Once upon time, Phil woke up early.  If you don’t know Phil quite like I do, know this: ‘early’ and ‘Phil’ do not usually find themselves in the same sentence.  Phil’s a vampire, at least, that is what I have concluded in the 8 years that I have known him.  He sleeps all day and starts to stir as the sun goes down.  How he has ever held a 9 to 5 job is a miracle in and of itself.  I am forever grateful that he doesn’t glitter in day light.  I can only imagine how embarrassing that would be.

So, you can imagine how startled I was to be woken up and then told not that he was bringing me breakfast in bed, but that I was to get up and get dressed because we were taking a road trip to Atlanta.  This confused me even more because it was a cold February morning, and the only thing I ever really go to Atlanta for is to watch a Braves game.  Turner Field is a ghost town in February.  All the baseball players are either taking it easy or playing winter ball somewhere warm.  If he had told me to guess what we were going to buy, I would have never guessed it in a million years.  Phil woke up with a wild craving for Chinese lamb.  Thankfully, Atlanta has its own little China town and a massive Asian grocery store, H-Mart, where you can get your random Chinese cravings.

After a quick stop at Burger King for some delicious Cini Minnies – I would kill for one right about now – we were on our way. Instead of taking the route I’ve almost always taken, Phil decided to drive up through Clemson.  It’s take a little bit longer but it’s a prettier drive. Not long after we crossed the border into Georgia, we started seeing signs for the Pendergrass Flea Market. There were just a few at first and then a few more and then then entire side of the interstate was littered with signs urging us to stop by and browse. Since we were in no big hurry, we decided to oblige the signs. I guess their advertising scheme worked.

Once there, we weren’t overly impressed. I mean, it was just a flea market after all, albeit a large one. We walked around for a little, but didn’t see anything that caught our fancy.  We were just about to leave and carry on with our Chinese lamb mission when I asked Phil if we could try and find the pet section – you know, just to look. I expected to see kittens, puppies, and birds – the flea market norm, and I did, but the first thing my eyes saw was a cute little baby Sugar Glider.

I have always liked Sugar Gliders, and ever since I was in high school I have wanted one as a pet, but I just want to state for the record that I was not the one who suggested we buy the adorable little fuzzy. No, it was not I, the lover of all things small, cute, and furry who decided it was a good idea to add a four legged creature to our family. It was Phil who looked at me and said, “Gabe, do you want it?”

Believe me, I wanted to say yes right then and there, but I was trying to be responsible. I’ve had pets before, and even though they’re cute and fun to have around, pets are a huge responsibility. I didn’t want the two of us buying on impulse. Impulse buying is bad. Impulse buying leads to regret and regret turns into neglect.

We debated it for a while. We weighed the pros and cons. We even took a walk around the flea market one more time before we made our decision. And, well, you surely know what happened or else you wouldn’t be reading this now.

Luckily, the flea market had an ATM. Impulse buyers need ATMs . . . and well, people who don’t normally carry big bills around on them for buying exotic animals.

On the way home, we tossed names back and forth trying to figure out which one fit our new little guy the best and finally decided upon the name Quantum. It was Phil’s idea. Phil liked it because it sounded cool and science-like. I liked it because it reminded me of the show Quantum Leap.  Plus, I thought it would be really cool to train him to jump on command by saying, “Quantum, leap!”  Yeah, I’m cheesy.

Oh, and we never made it to H-Mart.  Instead of Chinese lamb, we got a Sugar Glider.

At first we were afraid we had made a mistake in buying him.   Our six inch bundle of joy weighing in at 1 ounce was a bit terrifying.  His crabbing scared the crap out of me, but later it just made me laugh.  He was a quick little devil, too.  I was constantly afraid he was going to slip under something and get lost or run out the front door.  Phil and I eventually Sugar Glider proofed the house so that he was less likely to disappear.  And like most baby animals snatched away from their mom and dad, he wanted nothing to do with us for the longest time.  For awhile, I thought he was never going to bond with us.   As time passed, he learned to trust us, and eventually, he came to love us.  In the end, we were a part of his colony.  He never wanted to leave our side . . . unless of course he spied a piece of corn somewhere.  Quantum loved his corn and he loved us even more because we fed it to him.

Cute baby Quantum.

Quantum thinking about eating a grape.

“Get that camera out of my face, woman!”

