers knew that we were in a rush, and someone told them that we needed to make a train at the West Station in 25 minutes. The first set of taxis we got into wanted an additional 250 yuan per taxi for them to get us there on time. We refused and got out and went to another set of taxis, knowing we might get there on time on a normal taxi ride. The same thing happened in the other taxis, but for maybe 200 yuan. The taxi drivers were all yelling at each other, telling each other that we were stuck and that we urgently needed to catch a train. We ran down the street with our bags and hailed another pair of cabs off the street. We told them to go quickly, but before they left, a cyclist headed down from the other cabs and pulled alongside the two taxis telling the drivers of our plight. We were all terribly flustered at this point, and were yelling at the cab driver not to listen to the cyclist and to just take us to the station. It soon was 11:15 and we hadn’t started driving. Finally we told the last pair of drivers that we would give them a bit of extra money if they got us there on time. We set off and watched the clock tick past 11:30 a couple of minutes before we got to the station. We had missed our train.

We got to the station and ran to the terminal just to check if our train had left already. Indeed it had. We asked the people at the gate what could be done, and were escorted to the ticket office. Apparently there was another train scheduled for 12:15 to Da Tong, but it was running an hour late. We inquired about getting refunds for everyone who had already bought tickets, and they said the best they could do would be to give us a spot on the next train, but they couldn’t guarantee that they’d get beds. We decided to try to catch the late 12:15, which would apparently be getting in at around 1:20. The people at the ticket desk stamped and signed the old tickets so that we could get on the next train.

We all went to the terminal to wait for the train. The place was absolutely packed, and a security guard, upon seeing us, went over and roused some people who were sleeping across some benches so we could sit down.

We had been sitting for around 15 minutes when there was some commotion in another row of benches. There seemed to be an old woman attacking a security guard, and another old woman grasping her arm trying to hold her back. We watched in amazement as she grinned and spit at the guard and tried to attack him with her free arm and legs. The fighting continued with the woman restraining her friend and the guard attempting to calm her down. Soon enough a ring of people had formed around the fighters, and they were all looking in to see a piece of the action. The security guard kicked the woman brutally a few times on the shins but she kept on coming at him and grinning. We were beginning to think she was deranged.

In all probability, this woman was a vagrant who was attempting to sleep in the station because she didn’t have a home of her own, and had been unable to present a valid ticket to the security guard when he asked her for it.

Eventually the guard went and got a length of plastic cord to bind the woman up. It was hard to see through the thick ring of people, but the guard pushed the woman on her knees and began to tie her hands up behind her back. He had been calling for help the entire time, but we hadn’t seen any more security arrive.

Off to the side, a child started crying because of the commotion, and her mother approached her and smacked her brutally on the face in order to make her shut up. Of course this made the child cry even more, and the mother slapped the child again.

At long last, a bunch of paramedics came and took the woman away. They were probably taking her to an insane asylum or something worse…

We got on the train at around 1:00 am and couldn’t find anywhere to sit or sleep. We were made to buy tickets again to supposedly supplement our old tickets in order to get some beds in one of the sleeping cars. We were given hard sleeping bunks, stacked three high, six to a room, and about 72 to a car. I took the top bunk and got almost no sleep. My neighbor, a Chinese person about 2 feet away from me, was snoring so noisily that I didn’t fall asleep until around 4:00 am. I got up a few times and descended the three bunks to sit by a window in the passageway; it was cooler there, and I could watch some of the night scenery go by, dimly illuminated by light cast from the inside of the train.

11/16 Thursday

Today I emailed more resumes out to people who were interested in my ads, and received another call about being interviewed. I retooled my resume to sound more appealing to English schools and people wanting an English tutor.

I went to Xue Yuan Lu by bike to get some more clothing (underwear, socks, gloves) for the steadily cooling weather, as well as a soccer ball and two belts. I managed to get a Chinese brand soccer ball for only 20 yuan, and it was quite good quality. The clothing was quite cheap as well, and I got 4 pairs of underwear, 3 pairs of socks, and a pair of heavy gloves for 50 yuan. The belts were more expensive at 70 for both.

Anywhere I ride my bike, I can usually find a safe place to secure it, and at most shopping areas there are “bike guards”. These people watch over shoppers’ bikes in exchange for .5 yuan when you leave. I do have a lock for the bike, and always lock it even if there is a guard looking after it. When I return to my apartment, I always bring my bike in the elevator up to my room and put it on my screened in “porch”.

Upon returning home from my shopping, I went to my bike repairman on the corner and had him inflate my new soccer ball. He did it for free and said I could come back for anything I needed help with.

In the evening, I took my soccer ball and cleats to the small Astroturf soccer pitch the music school has and practiced my juggling, dribbling, and shooting in preparation for my upcoming weekend match.

I was invited to go on a weekend excursion with my friends Lac, Caroline, Terry, and Ali to Da Tong in the Shan Xi province, from Friday to Sunday by train, but had declined because they said I wouldn’t be able to make it back in time for my soccer game. I had also scheduled to have a sushi lunch with my Malaysian next door neighbor on Saturday. I told them to take some good pictures to show me.

In my apartment, I found that there is something leaking from under the counter in my kitchen. It is sort of a brown liquid and I have no clue where it’s coming from. I am hoping that it will just dry up overnight, and that it’s nothing toxic.

11/15 Wednesday

My interview at the English school in Jian Wai Soho was scheduled at 1:30, so I left my apartment early, expecting the worst of the traffic. I ended up arriving at the school half an hour early, and was joined in the elevator by another man who was going for a 1:00 interview. He had taught English before in China and I asked him about his experience and what to expect in the interview. He told me not to worry and also gave me some more suggestions for my demo class.

They had me do the demo class before the interview, and I was ushered into a tiny classroom of seven post college-age looking girls. During my demo class, I had the girls describe their desk mate’s appearances, describing noses, ears, eyes, teeth, lips, and hair with simple adjectives that I wrote on the board. I used an example sentence to set the grammar structure. The class lasted about 10 minutes before I was done, and the girls kindly pointed out, at the end, that I had smudged my face with the black dry-erase marker. Over all, the class was pretty fun, and describing other people’s appearances can always be humorous.

After the class, I was taken in to do a short interview with the woman who seemed to be in charge of the school. We talked about working hours, pay (120 yuan an hour), teaching experience, and my Chinese. The interview seemed to go well, and the woman said that I would be contacted when they needed a new teacher.

I hadn’t yet had lunch, so I headed to another building in the Jian Wai Soho complex to have Ramen noodles at a Japanese restaurant. I enjoyed a large bowl of curry udon with vegetables.

In the evening, I went shopping for soccer equipment in Wang Fu Jing. I first went to a high end place in the Oriental Plaza Mall, but decided that their equipment was much too expensive. I decided to go to an enormous Chinese sports mall just off the main street instead, and was able to find some really good deals. I discovered some really good German-made shin-pads, whose package was torn and therefore discounted for 69 Yuan, as well as some good knee high soccer stockings.

Since it was getting late, and I was in the area, I stayed over at Colm’s place. He wasn’t feeling too well, so he went to sleep early while I watched 21 grams.