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Anji, China
30° 38' N 119° 41' E
Jun 10, 2006 19:06
Distance 63km

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Other entries in Anji

the water truck theme song, limes, and football

Text written in: English

it was last week sometime. i was in the baihui supermarket, perusing the fruits. i came across some small, green fruits. my heart leaped as i realized i discovered limes. or what i supposed were limes. they were shaped oddly, but they were the right color and roughly the right size to be limes. so i bought three. i figured, i could squeeze the limes, make lime juice, combine it with a little bit of lemon tang, and bam... i'd have myself a margarita mix. i brought a little over half a bottle of tequila with me, in case of just such an  event.

well, i get home and eagerly pull one of the alleged limes out of the bag, cut it in half with my industrial sized asian chopping knife, and discover, to my chagrin, the innerds are not limey fresh, but flourescent ORANGE! these are not limes at all. no! these are some kind of small, green tangerines! in sheer disappointment at my misfortune, i begin to scour the internet for information about small tangerines with green peels. i look and look and finally stumble into a website with a plethora of information about these fruits. as it turns out... they are MANDARIN ORANGES. !!!!!! DUH!!!!!! i'm in china! how could i be so ignorant??? apparently, in certain climates that turn hot and humid early in the year, sometimes these mandarin oranges will mature inside while retaining an unripened green peel. fascinating. so, despite not having found limes and still having nothing with which to make a margarita, i now love these green mandarin oranges.

as an interesting aside, there is a water truck (literally, a truck that sprays water on the street. don't ask, i don't know) that goes down my street at certain specific times everyday. this water truck broadcasts various bad, midi songs through some loudspeaker. most recently, the truck has upgraded it's song selection to include the most famous song in china, "my heart will go on." yes, that's right... a bad midi rendition of that horrific celine dion song from 'titanic' serenades me 3x a day from water truck loudspeakers. THIS COUNTRY!


now, the world cup is on. i've discovered the schedule on CCTV 5 (the sports channel). they are playing the games in real time, which for us, is 9:00 pm, midnight, and 3:00 am. they are also rebroadcasting some games during the day. so i'm enjoying football and feeling an inkling of connection to the outside world. it's nice.