Phil and Red's Excellent Adventure

So, yesterday - Tuesday, I got to take a look at the apartment I was planning on moving into. However, this place was like a closet. i would have had no living room. Basically, the apartment is meant for maybe 1 person or 1 couple living together with a baby. Its quite small. So i was pretty pissed. It turns out that the school I am teaching at is about 5 minutes from the house I am in now, so I told all the Bond managers that I was just going to stay in the room I am in now. I got settled this past week and I dont feel like moving.
Yesterday, I went to the school and met with the headmaster and learned some things about the school. Its quite large and quite nice. I dont start till Monday once they have gotten all the scheduals figured out. Then I got back to the house and I learned how to play Mah-Jong. It was ok. Its basically chinese poker/gin rummy. I went to the local gym and checked it out. It looks pretty nice. Gonna get a membership there. Its pretty cheap. We also walked all over the city.
We went to this DVD store where they had a few DVDs on the wall. We asked if there were anymore and they said to follow them. I was like...sweeeeet. So, he takes us to an alley and opens this door in the center of this big metal garage door and inside was literally 1000 DVDs. It was hilarious. They were 12Yaun which is about $1.50. Quite humourous.
Today, I went to go pass out flyers at a primary school for parents picking up their kids. However, one of the managers was under the impression that today was a half-day and not a full day. So we got there and no one was ready to leave or get picked up. So we had to walk back. I was sweating profusely because of the weather and I think i am slightly sick. But I headed back and tried to sleep it off. Then I headed over to the Bond Office again and we headed out to do this interview with a company, Viasystems, for teaching english to their staff. It was sorta long, the interviewers were very chatty. One guy, Norm, spent some time in Toronto and his english was quite good. Another guy, Lowe, who pronounced it with a german "w" and an audible "e" sound, was not as educated as Norm in the english language. He also had this wierd habit of flicking his tongue when he would get excited. The company is a technical company and they saw that I was a Chemistry graduate and he got happy and flicked his tongue. very bizarre. The 3rd guy, who would come and go spoke little english. I am gonna call him Ivan. This guy was a badass. He would stare you down and he barely showed any emotion. I think he was the intimidation part of the group. Very intense. For some reason, the chinese here love to ask me about who I am gonna vote for in November and what I think of Bush. I guess they need to talk about our politics cause they can't talk about their own.
After we left, we waited for our Taxi Cab for about 30 minutes. He still didnt show up, but this guy pretending to be a taxi driver conned, Lynn, our Bond Rep, into giving us a ride. So we cram into this chinese version of a Volkswagen and head back thru the industrial area. On the way we see our taxi going to pick us up...damnit. Why isnt anyone reliable around here. He got us back in one piece, but at one point as he was turning left, I could reach out the backseat window and touch the hood of a car trying to go straight. Then we were playing chicken with a big hauling truck and a few motor taxis. Its amazing how bad they drive here but there are no accidents. Freaky.
Tomorrow, the government is taking all the ESL teachers out to dinner. So that should be interesting.