Sometimes you win, sometimes you won't. Sometimes you beat the devil, sometimes you don't.

It seems as if my life in China is a constant cycle of something good happening, then something bad, then something good, and on and on. The last few days have been an excellent example of this phenomenon.
Last Wednesday night I got a text message from a school administrator telling me that I did not have to teach on Thursday because the kids were taking exams. Awesome. The next morning I slept in a little, waited until after my 9:05am class would have started (just in case I misunderstood something) and then hit the road for the Book City mall in Shenzhen. I spent more time than usual in transit for this trip, but I got some Starbucks coffee, an Oreo blizzard from DQ, a couple of workbooks for the kids I tutor, and my favorite book of all time: Gone With the Wind. I got home in time to tutor and as I was settling in for the night I found out that there had been a fire at my parents' house. Not awesome. Happily and luckily no one was hurt (including any animals) and the damage was relatively minimal considering what could have happened.
The next day I had to teach one class in the morning and then meet up with some friends at a boat show. Class was fine and I stuck around Fu'an long enough to get free lunch before taking off for the beach. I wasn't exactly sure how to get to this place and was planning on taking a taxi, except (for the first time since I've been in China, I'm pretty sure) I never saw one in the 30+ minutes I stood at the bus stop. No good. Eventually I gave up and got on a bus, then the metro, then another bus and a three long hours later I was there. Upon arrival I was tired and somewhat frustrated, but two beers and touring the beautiful yachts served to be pretty decent therapy. After a while we had seen enough and decided to head back to the downtown area for the unlimited beer and pizza night at NYPD Pizza.
Another long bus ride and short metro trip later, we joined our friends at the outdoor seating area and had our fill of English conversation, drinking games, and pizza. Eventually the restaurant closed for the night, so we tried (and failed) to find a bar to go to. First there was confusion with the cab drivers, then we were denied entrance to the only bar we could find in the area where we were dropped off. We ended up sitting on benches outside a 7-11, drinking beers from that 7-11 and chatting some more. This only had limited appeal, so it didn't take long for people to drift away and head back home. I ended up staying over at a friend's apartment who has an extra bedroom.
My own bed = fantastic.
No blanket or pillows and way too much air conditioning = not fantastic.
I slept terribly and was up way before the other people staying there, so I quietly let myself out and headed up to Dongmen for the day.Dongmen is a part of town that is absolutely insane. It is crammed full of restaurants, malls, and street stalls; and the streets are full of beggars, shoppers, and people waving advertisements for manicures, hair extensions, and tattoos in your face. A group of us had decided to meet up there Saturday to shop for Halloween, which was almost certainly going to be a good time. However, because of my sleeping arrangements I ended up getting there at 9am. No problem though, I just milled around for about 4 hours and went to Starbucks twice before my friends got there. We shopped all afternoon and when all was said and done I was moderately successful on the clothing front: a skirt, some leggings, a couple of shirts, and a necklace. Shoe shopping did not go as well. My feet are on the bigger end of average at home (9-10 depending on the shoe), but here I'm a giant. The sales girls at shoe stores openly point and giggle at my feet and a couple have straight up waved me away (it is the same experience at the bra stores...but I only go to those to mess with the salespeople anyway). So, with a small collection of clothes that may or may not fit (no dressing rooms in Dongmen) and zero shoes, I ate dinner with my friends and we tried to figure out what to do with our Saturday night. By the time we decided that no plans were going to materialize, it was too late for me to try going home (if you read my post "Cause the world turns on lessons learned" you'll know why...) so I ended up heading to a friend's to spend the night.

My new, shoe-less China outfit!

This friend didn't have a spare bedroom for me, but they do have a big screen television to watch and extra towels for a shower so I was a happy camper (a shower on the weekends is a bit of a luxury since I'm basically living out of my purse if I'm not in Longgang). I slept wonderfully and chilled there until about 2pm Sunday, when I decided it was time to head home. To get home from where I was, I have to take a short bus ride to the metro, ride for three or four stops, then either take another short bus ride or a 25-minute walk to the bus stop I use to get on the 365. The 365 takes about an hour and drops me off at a stop that is a 5-minute walk from Fu'an. Generally the whole trip should take about 2 hours. If only.

I got to the stop for the 365 at about 3pm. With a coffee and huge bottle of water in hand I waited. Now, since the 365 has such a long route, they only come every half an hour or so and if there are no open seats, you aren't getting on the bus. I have been waved off before, but I have also beat out people for seats before; I figure it's just give-and-take. The first bus drove past waving me off, and I realized that there were about 5 other people at the stop who also wanted that bus. Knowing this, I was prepared for a battle when the next one came about 45 minutes later. It too, was full and waved us off. The next one did the same. So did the next one.

After 8 buses had come and gone and many of the Chinese people waiting for it had long since carpooled taxis (something I knew better than to try doing with my broken Chinese), I was ready to punch the nearest available soft object (no use getting hurt over it); and thanks to the venti coffee and 1.5L of water, I really had to pee. I found a Wal-Mart and a KFC around the corner where I used the bathroom and got some food before heading back to brave the bus stop. Thinking strategically, I decided to see if getting on the bus one stop earlier would make any difference. It did! The bus stopped and I ran onto that thing like my ass was on fire and dove into the first seat I saw. My quick reaction was very necessary because some of the people who got on the bus were shooed off when they was no place to sit. With a huge sigh of relief, I settled down with my book for the long ride.

Normally these rides are very easy: you sit down, they say na li? (那里 "where to?"), I tell them and they buzz my pass-card. Not this time. I told her Huang ge cui yuan and she said...something. Basically she told me that they weren't going to drop me off where I wanted to go, but they would take me somewhere (presumably closer to home than my present location) and I could do something about getting home from there. I said hao (好 "okay"), hoping that wherever they dumped me would be close enough to Fu'an that a taxi would know how to get me there.

45-minutes or so later they kicked everyone off the bus, and she told me something about another bus stop and pointed off in its general direction. I got off the bus and walked to the bus stop where I was delighted to see that the stop I wanted to go to was only two stops from where I was standing. Awesome! I decided to try and just walk home instead, and took off in a direction that I guessed might be right.I didn't get too far before I saw a police officer and I decided that since it was dark I should probably make sure I'm heading the right way. He wasn't really able to understand where I was trying to go so he asked if I had it written down. After my adventure a couple weekends ago, that is something that I always have now. He called someone on the radio and pointed me off in the opposite direction from where I had originally been headed. Before long I recognized where I was and decided on a pit stop at the grocery store for beer and cookies before heading home.

On the way to the store I nearly fell into a manhole whose cover wasn't on correctly, fought my way through the throngs of people on the street, and finally made it home at 7pm, a mere 5 hours after I left my friend's apartment. I tried on my new clothes, which all fit wonderfully, drank my beer and ate my cookies (which tasted a little like meat...) and fell asleep happily listening to my Ipod.

Ironically, as I write this story about good things and bad things coming hand in hand, someone has just arrived in the 8th grade office with a huge box of deliciously sweet oranges for each teacher...and there were 4 rotten ones in there.