LoveJY

1. You can feed certain human medicines, both western and Chinese, to a kitten – like tylenol, de-wormer, and huang lian su.

2. It’s possible to be a succesful artist and own a thriving unique/cozy/ coffee shop, without having gone to school related to either.

3. As of tomorrow, “yellow mold season” in Shanghai will be over and although not as humid, it will start to be VERY HOT.

4. Cheesepuff is the best cat ever. He likes attention but isn’t clingy or naggy, he’s really clean, and he’s super quirky.

5. You can type “7456!” when chatting in Chinese to say “气死我了” about something annoying or frustrating  (lit. makes me angry to death!)

6. Most older people regret not traveling more while they were young.

While many of the animals at the Beijing Zoo have an outdoor area, most that we saw today were caged in tiny cubicles, I’m hoping only because there was still snow outside…

It’s been such a long time, and so much has happened since my last post. Here’re just a few snippets:

This is one of the designs for the metro tickets; our favorite. There are supposed to be 12 fully functional lines + a section of the 13th line by the expo in May 2010. Today, Metro Line 1 actually stopped because of a minor collision. Traffic everywhere, no one got to work on time. Ricky had to walk 2+ miles (3.2 km for the metric savvy) to work.

The best 生煎包s that we’ve had so far.

Outside the fabric market at Lujiabang, with quail eggs. They’re hardboiled here, fried in Taiwan, delicious either way!

Ricky with 玉米 or, as he calls it, 包谷.

Lady selling potstickers and 小龙包s. We saw some foreigners eating in front of her cart, and Ricky asked her how much. She discreetly raised three fingers behing her bamboo steamers, out of the foreigners’ sight. I’m guessing they paid 10RMB. It pays to speak Chinese, is what I’m learning. Also, notice the 老干妈. If you don’t know what 老干妈 is, go to 99 Ranch. You will not regret.

Directed by Ricky. Lots being torn down before the Expo. Destructive or Progressive, that’s not for us to decide.

A cat started following us because it smelled our food. I was sad to leave it, since I was about to pick up an orange tabby the next day.

This is the little guy that I did get to take home. The lady who saved him called him 朋友, and said his favorite toy is a tampon.

So far, it’s true. We think he was feral, so he doesn’t like to held too much, but he follows and sits next to us a lot. I’m thinking of naming him 地铁, to remember this crazy metro-less day.