Lazy is as Lazy Does

I'm not going to bore you with the details.

I'm lazy.

Please, forgive me.

Here are 46 of the 300 pictures I took of my trip to China. Enjoy! :)


2008 Summer Olympics Pictures

Bed Experience

"Lisa" will be your guide today. Enjoy...

Beijing Update #3

Needless to say, I've been back from Beijing for some time now. Anyhoo, I never did post my last Beijing update, so here it is in it's entirety for the most part. I'm finally getting pictures and everything uploaded in different places. Hopefully I will have my Beijing pictures uploaded to my FLIKR swatch thingy pretty soon.

Anyways, here's the last China e-mail that I sent to my friends and family. A Youtube video of our hotel room is next. :)

-----------------------------------------

Zaoshung Hao!

Well, this will be my last update from Beijing. It is 1:21AM in the morning and we just got back from our last event at the Bird's Nest. We saw Athletics (track) which was very exciting, but more on that later.

After the Forbidden Palace and Tienanmen Square a few days ago, we decided to take a break and do some shopping. We went to the Cotton Market (also called Yashow). It's like haggler's central there. The vendors are very aggressive and if you want a good price you have to haggle hard like you've never haggled before. Naturally, Lisa and I left the penny pinching ways to our resident money lover, CC. Here is how to haggle the CC way in Beijing:


Vendor: "Ohhh, beautiful lady, how about a lovely handbag?"

CC: "Hmmm...I like this one, how much?"

Vendor: "For you, because I like you so much..."

CC [interrupts]: "...you don't even know me..."

Vendor: "1500 Yuan (about $224.00 US)"

CC: "Absolutely not. I'm leaving."

Vendor: "Awww, you make me sad. Okay, I'll give you a good deal-- 1000 Yuan."

CC: "Seriously? No."

Vendor: "Awwww, you are terrible. C'mon this is good quality..."

CC: "It's stolen off the back of a truck..."

Vendor: "You tell me how much then?"

CC: "Fine. 150 Yuan."

Vendor: "ONE HUNDRED FIFTY?? OH MY GOD, YOU MAKE ME CRY!!!"

CC: "And you'll make me cry if I have to pay your price."

Vendor: "Oh, you are horrible!!"

CC: "Yes, I am."

Vendor: "Awww, come on. This is great quality. Very R&B..."

CC: "What?"

Vendor: "I'll give it to you for 500 Yuan."

CC: "No. You know what, we are too far apart. I'll go somewhere else."

Vendor: "Awww, you are so terrible. Okay 300 Yuan."

CC: "No. Absolutely not."

Vendor: "Come on. Give me a good deal."

CC: "I'll do 160."

Vendor: "Awwww, you are so cheap!"

CC: "Insulting me will get you no where."

Vendor: "Awww, come one. 200? It's very R&B"

CC: "What? Why do you keep saying that?"

Vendor: "Come on. Come on!"

CC: "160 is my final offer."

Vendor: "Oh, you are so cheap. Oh, okay. I like you. You haggle like the Chinese, so I'll give you the Chinese price."

CC: "Mmmm-hmmmm..."

Vendor [turns to look at me]: "Oh, my god she's so horrible and cheap! You should do something!"

Reese: "I am. I'm going to take this bag she just bought for me. Ha!"



Now, compare this method to the Reese/Suhir way of negotiating:


Vendor: "Oh, hello beautiful American lady."

Lisa/Reese: "Hi..."

Vendor: "Do you like these shoes? I'll give them to you for 1500 Yuan."

Lisa/Reese: "No, that's too much."

Vendor: "Awwww, you are so horrible! You are terrible. You make me cry..."

Lisa/Reese: "Oh, I'm not trying to offend you, but..."

Vendor: "Awww, I have a child to feed. I'm only allowed one child in China and now my one child will starve because you are so cheap even though you are rich Americans compared to the Chinese...."

Lisa/Reese: "No, wait..."

Vendor: "Ohhh, I'm so sad. You make me cry..."

Lisa/Reese: "DON'T CRY!!!"

Vendor: "Please, buy from me for 1000 Yuan?"

Lisa/Reese: "OKAY, SOLD!!!! I'M SOOOO SORRY! I'M NOT A CHEAP, SELFISH AMERICAN, I SWEAR!!!"



As you can see, the Lisa/Reese method of haggling was no good; thus, we made CC our official buyer at Yashow.

