On the eve of my Shaolin trip...
Woke up around 8am and did a bunch of remaining packing and stuff. Washing bed sheets and other things. Unfortunately it poured rain last nite and it did so alot in the morning while I was trying to dry some needed clothes. Great. I packed up my other big suitcase and harddrives and such, i took those over to Yumi's around 1030 and then i went to Normata to get my digital camera stuff. I got the junk and tried it out. I can shoot 888 Large, photos with this new memory card. AWESOME! As I was testing it out and waiting on the new battery to get some charge, they "Memory Card Error" showed up again.
Blasted. John, Violet's dad, and I looked at it and check for anything out of place. Everything seemed fine. We were able to look into the memory card slot and checked the pins. All fine. John took some electrical equipment detergent and sprayed it in the battery and card slots. I waited a few moments and then slipped the stuff back into the camera. It still didn't fix it. We looked at it again, and then I put them back in and it worked fine. Apparently the detergent wasn't finished doing its job. However, sometimes this stuff happens randomly and goes away randomly. I don't know if its fixed. I have been checking it regularly to see if the error pops up again, but it hasn't happened yet. Cross your fingers...
I went and got some lunch after that.
Love or hate Pop-Punk music, and I am not that big a fan of it, but man...its so nice to hear it among all this other crappy chinese music. As I was leaving Normata there was a little band playing some songs in the main entrance area. Neato. It was refreshing to see people actually play music instead of do Karaoke.
As I was eating, Owen called me and said that I needed to pay my internet/water/electricity bill. I was like, "DAMNIT! I thought I was gonna get away before they realized I didn't pay my bills." I went to the office after eating and chatted with Owen. He was filling out the form and I am like, "How much do I owe" he was like 150rmb, and I was like, "Owen, you're busting my balls, buddy. Whats with this?....Busting my balls, man. Busting my balls." He had never heard this phrase before and he asked what I was saying. So I taught him what it meant. And he laughed. I told him, "You know, when Gary comes to the office and does nothing but play with himself and says, 'Owen, go to the big House, then buy some stuff for the office, then take this to the new school, and then register 40 kids for a summer camp by yourself while I sit in here and do nothing...." you say... 'Stop busting my balls, Gary!'" Owen understood after that. He was laughing too. Then Wing came into the office and I got her to say "Bust my balls." It was great. Cause Owen was laughing at the fact that she was referring to something she doesn't have and then I told her what the phrase means, 'to stop commanding things/asking to many things of me'. She understood, then I told her what it was and she got a case of the giggles.
I headed home. Owen called me about 20 minutes later saying that Boss John got angry with him because Owen gave me the house deposit already. And so Owen asked for it back until I leave the house. And I was like, Dude...I am leaving in like 2-4 hours. I am cleaning the place up. He was like...oh...so....i need the key. I was like, yeah. So come on over when you want. I will clean this place up and then meet you.
I cleaned up the room with sweeping, vacuuming and mopping. I am good at this. I got all my shaolin stuff packed up and everything. Just needed to pakc up the cmputer as well. I needed to take a pot and my lion heads to Yumi's as well. I also needed to get my bicycle tires fixed and take that to Yumi's. I will give that to the students at Lion Dance.
As I was taking the pots and some other things to Yumi's, I had my bag that I was carrying all my clothes and stuff for Shaolin with me and i was taking that. As I was walking down the street, the strap broke and the bag ripped a bit too. Great quality can be found here. I wasn't that angry. So, I took that stuff to Yumi's, then took that bag with my stuff to another bag store and bought a big travel backpack. Its nice. I brought that home and moved everything into it. Just barely fit.
I then went to take the other bag back to the store but they wouldn't give my money back so I needed to replace it with something and they wanted me to take another bag, I was like, "Hellz no!" I looked for a money belt but couldn't find one. The thing I bought last nite was a small inconspicuous fanny pack.
What made my moving out more frustrating is that Owen was sitting in the living room waiting for me to finish so he can take the key back to the office. I am like, DUDE! You're busting my balls. Go back to the office, I will call you when I am done and return the key too you. Cause that would make sense. IS that what happened? Nope. He just sat there watching TV while I was taking care of my business. I told him it would take time. Oh well.
I took my remaining things to Yumi's at about 5pm and then came back to get my bike fixed. As I was going to Yumi's, it started raining and as soon as I left her place to go get my bike, the sun came out. It was pretty. I grabbed the bike and Owen went with me to get it fixed. When it was done, I gave him the keys and we took off. On my way to Yumi's it started raining again. AIYA!
While at Yumi's,i realized that i forgot two tshirts, so I had to take a taxi back while I ran some errands to get some travel soap and contacts.
After that I met up with John and Peter at the Guangdong resturant. Good food. It was nice. Got a little tipsy. Then We went to the beer gardens where we met up with a bunch of the other folks for Ash's send off. It was relaxing and lots of fun. I was in rare form..really loopy. I headed out about 1145pm. Ok, well, its late, and I leave tomorrow morning for the airport at 5AM. Flight leaves at 820AM.