Tour of the city

10.01.2016

Derek had to leave in the morning, so I took a shower and slowly got up afterwards. I noticed he had not one, not two, but three blankets on his bed, the sneaky snake. He was planning on me getting cold and getting in his bed, just like the last Arab I surfed with! God!

I left and met a nice Russian lady on the subway. She wanted to help me find the "folk house", the venue for the shadow puppet show I always wanted to see. I got more lost with her than without her, however. We found it eventually and I said goodbye, because she wanted to go shopping for trinkets to bring home to Moscow.

After the puppet show and screeching Chinese folk music performance, I headed to a temple on the east side of town. It was quite large with monks chanting and a beautiful courtyard in the back. I grabbed some steam buns on the way back to the bus and quickly found the right one to take me to the Xi'An museum.

I had a few hours before Derek got back from work, so I took my time inside and headed back for 6 p.m. Derek had just gotten back when I got there, and he called some friends to go out for pizza. I was a little disappointed, I thought we'd get something muslim.

Derek took me out on his motorcycle to the new area of town, which looked like a Las Vegas version of China. It had huge pompous statues on extremely wide boulevards, complete with an artificial lake. Derek told me proudly this was the best Xi'An had to offer. I wanted to puke. Really? I had seen many more interesting things downtown. I was already extremely weary of this guy. He offered to get warmed up in a mall and I said flatly that I'd rather be cold than walk around in any shopping centre.

So, we drove to another mall (sigh) where we would meet his friends. On the way, he told me to get a job at a private children's English academy. I politely said no, I have a good recruiter, thanks. He told me my recruiter was in fact no good and I should be making more money because that's what counts in life.

"No it isnt! Are you crazy!?" I snapped back at him, almost shrieking. We sat in absolute silence waiting for his friends and the pizza to arrive. I had absolutely had it with this guy, I was completely finished. The pizza was huge, by the way, with a diameter of about 2 or three feet! I had given up caring for the night, so I just made them choose the toppings, which of course, had to be halal. All four of us almost ate the whole thing and I mostly ignored Derek, only speaking to his Pakistani friend about the politics of his home country.

They paid for the pizza without me knowing about it and wouldn't let me contribute. We went to Helen's afterwards (a chain foreigner bar around china, double sigh) to smoke hookah and watch me drink a lot of beer.

We went first in a taxi and Derek went to pick someone else up on his motorcycle, so we waited for them in the lobby for a while. A strange drunk Chinese man chimed in on our conversation about one guy's premature grey hair and ran away up the stairs to Helen's. We got cold and eventually went inside to wait for Derek to show up. Who was there do you think? Weird drunk guy. He tracked me down and invited himself to sit at our table. I didn't have a problem with that because he bought a huge pitcher for all of us to share. He flirted aggressively with me all night.

This was the first time any Chinese guy ever approached me in such a way and it was hilarious! I was glad to have someone else to talk to anyway, and laughed extra loudly all night at all his jokes, so that Derek would take the hint and not try any more tricks tonight. I had a great time and when we got home, Derek went straight to bed, saying he was tired. Thank god! I have tricks too, mister, and they worked way better than yours did.

Folk house