The next day after shopping we went to Wangfujing (I'm totally spelling this wrong) which is like a mall and also in the evening a night market where they sell strange foods (like deep friend scorpion). We kinda messed up our timing and ended up buying things at the mall, but then missing the night market so we plan on going to that part of Wangfujing tomorrow night.

Yesterday evening we went to the Taekwondo event that featured American siblings Mark and Diana Lopez. We didn't really understand the scoring system, but it was Taekwondo and people were getting kicked in the head so we thought it was awesome. Diana won the bronze medal and Mark won the silver medal. He almost won the Gold and only lost by one point in, literally, the final second of the match.

Anyways, we were in the center section and the only Americans in that section (we were literally surrounded by Chinese and Koreans). BUT, we were the loudest people in the arena, I'm telling you! When Diana and Mark got their medals on the medal stand they both turned to us and waved and thanked us for cheering (I have it on video tape)!! We were so happy that all of OUR hard work paid off with some shout outs (not Mark and Diana's hard work, they didn't do nothin'-- lol!).

Let's see...today we went to the Summer Palace and the Temple of the Heaven. Really, I can't describe it, but both places are very beautiful. The Temple of Heaven is no longer a temple and more like a park. People play games and do street performances and stuff-- it's really cool.

The Summer Palace was a retreat for the royalty many, many years ago. It was burned down in one of China's opium wars, but rebuilt by the "Dragon Lady" Empress. Now it's a world heritage site. Unfortunately, the Dragon Lady spent tons of money to rebuild the Summer Palace to the detriment of the Chinese people (the money she spent could have gone to the military (I think navy) to protect the Chinese from the British or something...I can't quite remember...I just remember that she screwed up her country).

Later that night, we went back to the Olympic Greens to see track and FINALLY GOT ON THE TODAY SHOW!!! Really, this was my mission in life--to be on the Today show--and it finally happened!

It was really cool. I met Al Rocker and Meredith Viera. I explained to the Chinese people who Meredith, Al, and Anne were all the while thinking "You're Chinese and don't even know what the Today show is. Go away, you're taking up valuable TV mugging space!" But, I didn't say that out loud.

We met the Gold medal winning women's soccer team and the Gold medal winning men's beach volleyball team. We also met the silver medal winning women's water polo team. Of course, all of these people were Americans. And they were all pretty cool (except some of the soccer team looked like they didn't want to be there; CC and I didn't understand why they were so salty, I mean they did just win a gold medal--whatever!).

After the Today show, we finally made it back to the Bird's Nest for the last time (so sad :(. I won't tell you the results because they haven't aired in the US yet, but I will tell you there's some shocking stuff that happened in the 4 x 100 relay (Reese Edit: Jamaican Women lost) and an American did win a medal (Reese Edit: Gold in Decathlon).

Well, that's all for now. We're off to the gold and bronze medal women's basketball game tomorrow. Most likely, we will skip the bronze medal game to do more shopping (because CC just needs to get more stuff), go to the night market, and then go to the gold medal game. So, look for us tomorrow on NBC. We'll be the girls with crazy cow boy hats, leis, and basketball sunglasses!


Peace and Love,

Reese xoxo

Beijing Update #2

Ni Hao!

It is currently 8:33AM TUESDAY, August 19th. We have had a blast in Beijing thus far and we haven't even gotten to any Olympic events yet.

On Sunday we went to the Great Wall. It was really amazing. Of course, my plan from way back when was to walk up a few steps to the Great Wall and then stand in amazement that I was there and then walk back down to the bus. I told CC and Lisa this months ago, but for some reason they didn't believe me. My plan was aces because at the end of the day I wasn't sweaty and near death. CC and Lisa on the other hand....well...

I made it to the second tower of the section of the Great Wall section we went too. CC and Lisa decided to keep going. CC quit at the third tower when her lungs began to fail. Lisa called CC a 'punk' and said she was going to keep climbing to the top. Lisa made it to the fourth tower (there were about six towers) before she lost feeling in her right hand and her left leg disintegrated. Both CC and Lisa came down from the steep portion of the wall covered in sweat and looking like they had been deserted on some far away island for 8 years. It was hi-larious!

