Land, land, everywhere, nor any place to sit

The Tuesday trip to KTV Karaoke was fun, with a dozen people besides myself. We went to a bigger place than last time. I think the overall voice talent was down, but there were a handful of people who were good to listen too. And it was also fun when the whole room would sing to a popular song. There's this one song, 朋友, 'Friends,' that everyone likes a lot, and it's easy enough that I can sing too. It's set to a video of a team of rugby players fighting it out together. Everyone always sings the chorus loudly about always being together and sharing one cup of wine. There was lots of food again, and Kat, Katie and I tried to teach some of them to dance to songs like Shakira's 'Hips Don't Lie. Here I am on White Flag (I got applause!)

On Wednesday, Kat and I went to Wudaokou, a shopping area nearby, and bought a bunch of individual pieces of baked goods and fruit (and even though we each got about 6 things, both of us spent less than $1 US :) Then we tried to find somewhere to sit. We sat at an empty table at an outdoor food place which wasn't very busy. But a waiter came and told us to leave. We mischeviously pretended that we couldn't speak Chinese! But he wouldn't stop pestering us, so we gathered all our little bags of food and left. Next we walked past the outdoor basketball-arcade-game and went to sit on some grass. I ate an absolutely delicious plum.

And then a security guard came and told us to leave. Now, the sign on the grass forbid skateboarding and pets, but said nothing about peacefully eating some food. So in English we complained to him, 'First we tried to sit at the empty tables and he wouldn't let us, and now we can't sit here! Where can we sit to eat the food that we've bought!' His response was much funnier than the first guy's. He squatted down to indicate sitting and eating, and then moved his arms past each other in a 'not allowed' gesture, and repeated it a couple of times for us. So we got up and moved on. We had been mostly finished eating anyways. We walked away, and then back, since we were waiting for friends. When we came back the spot we saw another guy sitting where we had been, smoking. As we watched, the guard came to him... and started chatting! They seemed to be friends. We thought about complaining to the guard in Chinese, but then of course he'd be annoyed at us for pretending not to be able to.

Then Erik and Lepac arrived. We went to check out the nightmarket but couldn't find it. So we wandered on past Wudaokou, talking and walking Lepac towards her place. Kat got tired and Erik carried her. Later the three of us returned and found a small amount of the nightmarket. The police were around, so the nightmarket vendors would pull up and hide as they approached and set back down as the coast cleared. It's kindof neat how quickly they can disappear. Many lay their wares on what I assumed on the first night were normal blankets. But there are strings embedded in the edges blankets, so with a quick pull the blanket and everything on it becomes a nice bundle to run away with. Erik found some Cultural Revolution posters he liked, and we headed out. Oh, and there were cute puppies for sale!

I go to enjoy my Saturday...