William Chow's Personal Web Page

The year is 2006.

China Round 2

Wedsneday, May 24, 2006

The first thing I did early this morning is go out on to the balcony and wash the tiled floor. Now this deck has been relatively unused and is divided into a covered area and an open section. Both areas need a good scrub down but there is no running water out there. Thus why I bought the pipe yesterday.

Several problems arose. The pipe was too small for the shower neck so I decided to use the plastic transition trick for the sink faucet. It is basically using a bag to convert between the faucet head to the pipe. I didn't have any duct tape, that would have made things work better but all I had was packing tape. So I had to taped a plastic bag to the tap and taped the hose to the inside the bag. That got the water in the tube. However, water pressure was so bad, I couldn't lift the pipe up too high without it causing it to back up into the bag in the sink. So what I did is just let it run water on to the tile and I used an old mop to scrub and wisk the dirt with running water.

This cause the next problem, the water that runs down the tile built up between the screen wall that separates the covered section of the balcony and the non-covered section. This partition wall is built using metal studs. After prying at it with a screw driver and needle nose plier, I managed to work an entire stud piece away. Good enough for me to raise it an inch to make a 4" by 1" hole for all the water to run through. So now I got a way to run all that water and dirt to the outside deck. The next problem was the mop. It was something I found on the balcony. It had so much dirt in it, I think it was making things worse rather than better. However, with a few minutes of just using it a sweeper with clean water, I managed to get it clean enough to use as a scrubber.

So after cleaning the covered balcony, it was easy to clean the uncovered one. There is a big hole for water to run off into a huge man sized water trough. My concern was just to sweep the water and the dirt through the drain hole. The trough is not my problem. I will let some other worker clean that.
Removing a metal stud to let water pass between partitions of the balcony.
Scrubbing the Deck!
Cleaning the outer deck. Note the pipe carrying the water out the door.

Today since I was outside for a bit, I started listening to my huge stack of CDs and VCDs. One of the pleasant surprises are these Disco remix CDs. I picked up a few with anime characters like Rumble Roses, and Final Fantasy. I also picked up a few really smutty looking ones with women in bikinis and close to nothing on. They ended up being women dancing in something pretty close to lingerie in a night club with the stripper pole and the lighted floor and that whole bit. No nudity, but it gets pretty close. The video looks pretty similar for almost all the songs on that VCD. The good thing about these discs is that some of the music on them are pretty good. I keep hearing these dance mixes of songs in the malls and in the clothing stores. I always wondered where they find some of this stuff.

Around noon, Ami's brother's wife came to visit. She needed to use her Ami's machine to send a fax to Japan. It is her immigration Visa to Japan. It is a two page form. The questions on it tests basic math and general understanding of simple Japanese words. The last question was write 100 Japanese alphabet characters. I noticed she wrote some kanji in there by mistake but oh well, I wasn't about to correct her while the document was in the fax machine. But that is a lot easier than getting a VISA to Canada...

This afternoon, we will take a mapping mission around Hi Gong Square and the Northern Train Station, bus Station, and the North Carre Four. The train station is every bit as large as the South Station. I didn't bother getting a close up of it, but we did go inside the Carre Four. Now the interesting thing about this one was we entered by the parking lot. In the parking lot is this sign:

I guess it is suppose to be some proverbs for people parking in the lot. "The hidden trouble is more dangerous than fire." Which I guess is warning to be careful of hidden cars or people? "The prevention is more important than cure." Which is the old preventative medicine is better than treating the symptoms. And the last one, "The responsibilities is heavier than Tai Mountain." wow! I guess that one is like "The weight is on your shoulders."

Yes, all very important things to worry about when parking your car...

We also walked by the north police station. I swear this is something out of a Sci-Fi movie.

The Experimental Chinese Food Of The Day is:
Crown's "Jolly Pong"

This is a Korean product. From the package it looks like roasted oats that you would get in cereal. You look at the back of the bag and it seems to indicate that out of 100g serving, it is 3.4 tomatos, 3.7 potatoes, 5.7 peas, onion, green onion (leak), lettuce, and broccolli. So hey, it has that in it, it would be great.

Open it up, and try it out. It is a roast oat, with a distinct burnt taste to it. I can taste a sweetness like honey on the surface. But the thing that caught me was this puffy toast taste. It is good. Even better that it is actually good for you too.