I cannot express in words how much Quantum hated our tent bonding sessions.

After a lot of research, we learned that Quantum needed a pal.  A lonely Sugar Glider is a sad Sugar Glider.  We looked and looked, but could not find a female that was the appropriate age, price, and within a reasonable distance.   Yeah, you guessed it.  I wanted Sugar Glider babies.  🙂

By chance one day, I came across a Craig’s List ad that met all of our requirements.  That afternoon we had Quantum a girlfriend.  Quantum, it turned out, was a complete saint and we never ever should have complained about his odd behavior.  Countess, as she came to be called, was completely insane and hated the fact that we even breathed.  If she could have held a gun, she would have held us at gun point and demanded that we release her back into the Australian forest that she came from because that is exactly what she was – a wild animal.   Two days after we got her, Phil was threatening to sell her.  I begged for him to give her a chance.  After months of being ravaged by her tiny teeth of death and running around for hours trying to catch her to put her back in her cage, she finally came around and decided that she would tolerate us.  After the birth of her two beautiful baby boys, she calmed down a lot.  She even thought I was decent enough to babysit while her and Quantum ran around causing havoc in the living room.  When she got comfortable enough to jump on me and began allowing me to pick her up without making me look like I had been in a fight with a thorny rose bush, I knew that she finally trusted me and that maybe, just maybe she even loved me.

One night, like many nights, Countess vanished.  It was only when I heard a slight scratching sound that I was able to find her.  She loved hiding. I think she must have been a pro at Hide N’ Go Seek in a past life.

Here is Countess with one of her baby boys.

Here she is hiding in a bag full of plastic Cowboys and Indians.  It took Leigh and I an hour to find her.  Silly girl.

Like I said, Quantum and Countess had two beautiful baby boys.  After watching them grow up, I am a firm believer that genes play a large roll in who you become.  One of the boys acted and looked a lot like Quantum and the other had the same temperament as Countess.  We were reluctant to give them names at first, as we didn’t want to get to attached to them before my good friend, Jody, adopted them, but it was a bit annoying calling them Baby 1 and Baby two all the time.  So, we gave them temporary names.  The one that was lazy and sweet like Quantum was called Corn Husk, since he too loved corn like you wouldn’t believe.  And the one that complained a lot and didn’t like being handled, we called him Nick.  His right ear had a tiny piece missing.  I am not sure if he was born that way or if parents or his brother slapped him around for being a jerk.   It was probably the latter. Jody ended up renaming them Codo and Podo after the ferrets in The Beastmaster.

Codo and Podo loving on each other.

Quantum never enjoyed spending too much time with his boys.  I guess he thought that was Countess’ job.  He had no idea what to do with them when they crawled on his back.

“Piggy back, bro?”  “Nah, man, get off!”

I think baby Sugar Gliders look like baby opossums, just cuter.

One day, Phil and I decided it would be a good idea to go back to China.  Okay, it was my idea more than anything, but Phil agreed.  The worst thing about deciding to go was that we couldn’t take our babies with us.  Thankfully, we had a good friend, Leigh, who said she would watch them for us until we decided to come to our senses and come home.

Unfortunately, fate had other plans.  On April 1, 2010, Countess passed away.  She developed a uterus infection and the vets were unable to save her.  On July 25th, 2010, Quantum followed her to Sugar Glider heaven.  His death was an accident, but tragic nonetheless.

I can only imagine  Quantum’s glee when he was shown the never ending pile of corn kernels  reaching  like a spire into the sky.  He’s probably so fat now that he can’t even move.  But I’m sure he is happy that way.  Fat and happy.

And Countess . . . well, I’m sure the Sugar Glider God is having a hell of a time finding her in His great big house.  I hope he knows to look in the Cowboy and Indian bag made in China.

A few more pictures . . .

Quantum and his peanut.

Quantum the bat – eating upside down.

Quantum’s hideout.

Quantum and Countess taking a rest in a t-shirt.

Quantum and his hammock.

Quantum eating a piece of fruit in my hoody.

The last picture I ever took of the two of them.  It was the last night I saw them before I left for China.

We miss them so much.  We’ll never forget them and the ways they made us laugh.