Yesterday we went to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. It was pretty spectacular as well. TSq. is just this huge empty space with very famous Chinese landmarks like General Mao's mausoleum. The Forbidden City really is a city! There are something like 9000 palace rooms, an outer court, an inner court, garden, etc. Really, more of that place should be forbidden because it was so tiring to walk through it. It took us about four hours to walk around 1/10th of that place. So exhausting!

We're also really tired because we are something like celebrities in Beijing. EVERYONE wants to take our picture. At the Great Wall, all three of us were in different sections and separated from each other at some point, yet we all had the same experience-- random Asian people (Koreans, Chinese, Japanese, you name it!) asking to take pictures with us. It usually goes something like this...



Reese: [fanning herself on the Great Wall]

Random Japanese Girl [stands next to Reese and puts her arm around Reese]: 'Hello!'

Reese: 'Ummm...hi...'

Japanese Girl: 'Picture? Yes?'

Reese [laughs]: 'Okay.'

Japanese Girl: 'Smile!'

Her Friend takes the picture, then the Japanese Girl gets on the other side of Reese and takes another picture.

Japanese Girl: 'Thank you!!'

Reese: 'Hehehehehe...no problem.'


This EXACT same experience happened to CC and Lisa. It was a thousand times worse in Tiananmen Square. We would pose for our own pictures and a ton of people would run toward us and start taking our pictures. So far TWENTY-FOUR people have ASKED to take pictures with us. This number does not count the gazillion people who just snap pictures of us as we walk down the street. At one point in our tour yesterday, it was like the Paparazzi were stalking us and our tour guide had to come rescue us from the all the people who were trying to to take our pictures. He literally had to pull us by the hand and tell the people in Mandarin 'no more pictures!' Ha!

Oh, and just to show you that Americans are not as color conscious as we think, the white people on our tour group were ASTOUNDED that Asian people would want to randomly take pictures of us just because we are Black Americans***. Literally, they couldn't believe it and a few, I think, thought it was racist behavior on the part of the Chinese/Japanese/Koreans. I mean, some seemed to be a little offended FOR us (not to be confused with jealousy). We weren't offended at all.

Anyways, today we're going to do a little shopping and then we're going to the Birds Nest stadium for track.

Anyways, I hope all is well with everyone. Another e-mail will be forthcoming in a few days!

Peace and Love,

Reese xoxo


***We've seen a few Africans. We noticed that no one was hounding them for pictures. I think the Asian people here seem to be able to distinguish Black AMERICANS from Africans. Black Americans are more rare I guess. FYI.

Beijing Update #1

Okay, everyone. So, I'm currently in Beijing right now and I'm having a BLAST. I know I said I would do some sort of blog from Beijing, and I am, but it's going to be in the form of the e-mails that I've sent out to friends and family. So, here is Beijing Update #1:
------------------------


Beijing Day 1‏
From: Reesey Reese
Sent: Sat 8/16/08 2:02 AM
To: An assortment of People


Hello fam and friends,

CC, Lisa, and I have landed in Beijing at around 2:00pm Saturday, local time (2AM East Coast time). The flight was good, not too much turbulence and we made it through customs fine.

The hotel we're staying at is the Jinqiao Apartment Hotel. If I get a chance, I will upload some pictures later of the hotel. It's a suite and we have a little kitchen that even has a little washeing machine. But, the beds are not so great.

Holy cow! I don't know how the Chinese do it, but the beds are literally hard as rocks! It's so funny, because we anticipated fighting over who was going to have to take the cot to sleep. As it turns out the cot is waaayyyy more comfie than the beds! So, we're on a rotating cot schedule!

For our first adventure we went out to eat at a Korean BBQ restaurant. Yes, that's right, we traveled all the way to China to eat Korean food. BUT, it was authentic Korean food and it was really good. Of course, in the process of ordering the great Korean food we thoroughly embarrassed ourselves.

Of course there was a language barrier. We ordered a dish to share (as is the custom at the Korean BBQ), but then the waiter guy kept saying something to us in gibberish that we interpreted as 'You must order more.' What he was really saying was, 'You stupid Americans, that's way too much food.'

In the end, they brought out a ton of beef, and lamb, and rice, and other dishes that I have no idea of what it was. The waiter laughed at us when he saw our faces. We laughed at us when we saw all the food. Then we called our Tour Guide and he had to tell the waiter in Mandarin that we ordered too much food and that we wanted to pack it up to take back home. It was so very sad, yet funny at the same time.

