1.3 billion people...

...and they're ALL in this bus!

In case you didn't realize, China happens to have a lot of people. At times, you do feel like you are sharing a bus with a quarter of the worlds population. It is impossible to walk out of your apartment at 3am in the morning, and not see a soul - there will always be someone around. I sometimes miss the solitude.

Why Szechuan is the chilli capital

In my various travels around China, I came across this poor chef toiling over a mountainpile of chilli in the province of Szechuan. Is this a version of potato peeling punishment, Chinese style? The mystery of why Szechuan became the chilli capital of China, The World, is solved.

Apparently in Szechuan they punish their customers too. I'm sure they put extra szechuan pepper bells in my dish because my chinese was really awful when I ordered. And it taught me a painful lesson to always be sure of what I was ordering.

Victor

I think Victor deserves a special mention here on my blog. Not only is he my housemate, he's also my roommate.

Everyone loves him to death, party animal of the year that never sleeps god bless those Brazilians. But one of the double edged swords is that he's too friendly, so once he catches you in his talking moods its rather hard to get away at all. Being a law student (am surrounded by them), he fashions himself as The Senator. However, he's more likely to be known amongst various circles more affectionately as the talking donkey from Shrek.

We've kind of worked out a system where he rings up before he wants to brings someone home, so that I can make a quick getaway and become a refugee in Ed & Matheus' room for the night. Its very fun - he was going through a Russian girl phase (they dont get many of those in Recife), but I think he's grown out of those becuase it was getting too difficult to manage, so he moved onto Koreans. Being his roommate, at night we often lie awake talking about relationships, our various problems, and life or something like it.

I once joked that he had so much energy that he must have ADHD. It was only a month later did I discover that he actually DID because he hadnt been taking his meds regularly.

That's why this photo is forever burned in my memory - Victor decided one morning that the frying pan had too much carbon dirt on it, that it was just too much to bear and need cleaning. Solution? He started scraping away at it obsessively - with. one. chopstick. 10. minutes. before. class. was. about. to. begin.