Shao-Kao

So this week has been more language study. I know that everyone thinks that being over here is this huge adventure and is always exciting, and in many ways it is, but in a lot of ways it is a lot of studying. There just is not a lot you can do until you get the language down. So once again, most of my week has been spent learning the language. Well, that and playing basketball. That is about the one social outlet that I have. I had to take a few days off this week because I kind of jacked up my back a little bit. Some would say it is because I'm getting old, but I'm blaming it on the fact that the court we play on is super slick and the fact that I ran into the most solid guy I think I've ever seen. I was driving to the basket on Tuesday night and this guy kind of jumped into me. Normally it wouldn't have been that big of a deal except this guys was solid (and really good, it turns out he is a professional basketball player that lives in our complex) and when I landed kind of funny i slipped a little which I think thew my back out of whack. A few days of stretching and taking it easy and I'm back at 100%.

On Tuesday I went out to an area of town that I'm going to focus on. It is only a few blocks from where I'm living but if you walk about a mile it starts getting into a village and it is a little more rural. The area just seems like a very dark place. It is very dirty and there are a lot of apartment/hotel types of places, except very run down. We walked around for a while and eventually came to a more rural section. We saw a Buddhist temple and it was packed full of people. We had an opportunity to talk to a couple monks for a while and it was just a strange place. We visited some folks that were parents of a friend of a friend and sat and got to share with them for a while. They invited me to come back anytime and gave me their phone number. They offered to take me out to some different villages for some culture, so one of these days when I get a little more language I'm going to try and follow that up.

Other than that this week was pretty low key. I spent a lot of time hanging out with the guys I've met playing basketball. They took me to lunch on Friday and we went to an internet bar and shot zombies on computers for a couple hours. One of the guys had to go to a class so I decided I could better use my time doing something else and bailed with him. We played some basketball that night and then grabbed some dinner and then went and played a little pool at a place close to our complex. Last night we I told them that I would take them out to dinner and so we went and ate some shao-kao (pronounced shaow cow and roughly translated as 'fire food'). You basically sit around a little metal table with a fire pit and a grill in the middle of it. It is great food if you have a lot of time and want to do some hanging out. I made the mistake, which I will never do again, of letting the guys order. They got some normal stuff like dumplings, grilled potatoes, sliced beef, and egg plant. They also got some not so normal stuff. We had some pig brain stew, which actually wasn't bad (except it was hard to get over the texture). We also had some some blood sausage, which wasn't good. And last but not least we had some stinky dofu. I've eaten a lot of bad things in my life but this is pretty close to the top. It smells like distilled gym socks and mold. Oh yeah, and it has hair. Lucky for us it was the second thing brought out to the table and the last thing that got totally eaten. One of the guys dropped one in my bowl and they all watched to see if I would eat it. I did and I'm pretty sure they got the show they were looking for. I almost choked on the thing but I managed to eat it. I had to brush my teeth twice last night to totally get the taste out of my mouth, and sometimes I think I can still taste it. I think the flavor is burned into my brain. I've been regretting it ever since; not just because of the taste but because I have been sick to my stomach all day today. It has been over twenty-four hours and I'm still not feeling so hot. It probably could have been any number of the things that I ate that has done it but I'm going to blame the stinky dofu.