How to blow up an oven.

Late October means a birthday for me. This was the cake given to me. Super delicious...........looking. China I think is really good at first impressions with things.

Loida had a birthday a couple weeks later than me.

This cake actually did taste quite good.

Apparently cutting a small cake takes two people and intense concentration.

So I decided for Loida's birthday I would buy her a toaster oven then cook her a cake in it. I bought the toaster oven online on Taobao.com.

About 1 minute into pre-heating the over, I heard a loud "pop!" then went to look as the toaster oven now had fire inside it. I blew the fire out and lamented the short life of the toaster oven "Toasty."

I still went ahead and made a cake and cooked it in my own (not on fire) toaster oven.

Food Randomness

This is a vegetable market. Markets like these (indoor or outdoor) are quite common in China. A great place to get vegetables. Usually if you just want to make a meal, you can throw together some random veggies that you need and pay something like $1 (USD). I was blown away by this market because it was by far the cleanest market I have been to in China. Usually markets like this are quite nasty (because they are usually conjoined with the meat market).

This is what happens when you try to store pizza dough in the fridge in a container.

 

Fairly recently ago I discovered a buffet for 35 RMB (almost $6 US). The buffet is quite good and everyone there is super nice because I am a foreigner. When I went in, they asked me if I wanted pizza and I said sure. So they made a pizza for me and brought it over. The pizza was not that great, but it is the thought that counts eh?

In Taiwan, there were a lot of stores that sold a bunch of random stuff. I would call them dongxi shops (things shops). I have found a few good dongxi markets here in China. The one in this picture is may favorite. This is one "store" of about 15 that just sells candy. Not a good place for me to be.

Recently found a restaurant that sells a pretty killer (not literally) curry chicken. About 35 RMB ($6).

This is the menu... not sure if this is just terrible English, or if they thought another language (Finnish maybe?) would be more fitting.

The same restaurant also sells some pretty mean (again, not literally) steaks. This was 48 RMB  (Almost $8).

 

I bought pizza (48 RMB $8) because I am still on the hunt for a decent American pizza. Thought Chicken BBQ sounded promising. This definitely was not chicken BBQ. Not bad though.

Engrishish

Here are just a few random pictures.

Not really quite sure who they are trying to copy here. Apple or HTC.

Sign reads "Mexican Underwear - There is love there scarecrow." I am impressed that the grammar is correct... not sure what they mean though.

Bought a package online and the seller could tell I was a foreigner. Even thought the sender circled the only English print in the address (quite obvious where I should look) and the grammar is not really correct, I do appreciate the shipper trying to help. Most Chinese are really nice like that.

The making of an Iron Man costume

So I frequent a certain market here a lot. The other day I saw a guy sanding what was obviously an Iron Man helmet. When I showed interest in it, he showed me what he has been working on.

This is the body of the costume. The man owns a toy shop and sells other things like Rubix cubes.

Putting the head on.

The costume is made out of foam.

The hands are put together with foam and elastic.

Once the foam is put together, bond-o (or something similar) is placed over and can be sanded down .

I will post more pictures as he makes further progress.

Phone Blogging

Recently I have come to the following two conclusions:

1. I am quite busy now and don't really make the time for insightful blog posts.
2. My new phone has a good enough camera that I feel I can take decent pictures of random everyday things here in China (realizing that most people that read this blog are not in China and therefore things are not everyday for them).

With this in mind I have decided I am going to start posting more but probably have more pictures and perhaps less insight.

This is probably a good thing for everyone involved though. Less time with me writing (less reading you have to endure) and more photos of what China is like.

I think I took this picture just to test out my camera. The pollution you may (or may not) notice is basically what I see every day. The traffic looks pretty light right now. 

This is a park I walk through on the way home to my house.

Bad picture, but you should be able to notice a few people playing the erhu. In the morning in all the parks here, people basically do whatever they want; tai chi, play with swords, play instruments, "exercise," etc. Can be quite interesting.

Saw a white dude while I was riding my bike. I was waiting for someone so I went up to talk to him. Turns out they are from Springville, UT. Fancy that.

I ate here and can testify that it is definitely the best aood humbrger I have ever had!

Bonquet of flowers I put together and card I made for Loida when she finally came back to China. (Few days old... I really didn't put it together with dying flowers).

First dinner with Loida upon her return to China. It was ok.