The next morning, Jennifer picked me up on her motorbike and took me on a trip to the local Lotus supercenter. From the outside, the "supercenter" looked neither super nor like a center of any kind. Rather, it looked as if Jennifer had decided to take a shortcut through a construction site. Nonetheless, I was suddenly ordered to dismount; we then walked the moped over an abrupt change in the elevation of the concrete, parked it, and followed a stream of people past the scaffolding and into the building. Inside, surprisingly, was a mall that could aptly be described by the word "supercenter". We wandered over to the China Mobile kiosk, and I got a SIM card, or rather, Jennifer got one for me while I stood around uselessly. Having no cellphone to put this small (but valuable) chip in, Jennifer folded up one of the brochures into a cute little envelope. SIM-card-bearing improvised envelope in hand, we bid the tardis-mall adieu. When riding back to my apartment, Jennifer explained/showed me the route between my place of residence and this mini-mecca of consumer goods. It seemed quite simple at the time, but replicating this pilgrimage later turned out to be challenging.
Once back at my apartment, we gave 王磊 a call, and he came over and fixed more stuff. Basically at this point, I am able to use all my appliances. 王磊 was very apologetic that not everything had been set up ahead of time; I was not really bothered by the delay. Jennifer, however, seized upon his apologetic attitude and playfully teased 老王 the whole while he was trying to figure out my washing machine. I found the scene of a 30 year old man fumbling around with o-rings, hoses, and a screwdriver while a girl my age stood over him asking why he hadn't washed the outside surfaces of the windows of my 9th-story apartment to be pretty amusing.
That evening, Coco came over and we rode the bus to a downtown area. There, I set out to find an ATM that would accept my card and give me some moneys. Unfortunately, I had to try about five different banks before I succeeded. Some of the ATMs turned out to be broken; others were just outside my network. The most frustrating ATM was this one that would tell me my balance and then promptly spit out my card. After doing battle with the evil robot teller machines, we met up with Coco's cousin. Then we called up Sarah, another teacher at the school, and we all went out for dinner. On the way to the restaurant, we bought some snacks from a small shop: some fried chicken bits and chopped pickled spicy duck legs. The duck legs turned out to be awesome--although the amount of meat on each chunk was small, they had a nice flavor, as well as a spicyness that left your lips burning for more. Once in the restaurant, we ordered some dishes, including a specialty of the restaurant (or the area?): sour-vegetable fish. I'm not sure if I liked it or not, but it was definitely the most interesting dish we ordered. If I had eaten more, perhaps I would have formed a more solid opinion, but I find that eating fish in China is a giant pain in the ass because of the number of little bones (鱼刺) that accidentally get left in the meat.
After dinner, I took a taxi home, which turned out to be quite bothersome to hail. Every time a cab saw us and realized he would have to spend 5 seconds turning around in the side-alley, he would let off the brakes, hit the gas, and cruise on by. We solved this problem by crossing the street, even though it meant the cab I got into had to turn around anyways in order to go towards my apartment. Sigh. I think the Kunshan taxi bureaucracy must be quite fierce, because there always seem to be a far greater number of people attempting to hail cabs than there are cabs to pick them up. Oh free market, why have you forsaken me? But dramatic monologues aside, I got home just fine and promptly went to bed.
-Peter
It occurs to me that these events may have taken place over two days, as the title implies. Ummm... oh well!
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