the rest of the weekend was a lot quieter. On Sunday i went to the largest mall in the world (in terms of square footage) with hua who wanted to look for things for his new apartment. The mall blew my mind in terms of size. Imagine the mall of America laid out in a straight line with five floors. What really blows me away is the amount of shopping in Beijing. Yeah, they have a lot of people but this many large shopping centers don't seem to be sustainable.

i had my first foot massage here (place to the left). Foot massages are awesome, you stick your feet in water that boils the flesh while they rub your back and arms. Then they rub your feets and legs. All for under $10. i just need to find a reputable place by my house now and i will be getting these all the time.

the mall was so big they had rides for the kids and scooters that looked a lot like rascals that you could rent. Everyone was riding around on scooters. It was pretty funny looking. Unfortunately my sausage fingers could not take a still picture of this phenomenon. When i go back i will try again.

Saturday i spent going to the grocery store and walmart yet again. The grocery store proved to be trickier than i expected to find. It was up some stairs behind a Kodak store, not the most logical place to find it. After i got groceries and got back home i realized i had nothing to eat them in and no cups to drink from. That was the impetus for walmart.

nobody really followed me this time because i was running from aisle to aisle grabbing silverware and bowls. When i went to check out i heard someone screaming in English so i had to turn off my ipod and look around. Turns out they are trying to hype up valentines day and sent some random guy to do it at the walmart in Beijing. It was so funny to hear this guys voice, it was like David cross were standing there screaming at Chinese consumers to come play musical chairs while channeling Gabriel from shut up you fucking baby. i started laughing so hard in line that i had people staring at me (alright more people staring than usual).

i started thinking about the reverse of this, what if you went to walmart or costco or whatever in the us and there was someone hooked up to a mic that you could hear through the whole store because it was so loud and he was screaming at you in Chinese while running around some chairs. He would be taken away.

it made me pay a little more attention to my surroundings and i realized that for impulse buys they had condoms and gum. What happened to the walmart that refuses to fill prescriptions for birth control and will not sell condoms in the us? Also the condoms wayyy outnumbered the gums. They also had names that had nothing to do with sex like Billy boy and duck. How do you tell which ones are lubricated or spermicide covered?

later Saturday night i just ended up studying Chinese. i am going to get a tutor because this book shit just is not cutting it.

here is the lunch i had on Sunday at a miao restaurant. The miao are an ethnic minority in the yunnan region. They all had traditional grab on and they also dance during dinner. We decided to have a traditional miao specialty which turned out to be dog. It was basically hot pot style (boil a bunch of stuff in broth, throw in the meat till semi-cooked and eat with sauce). The first bite was a little hard as i imagined trixie but after that it was fine. It tastes a lot like venison (gamy) but one you throw it in the sauce you only tasted hot. It is not something i would eat every day but maybe when i plan on going drinking (according to woo-jin, it absorbs more alcohol than any other food thus allowing you to drink more). i would like to try it in a different style though.

this is a sad car.

music recommendation, Chris rock and Richard pryor. i have listened to all of their albums so many times that i know all the words but i still laugh. Something comforting about their comedy. They manage to make you not only laugh but to empathize with their pain. i view them more as storytellers who tell really funny stories than comedians. To define comedian i think some great examples are Lewis black, Dave chapelle, and Eddie Murphy before Beverly hills cop II.

Sunday was the last day of spring festival (almost, last weekend day to be exacto). Below are some women dancing outside of walmart.

it was also the last night for fireworks. i took some video with my camera so you can hear it as well as see it. It turned out to work a lot better than pictures. When i see you next i am sure i will bore you with the five minutes of video i took of things blowing up in pretty ways.