Four Mondays

"I've had four Mondays in a row," Hubs informed me last night.

With another big holiday on its way, the Government has issued "guidance" that businesses are to be open on Saturday, Sunday and Monday as usual, but closed Tuesday through Tuesday (which means people get the following weekend "off" - Hurrah?).

Now that's a noodle I can't seem to untangle. How can it possibly make sense to make people work eight days in a row - and over weekends - in exchange for days off?

To Catch A Fish

So I asked my language teacher about how to select fish at the market (there are so many kinds and I am not familiar with any of them).

She explained that the Chinese classify their fish by the number of bones; they believe the fish that has the greatest number of bones also has the greatest flavor, because the meat is precious.

She also explained that there are fish from the river and fish from the sea, and that the fish from the sea has a strong fish flavor, so the Chinese prefer the fish from the river.

Eau De Sewage

The one down side of living where we live - in the specific apartment we selected - is the scent (some times it is stronger than others) of raw sewage. It seems to come up through the bathroom drain pipes - odd, because we live on the 6th floor. Maybe if we lived on a higher floor, it would not stink as much.

We've already plugged the main drain (despite Hub's concern that the gas will collect and eventually explode) - but it seems to be working itself into the room through the shower, bath and sink drain now.

So I complained to Flora (my Aiyi's new English name). I told her I wanted the building management to fix this problem. She sat down with a pen and paper and drew a map of Dalian, explaining that when the wind comes from the South (when it comes in from the Yellow Sea), it smells bad and when the wind blows North, it smells nice.

Apparently the wind is the problem - not exactly something the building management can solve.

Just Relax...

The dentist said to me as she started drilling into my front tooth - without first using Novocain.

Just as I started to believe she wasn't going to hurt me, she got close to the nerve and I could feel the pain. "Oh, I know, I know," she said to me. "Don't worry, it's okay."

Seriously? Sure, it's okay because she's the one with the drill and I'm the one in the chair with white knuckles.