Oh, and the best part was that the manager came over in the middle of the meal with the bill. We thought for sure it would be like a hundred bucks. Even the manager wondered if we would have the cash to pay for the meal --200 Yuan. Do you know how much that is in dollars? It's 30 bucks. When we saw it was 200 Yuan we were sooo happy. And the manager was shocked that we could casually pull out 100 Yuan each (CC didn't have her Chinese money yet) and pay the bill no problem. The people at the restaurant thought we were super rich.

Okay, so next we went to the Lake bar district which was all sorts of awesome. We immediately started buying things and haggling on the price. Then we wondered over to this bar that was playing hip-hop music. Inside were all these young Americans (20's/30's). They bought us drinks and a good time was had by all.

Okay, I'm really tired now as it is 2AM in the morning. Just to let you know Beijing is GORGEOUS!! There is ZERO pollution and in fact my sinuses have never been better. I may just have to move here! And the Chinese people are soooo nice. They really like us for some reason (they keep repeating everything we say; when we say 'okay' they giggle and say 'okay' really, really excited like; also, when CC was on the phone with the Tour Guide and said 'hello' one of the waiter dudes giggled and was like 'Hehehehehe, 'hello;' I don't know why, but they get a kick out of hearing Americans say 'hello' and 'okay.')

Anyhoo, the Great Wall is tomorrow. I'll let you know how it was.

Peace and Love,

Reese xoxox

China on My Mind

Hi all!

I was hoping to do a really cool post about planning my trip to China and my African ancestry results, but it looks like I just won't have the time. Anyhoo, this is just a post to say I'm leaving for Beijing on Thursday and HOPE to be able to post pictures and experiences and what not while I'm there. So, stop by here every now and then between the 17th and 24th. You may just see some great pictures of me and the crew (CC and Lisa) in Beijing.

For now I leave you with a hi-larious Slate take on the Chinese sports machine (although, please note that the Atlanta Olympics were in 1996, not 2000).

Okay, I'm off to get highlights and pack my luggage full of clothes I won't wear.


Pray for me and my safety. Ha!


Peace out for now!

Go World!

Oh, Alanis. Can you do no wrong? No, no you can't.


Ni hao, everyone. I know I've been gone for a minute. I've been really busy with Life and everything. I don't really have much to say, except that...


IN 54 DAYS I'M GOING TO CHINA!!!



OH, YEAH! OH, YEAH! OH, YEAH!



I'm so excited for this trip. We just received an email from Cosport telling us that our Olympic event tickets (Track and Gold and Bronze Medal Women's B-ball) are on their way. AND, most importantly, I'm done paying for this stupid trip as of last Wednesday! Yes, that's right, I'm no longer poor!



[Reese does happy dance] I'm no longer poor! I'm no longer poor!



Seriously, if you knew how much saving and scrimping had to go into this trip you would feel as sorry for me as you could for a person going to the Beijing Olympics. And let me tell you, you should feel sorry for people like me. People like me have lived a meager existence for 7 months so that they could have the time of their lives for 8 nights. Hopefully, it will be worth it.


Other then that I have absolutely nothing going on in my life right now. Well, besides the fact that I just took a DNA test so that my family could find out where the heck we come from.



Yeah, I know that totally came out of nowhere. Let me explain...



So, a lot of African-Americans are on a quest to find out where their ancestors came from. Unlike everyone else in the known world, Black Americans (and also descendants of slaves in the Caribbean and South America) very rarely can trace their history actually back to Africa. But, don't you know that those egg heads in those science laboratories in those places (I don't know where, don't ask me) have made a genetic test which can trace back the racial and ethnic make-up of your mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, etc. from like a million years ago or something.

So, anyways, my family decided to start tracing our genealogy and thought this test was a good place to start. We (read: ME) bought the test a couple of weeks ago and are now awaiting the results.

Now there's no guarantee that my great, great, great, great, great, super-great grandmother was African. She could have been White or Native American. I've prepared myself for the various results that could happen (Lisa is convinced that I'm white). I figure that my reaction will likely range from...


"What the hell?!? My granny was Irish?!? I don't even like beer!!"


to...


"Oh, yeah! I knew I was Native American. That's why I got these high cheek bones. Where's the Bureau of Indian Affairs? When do I get my casino profits?"


to...


"Matamba! I knew I was a warrior princess in a previous life. I knew it!"



