Today I left Hangzhou and arrived in Nanjing, which means south capitol in Chinese. Beijing means north capitol and tokyo (dongjing in Chinese) means east capitol. Nanjing has actually been the capitol of China twice, first during the Ming dynasty and most recently at the beginning of the 20th century.
This is my second time today at the internet place down the street from my hotel since I don’t have to work today. Except when I came this time it was in the middle of the night and I had to travese another network of dark alleys through which I could hardly see. There was one guy picking through trash, and it wasn’t a casual affair; serious scavenger business. Respect
It’s hot as a motherfucker in this internet place and the girl next to me who’s now eating noodles has been bugging me for the last hour. She’s constantly adjusting her webcam and pointing it at me so her friends can see the caucasian that’s SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HER OMG I’M SERIOUS LOOK FOR YOURSELF 🙁 I wave and then flick them off and smile and then adjust the camera back towards here to which she reacts violently and immediately adjusts it back. Fuck it, I give up.
This afternoon I was here and I met a girl named Ivy who’s in school to learn english, although we spoke in Chinese the entire time. She understood everything I said, which was sweet. Often I have trouble with people not understanding my Chinese through my American accent, which I do my absolute best to mask. I asked her to watch the Korean movie Sex is Zero with Kim and I, but she had family business to attend to and said we should meet tomorrow. She told me that this city has a giant wall around it and apparently a large number of smaller great walls which she’d show me. Okay, cool.
I just got finished listening to Maiden Voyage by Miles Davis and now I’m tuned to Ry Cooders El Cuarto de Tula on the Buena Vista Social Club soundtrack which is outstanding. It really suits the unbearably-hot atmosphere of this place, and if I wasn’t surrounded by Chinese people I could almost imagine myself in Mexico.
My hotel is really pretty great. According to the elevator I’m on the 5th floor, but by my count I’m on the third. Maybe they’re hiding two floors somewhere that I can’t see. When we arrived Kim was goddamn ecstatic because the hotel brochure indicates that they have a game room with ping pong, billiards, and cards and chess, an exercise room, and two restaurants; one Chinese and one Western. When he asks where all of this is located they, without a trace of shame, tell him that they don’t actually have any of that shit. I almost had to pull him away from the concierge as he was completely stunned:
Concierge: We don’t have any of that stuff.
Kim: What do you mean? It’s right here in the brochure.
Concierge: Yeah, sorry.
Kim: What do you mean you don’t have it?
Concierge: We don’t have it.
Kim: WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE IT?
Concierge: …..
Kim: HOW CAN YOU.. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T HAVE IT?
Me: Okay Kim, lets go now.
Ten days and I’ll be in Thailand.