And we have been since Sunday, July 25th.  What?  Already?  What happened to going to  Kunming, Dali, Lijiang, and Shangri-la?  After bumming it out in Yangshuo for a week, we decided it was a good time to make our way back to Linyi.  Money was a little bit of an issue, as I thought it would be.  Plane tickets just cost too much.  And we spent too much here and there . . . I mean, it was our vacation!  Plane tickets are relatively cheap in China if you compare them to American standards, but when you are not making an American salary, it hurts to cough up so much of your hard(haha) earned cash.

Hrm . . . where to start with my 900 some pictures?  Since we are on the subject of money, how about we take a look at how much we had before we took off, and compare it to how much we have left over after bouncing around the country for 20 days?

What does a person do with 22,200 yuan in cash?  I’ll show you.  🙂

Pretty amazing, isn’t?  Here is a few more shots.

And, well, I couldn’t just let it sit there and look pretty, now could I?  Nope.

I had to lay on it.  It is everyone’s dream, right?  And it couldn’t just end there.  Nope.  My dream wasn’t quite fulfilled.

Money may be the root of all evil, but damn if it doesn’t make you happy as hell.  And what became of our money, you ask?  How much of it still remains?  Can I still roll around in glee?  Hardly.  I’ve got a picture of that, too.

Just enough to pay the ferry to cross the river of Styx.  🙂  Actually, I doubt that is enough.  I don’t know how many jiaos equal a copper coin, so I may be short.  Drat.  And for those of you who don’t know, a jiao is one-tenth of a yuan, and approximately 6.8 yuan equals one US dollar.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I have something like 900 pictures from my trip, as well as many others that I have never posted.  I still have a month left of vacation, so I am bound to have time to post them.  However, every time I sat down to right this particular post, my phone, both Chinese and Skype, rang and I was summoned or distracted.  It took me two days to get it done.  I decided to stay up later than usual tonight so that I could at least have something for my undying fans to read and enjoy(haha).  I have some errands to run tomorrow.  Phil and I met some new teachers, and they need help in finding a decent, but cheap computer.  So, no promises about how soon the next entry will appear.

My next entry may not even be China related.  I really need to post about something else – something that will probably open up my emotional flood gates again, but it’s something I feel needs to be done.  My baby Countess and Quantum deserve it.

Well, almost.  We leave tomorrow morning at 9:45 am by plane to Shanghai.  Our bags are all packed, except for a few odds and ends that we will need tomorrow morning.  We are both really excited. This will be a fun trip.  It has been a while since either one of us has been on a vacation, especially one this long.  I just really hope that our funds take us as far as we hope they do. I’ll try to post updates along the way, but that will depend on two main things: an internet connection and my desire to blog.  🙂  If anything, I’ll post something when I get back, whenever that may be.  Have a great summer, y’all, and happy belated 4th of July!

I am now two days into my two month long vacation, and I must say, it’s nice.  So far, I haven’t left our room.  All I have been doing is watching American TV shows and trying to kill people in Battlefield 2142.  So far, I am the only one getting killed.  It is a fun game, but when the people you are playing with play non-stop, they tend to be better than you. Much better.  I have spawned and died so many times that I have lost count.

Phil and I are trying not to spend much money until we leave, since we only have some much money to play with.  I have no idea how far our savings are going to take us.  As long as I get to see at least one new city/place that I haven’t seen before, I’ll be happy.

I recently finished the last book that I brought with me – Terry Goodkind’s Wizard’s First Rule.  About half way through it, I figured that I needed to order some new books so there wouldn’t be any down time between books.  I looked into having my mother send me some and I also checked out Amazon, but both had their pitfalls.  The cost of my mom buying the books and sending them was little pricey and Amazon only ships certain items overseas.  Phil did some research and found a really awesome website for me.  It is called The Book Depository.  It is a company located in the UK and they have a huge collection of books.  They ship books worldwide and shipping is free.  I was a little wary at first, but about two weeks after I placed my order, all four of my books showed up.  I’m not sure why, but they were all individually wrapped.  I highly recommend them if you are living in a small city in some strange country and you can’t get your hands on any good books in your own language.  Now I will have plenty of books to read as I sit on many planes, buses and trains!

