Library Days, Korean Buffet

It seems I am a little behind, but the past two days do not really merit a detailed account. Each morning I mean to get to the library when it opened at 9 and instead arrived closer to 10, wandered around lamenting that only half the magic rooms were open, settled down for some quality time with journals or other people's dissertations, and got kicked out at 12.

Yesterday I had a heavy lunch of knife-cut noodles and then went back to the Haidian book city. There I walked all over, made a few purchases, and discovered this superb sign at the bag-check place. Rare for me, I asked before photographing. I guess it was the security guard standing right behind me, combined with the content of the sign. Who knows what's a crime around here?! They assented but looked very puzzled. I explained that the sign was very funny. This did nothing to alleviate their puzzlement.

I got thoroughly tired out at the book city, so I went straight home afterwards and stayed there, making myself a decent if not expecially inspired tofu and greens dinner. I had the corn yoghurt I had bought for a post on CvB, or as much of it as I could bear.

Today I skipped lunch because it was so hot out. It is still high 80s here every afternoon. I just had a popsicle instead, a big chocolate and ice-cream one, a cheaper Haagen-daz. I walked all around, looking for the used bookstores LGs had told me about, but I didn't find any. I guess I have to be shown rather than directed. Then I made the long walk home, mailing some things at the post office on the way. I listened all the while to, first, Lolita, then Colin's lecture on Pascal's Wager. A weird combination but it works for me.

I did some work in the afternoon, and also did some napping. Found a kind of obscure article from the 1950s that I think would be of great interest to Professor LGs, and made a summary of it. Now how to translate that summary into Chinese…. I also did some sleeping, and watched a TV series based on Pu Songling's "Strange Tales." I have read almost all the famous ones, so I could sort of see where some of the story came from, but they took QUITE a lot of liberties. My Chinese comprehension is good enough that watching TV is becoming quite enjoyable and not really frustrating at all.

By five I was very hungry, so I went down intending to have pulled noodles. Surprise! The next-door food-court was entirely closed for the whole week. I was very happy to think that my noodle-chef had a good long vacation. He works seven days a week, usually, so he must really enjoy the down-time. I wonder what he does?

So I had to find somewhere else to eat dinner. I walked in a new direction. I saw a lot of deserted restaurants. I saw one second-floor restaurant that was full of people and brightness through the glass, so I went straight up the stairs. One thing about being suddenly (temporarily) upper middle-class is that you don't have to worry if a restaurant's too expensive. So what--you spend $5 instead of $2. That's exactly what I did. It turned out to be an all-you-can-eat grill it yourself Korean barbecue buffet. An endless array of raw meats and seafoods, interspersed with some slices of squash and onions and hot-peppers that I accidentally took for bell-peppers. Oops!

There were also buffets of Korean appetizers and tiny bebimbops in stone bowls that you could heat up yourself over little gas flames and other treats like steamed dumplings and desserts. There were juices made specially dilute so they were actually refreshing and not sweet: I tried melon (green), apple (with bits of apple), and banana/coconut. The latter was weird but very helpful in soothing the hot-pepper burn. And there was a huge fruit buffet, complete with tomatoes doused in sugar. Korean for sure. I ate three persimmons. A rare day!

I talked to the people at the next table, and to a friendly waiter who asked for my e-mail address. He was really really young, so I'm hoping he just wanted to practice English rather than hitting on me. But I didn't get a creepy feeling from him as I had from the freak the other day. He was perfectly polite, so I thought it wouldn't do any harm to give him the address I use for lists and potential junk-mail.

I ate a lot! For 39 RMB, I had all the meat I could possibly eat, and desserts and fruits. I could have got rip roaring drunk too if I'd wanted to because alcohol was included--beer and also harder stuff, mysterious little bottles of soju?--making it potentially the cheapest bar in the city, except that everyone (me included) was too distracted by the yummy food to go for drinks. Also, for me, it's no fun drinking alone. But I will absolutely definitely take mum and dad here when they come. It was a really fun lively friendly place.

Back at home, I contemplated Queequeg's weird basking habits. He climbs up onto the plate and falls sound asleep. He dries out. He gets so dry that his eyes won't even open. Also he's asleep. As a result of these two factors, he doesn't notice me coming. Sometimes Yojo climbs onto the plate too but he never falls asleep. He leaps into the water the minute he perceives me. Even Yojo leaping into the water doesn't wake up Queequeg. Sometimes I pour cool water over Queequeg to rehydrate him. I'm afraid that one day I will have just a dried-up turtle shell instead of a turtle. When I pour water on him, he wakes up and scrambles down into the water with his eyes still half glued shut.

Tonight he fell asleep for the night on the plate. I was worried about him, so I touched his shell. He didn't stir. I picked him up. He didn't stir. I was pretty sure he was dead. He had finally dried himself out completely. I tried putting him in the water. He floated. Bad sign. I moved his body around in the water. Still floating, no sign of motion. Yojo nervously ducked under some leaves. I looked at Queequeg sadly. Then Queequeg opened one grouchy eye and twitched one grouchy foot. I think it was a close call. I am definitely dumping him off his plate before bed every night.

At least he's less skittish than he was.

Sorry to go on about my pets. But these are the first pets I've had since… probably since I gave away my monstrous flesh-rending bad-tempered but beloved iguana. And that was in 2001! It is nice to have creatures to take care of. Here is a picture of Queequeg rehydrated and very much alive trying to escape from my flash photography.