We taught a Fuwuyuan what Hella meant

There have been some pretty crazy happenings in the last couple of days that range from huge disappointment to some crazy exercises in bargaining.

Well, since school is in session, it's a lot harder to get to places and spend time in areas. Even though class only really takes place from 8 am (oh MY GOD) to 12 pm, it feels like there is less time to do things, especially if we want to do it when it is cooler in the day.

Anyway, in the last couple of days people have been trying to get Olympic Tickets. Trust me, it's a lot harder than it looks. I have a couple connections here, one of which who works for the Olympics and he even said that he doesn't have any tickets, "It's a lottery," he says. I believe him only for the reason that he works with AT&T with the Olympics and also because I've heard that before.

But the weird thing was, last week maybe mid-week someone from the elementary Chinese program, we are in intermediate/intensive, told someone I knew about beijingticketing.com. Apparently this site advertises Beijing Olympic tickets for ALL events, including the opening ceremony. This, I thought was weird...The opening ceremony!? People would kill to have those tickets, and still, even though they were selling theses tickets for about $100+, it was cheap relative to the other tickets they were selling. China vs. USA Basketball Round 3 tickets for $130 each? That's a lot, but very cheap for it. Secondly, they were advertising it as "first come first serve seats so, no arrangement. You could even get floor seats if you came early enough. Yeah right...

Anyway, I wanted to go ahead and buy since it sounded really cool. I thought they were putting a premium because it was hard to get tickets so I was cool with it. I passed it by Tammy, who passed it by her roommate, when she asked if she ever wanted to go and why she didn't get them already.

Her roommate brought up the question of whether or not they were legit. Turns out, after some investigating by Tammy on the internet and looking through some articles and through some forums that the website was pretty much a scam. Even though it did follow through on some events, it couldn't really ever ensure any tickets. The tickets were for sale, but over speculated, they could get them if possible, but if they couldn't allocate them, they would send you fake tickets. The history of the company showed that they have given fake tickets and people have been kicked out even after paying for tickets above the price. Anyway, these tickets seemed a little shady.

However, not only were the availabilities of these tickets demonstrating the fallacity of the company but also the minor detail we learned from an article. The website posted an international address, one that is located in London, England while the headquarters is located in Phoenix, Arizona. Weird? But not only that, the number to call didn't work. The headquarter address also pinpoints to a random lawyer that specializes in start-up companies.

Anyway, one of my friends had already bought 4 tickets for the price of $520. This was shocking to him when he found out. He thought his parents would kill him for making a bad decision, but I told him to try to cancel the credit card before any real damage could be done. Hopefully he could recover all the amount that was charged to his credit card. I think after using an international card and calling overseas to Citibank, he resolved it. What a dilemma, at least it was resolved.

So now the hunt is back on. My roommate told me today that he talked to some EAP alumni and that they had some. I put a security deposit on these tickets for volleybally quarterfinals. At least if these tickets are fake we know who the guy is that sold it to us and that he is strongly tied with our program. I think it's legit and volleyball will be very fun to watch.

I know volleyball sounds boring compared to all the other sports but really...out of the selection of weightlifting (though it sounds fun in the beginning), archery, and softball, volleyball seemed like the most fun to watch. It was also the event with the most tickets in a group so we can go with each other.

So another interesting thing happened at Silk Stree (Xiu Shui Jie). It was really funny. After a day of shopping and bartering, being called very handsome, good friend/good price, and even stupid (telling us to go back to America), we had some really good deals and really fun experiences. One of which occurred with a woman selling scarves. This woman was selling pashmina scarves. The scarf was a double sided she claimed and worth 280 kuai initially. Though we eventually got it down to 35, she seemed to be a very nice vendor.

On that day I was wearing my, "You're HELLA Norcal if..." shirt. She asked what "hella" meant and one of my friends explained to her that it was slang in the best way. But it came off bad. The fuwuyuan asked why I would wear it if it was bad and we just explained how it was just a trend in Meiguo. She kept saying it in her head. Maybe I will get this Norcal pride imprinted in some of the new shirts coming up. Just like one I saw that was completely ridiculous. This shirt that Chris saw and wanted Angela to get said: "STOP! Hand up in my room!" with a little hampster standing next to the words with both hands up. SOOO FUNNY we laughed forever.

We also had unpleasant interactions with people trying to sell us panda shirts. After a while, we found a nice guy who basically dropped to the lowest price when we asked. So since he was nice, we got about 6 shirts for each of us. It was a really good deal for him. Anyway, it was so funny she learned how to say hella.

We also went to this place called Lanshe Teahouse on the fourth of july. It was nice. It was the best food I've eaten as an EAP group since we got here, though the portions were tiny. However, we did go upstairs to a private area to watch some entertainment. There was traditional story telling, dancing, wushu, kung fu, and SHADOW PUPPETS. The shadow puppets were cool and they moved to American music. They also tried to teach this Fujian woman how to puppet.


Anyway, these weeks have been fun. I've been shopping like crazy. I got so many things for my family, bought some cool things from the Olympics stores. I can't wait to show my family...in 6 months :(.

I miss home, but I like it here too. Just wish the weather would be a little more consistent. Consistently cool...