A friend of ours here is taking off to Beijing for a job on Saturday, so on Wednesday, we all got together for dinner and massages.  Phil decided not go with us to get the massages because he hates them.  He says it tickles too much.  I think he is crazy.  Massages are great, especially $14 massages.  In my opinion, he’s missing out.  I didn’t get the same procedure that Phil got the last time we went, but I did get the ba guan on my feet.  When you get the standard massage, they ask you if you want the glass cups on your feet. I have had it done several times now, but the first time was pretty intense.  It felt like my soul was being sucked out through the bottoms of my feet.  Now I am used to it, and it sorta feels good, especially when they release the suction and rub your feet.

Here is a picture . . .

That is all for now.  I will try and put a few more posts up before I leave.  There are a lot more pictures I haven’t shared yet.

There is no use in apologizing, so I’m not even going to try.  Let’s face it.  I suck at blogging.

I will however play the blame game.  The internet here just blows.  Some days it works and other days, well, it doesn’t.  What is a blogger to do?

Well, tomorrow is our last day and then it is VACATION TIME!!  A whole two months worth.  Why can’t we have awesome vacations like that in the States?  Oh, wait, we do, but you have to be teacher.  Hrm.  I suppose possibly being knifed or shot could almost be worth two months of vacation, but not quite.  🙂

Our vacation is going to go something like this:

Linyi to Shanghai – Stay in Shanghai for 3 days, possibly see the Expo, get some good food.

Shanghai to Hangzhou – Spend a few days in Hangzhou, reminisce, eat some Dairy Queen.  Yum.

Hangzhou to Fuyang – Hang out with our good friend Jin for a few days and reminisce some more.  I am sure Fuyang has changed a lot since we left.

Fuyang back to Hangzhou – Catch a train or bus to Nanjing and see what Bo and Nashville have been talking about.

Nanjing to Guilin – We have to take a plane.  There is no way I am spending 24 hours on a train, even if it is a few hundred yuan cheaper.  Stay a night or hop on the first bus to Yangshuo.

Guilin to Yangshuo – Relax for a week and take in the sights.  Yanghshuo is mostly definitely the most beautiful place I have ever seen in China. Phil did say he would foot the bill if we stayed longer . . . so who knows how long we will stay.

Yangshuo back to Guilin – Catch a train, bus or plane to Kunming. I hear it is a pretty nice place.  It will be the first time Phil and I have been there.

Kunming to Dali – Once again, I have heard nice things and we have never been there before. It is always nice to adventure and see new places.

If at this point we aren’t completely broke, we may try to make our way to Qingdao, spend a few days there, experience Beer Street and then come back home to ever so wonderful Linyi.  If everything costs what we think it is going to cost, we are going to have to eat rice and noodles and nothing else for an entire month before we get paid again.  🙂

Okay, moving on . . . Last weekend Phil decided it was time to have a new Chinese experience.  So, we went to the massage parlor down the street and while I got a standard oil massage, he got ba guan.  Ba guan is when the chinese take glass cups, light them on fire, and then stick them to your back – 16 of them to be exact.  They suck up your skin and break every blood vessel known to man.  After 5 or 10 minutes, they take them off.  It looks something like this . . .

Since I was getting a massage, I couldn’t take a picture of the glass cups on Phil’s back, but I took a picture of a friend who did it a week or so ago.  It was her first and last time.  I have no idea how she got the courage to do it.  There is no way in a happy hell that I would ever submit to it.

And this is what it looked like after Phil had his little procedure.  It looks likes someone either sucker punched him over and over again or took a purple marker and went to town.

A close up of the damage . . .

And another . . .

I don’t think that Phil will be getting it done again any time soon.  And not because it hurt, at least he said it didn’t, but because he didn’t really feel he benefited from it.  It is supposed to suck out the toxins from your body.  They tell you not to take a shower for 24 hours afterward, but I am not totally sure of the reason.

Oh, and although this has nothing to do with vacation or self-induced pain, I thought I would post it any way.

There is an Australian in our building who has decided to turn the roof into his very own garden/farm.  He recently just added 4 baby chicks that he will either use for eggs or if they suck at that, he’s gonna eat them.  I really hope they are great egg layers.

Here they are . . .

When he tends to the garden, he lets them out of their cage so they can run around.  They run so fast.  He says they are easy to catch and put back, but I don’t know if I believe him.

And the garden . . .

If I have internet connection during our travels, I will try my best to keep whoever it that reads this blog of mine up-to-date.  I can hardly wait.  This vacation is going to be a blast!