Okay, but seriously whatever the results, it will be cool to find out a little bit of something about my heritage. The DNA test can't tell me if old granny was an artist, or high priestess, or simply a stay at home mom. But, it will tell me where she's from. And, let me tell you, that something is definitely better than nothing.


Of course, I will post the results here as soon as I find out.



But, we all know that I'm a warrior princess. I mean, it's fairly obvious, right?



Right?



Pfsssh! You guys suck. ;p~~~



Laters.

Life

Sometimes life just likes to kick you in the throat. A lot. But, right when you think everything is just really awful, something (I like to call him "God") steps in and works it all out. So, this has been my life for the last four weeks...


Work: People at my job are evidently talking about me. First it was, "I think Reese has the best schedule of anyone in the office. She gets to work from home two days a week during the first week of the pay period. On the second week of the pay period she works one day a week and the other day of the week she's off completely. Wow, what a great schedule!"


Now, all the above is true. What's not true is that I'm the only person in the office with that schedule (and trust me you have to work for it, as I work 9 1/2 hour days). I'm just the only person in the office with that schedule who also possesses a kick-@$$ corner office that everyone else wants. Now, the fact that people were talking about my actual schedule is not what pissed me off. What pissed me off is when the above statement turned into this...


"That witch Reese has the best schedule. She has three days a week off every week! She only works two days a week. The other three days she can do whatever she wants. No one else gets that schedule, so why does Reese get it? I hate her."


The above is NOT true. And worse yet, that turned into this...


"Did you hear? That slacker Reese doesn't do any work on account that she only comes into work one day a week. I hear the administration is going to take disciplinary action!"


Sigh.


You see, I'm not angry because I think the administration is "after" me. The administration knows these are bogus rumors and totally false. What pisses me off is that attorneys, ATTORNEYS, have decided not to find out the actual truth about a situation before forming an opinion. As my friend Egypt told one of these gossip mongers...


"Maybe you should get your facts straight before you start talking about people."


Amen!



Housing: Housing in South Florida sucks. Seriously, I've lived here almost three years and have been on the verge of homelessness each and every year! Now, I'm not going to go into the first two times I was almost homeless (they're long stories and I'm really tired), but this last time was a doozy.

You see, there's this thing called "rent." When you pay this thing called "rent" the lessor is supposed to use at least some of your rent money to pay this thing called the "mortgage."


Say it with me...m-ort-ga-gggggeeeee....


Now, for good, kind, sane people paying the "mortgage" on your property with the rent check from your lessee is not a big deal. But, for the insane it's evidently a tall task to require of a person. Also, the other thing that's a total pain for the insane is letting their lessee know that they do not plan on paying the mortgage anymore and that said lessee should find another place to live. So, insane people just keep taking their leesee's money and let the Broward County Sherriff's Office take care of any messy details like, oh, say, telling the lessee that she's got a limited time to vacate the premises before Wachovia takes possession of the condo she's renting.

Yes, that's right, some people are douches.



China: If I wanted to go to China right now the flight would cost me $500 round trip. The fact that I want to go to China in August, during the Olympics, has increased the same ticket to $1775.

I try not to think about this, or the fact that my hotel costs almost twice that amount. But, when I'm sitting at home (home = the streets) it does start to bug me (bug = aneurysm).


Man, rehashing all of this is really getting me down. But, I initially had a point and that is that something (I like to call him "God") does work things out in the end.


Work: I've stopped caring about people in my office. And started enjoying my view.




Housing: I hustled and found an even better place to live, in a great community. I found an awesome, honest moving company (Flate Rate Movers rocks!) and got a friend to help me move all my stuff out. I moved my whole life and everything I own in one day. Yeah, I'm tired, but I'm enjoying the view from my new terrace.


China: The administration appreciated all of my hard work (yeah, despite the fact that I only work one day a week, go figure) and I got a huge bonus just in time to buy that $1775 plane ticket. So, yeah, now I can officially say that I am definitely going to China. I'll email you a picture of the view of Beijing from my hotel window.


So, yeah, even though life sucks sometimes, things aren't always bad forever. Just remember to enjoy the view when storm starts to clear up.

Okay, yeah, that was seriously cheezy, but it's all I could think of considering how tired I am from moving on Wednesday and getting to work at 6:30am on Thursday. So, you know, give me a break. Dang!

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