We tried getting creative in the office with all of the boxes we’ve received since we got here.  Phil started making a fort around his desk at first, and then it gradually turned into the picture above.  It would be awesome if we could get him to walk and talk and serve us lemonade or beer.  I think I would program it with a stutter.  He needs a better name than Mr. Robot or Office Robot.  If you have a suggestion, let me know.  We also thought about putting a daily thought bubble above his head.  Strangely, my boss hasn’t said anything about it and he has seen it multiple times.  I suppose he just thinks were really strange and would rather not discuss our unusual attempt at humor.  If we get enough boxes, we’ll have to build him a girlfriend.  Or maybe an army of them.  That would be scary.

Every once and awhile, I try to get creative with the pictures I take.  The other night, after scarfing down some yummy KFC, Phil and I decided to walk along the river.  Of all the ones I took, this is the only one that I liked.  I wish the lighting had been a little better, then you could have seen the way that he was holding his hands behind his back.  For some reason, that is how a lot of Chinese people hold their hands, especially if they are walking.  I’ve caught myself doing it a few times. I must admit, it is comfortable.

It was a dreary day in Linyi, and because we didn’t have anything else better to do, we decided to go to an Art Expo being held down the street that we were invited to.  It was supposedly a big deal because a lot of high officials were going to be there.  And of course, they wanted some foreign faces to dress up the crowd a bit.  They promised us fun and food,  so we really couldn’t say no.

A caravan of cars showed up at the school expecting more than three willing participants.  Needless to say, they were a bit disappointed  that no one else wanted to brave the rain. They had me knocking on doors to see if there were any other last minute tag alongs, but there were no takers.

When we got there we were taken to a VIP room where two pretty Chinese women pinned roses on us.  Apparently, it indicated we were VIP’s.  When we started taking pictures of the exhibits, there were people taking pictures of us like we were on display.  It was humorous.

VIP Phil

VIP Gabe

If it hadn’t have been for the chair and the umbrella, I think this would have been an awesome picture.

I don’t know if you can tell, but that isn’t food.  It is jade and other stones made to look like dishes of food.  Neat.

One of the many pieces of artwork we saw.

Another piece.

I think this section of the expo was stone that had been naturally shaped and just happened to look like something we could recognize.

A naturally formed stone that looks like it is painted.  Looks like a Chinese village.

One creepy ass looking spider-dog.

Nice presentation, but I still couldn’t bring myself to eat the entire thing.  I made my host happy by eating the tail, and that was enough to almost make me hurl.

Hrm.  Nothing all that exciting has been happening lately, at least nothing I have felt was really blog worthy.  I take my camera every where I go, though, and occasionally I will snap a picture of something neat.  The weather has gotten a lot better here in the last few weeks.  It is now umbrella and belly weather.  By that I mean, all the girls have umbrellas with them where ever they go.  They don’t like to get any sun.  The whiter you are the better.  And the men roll up their shirts and show off their big beer bellies for all the world to see.  It’s pretty funny.  I’ll try to get a picture of that soon.

In about a month and some change, Phil and I will get to enjoy a two month vacation.  I know we intend to travel, but I don’t know where yet.  I keep flipping through my guide books, but I haven’t decided on a place or an area.  There are so many interesting places I want to see.  I wish we had a little more money so we could do more, but so is life.  We really want to take a trip to Japan, but the plane tickets are pricey.  And I don’t even want to know how much it would cost to eat, sleep there, and sight see.  I am sure we could afford to go, but there wouldn’t be a lot of money left over to really do anything.  Walking around would be fun, I guess.  We’ll see.

And now for some random pictures.

Cheaper than Pizza Hut.  Not as good, but not bad.

Almost too cute to eat.  Those are red beans for his eyes and nose.

It is strange.  We have a lot of water ways in Linyi, but I never see anyone fishing.  This was the first time I have seen Cormorants here.  I have no idea how they fit four boats into that little truck.

I see a lot of strange things in China, but this just about had me rolling in the streets.

You can stumble upon the strangest things in China, including cars drifting in parking lots.  The video below is from Qufu, China.  It was one of the very first things we saw when we left our hostel to get some grub the first night we were there.  The yellow car in the video did a much better job, and was actually what caught my attention, but by the time I pulled out my camera, it was the next car’s turn.  I really did expect the car to loose control at some point and crash into the wall. I love China.  It is always surprising me and making me say, “What?  Did I just see that?”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klftxpecQ3Y[/youtube]