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First things first: Happy Birthday Claire! I tried calling you but an angry Frenchman answered. It was 1:30am there. Quel est le grande problème? He was probably just whipping up a big late-night batch of pea soup and didn’t have time to chat. Mange mes briefs!

I made it to San Zhi yesterday. I was surprised by how short and beautiful the drive to the beach was. After skulking around a bit to make sure there were no cops, attack dogs or living dead in sight, I weaseled my way in. The place felt more haunting than haunted. A broken waterslide? Those poor children! In a strange sort of way, it gave me the same feeling as an abandoned hippie commune in Nova Scotia my mother took me and my sister to when we were wee. Like there was a big messy pseudo-visionary party, and then somebody said something awful, and everyone else shuffled toward the door awkwardly while mumbling something about needing to work tomorrow. Or about not needing to work, as it were.

The silence was what made this place strange, because it’s never quiet here. Scooters, jackhammers, filthy screaming children, and my personal favorite: the recorded promotional message hooked up to one of those mini-megaphones, just laying on the sidewalk in front of a store screeching the same eight unintelligible words until the end of time. Kick it! The stillness actually made me a bit nervous at first. I think I was also a tad concerned about who I would meet in there. There was a little statue underneath one of the houses that I spied from the corner of my eye, and I was sure someone was standing there watching me (see photos). Not so. I did hear giggling inside one of the houses, and I looked up and saw an obese Taiwanese girl wearing a gray wig standing in the window. Her friend was taking pictures of her (I’ve noticed a lot of friend-on-friend photoshoots here involving gray wigs). That was somehow less frightening than the statue, because unlike the peering statue, they were oblivious to my presence. 

After a good look around, I hopped back on the bike and visited a couple of charming outposts, then found a nice unsupervised beach without too many people or children. Most beaches here have designated swimming areas that resemble factory cattle farms, and the lifeguards start yelling and arm-flailing if you go in past your waist. Something about people here not being very good swimmers and the “treacherous” currents that swirl about. I swam out and floated on my back in the warm Pacific water for half an hour, and all was well in my world. Then I went to 7-Eleven and got a large mango ice-based beverage (can’t say which, it’s one of the more disgusting S-words), and all was even better.

Tonight I’m going to a concert with my Swiss friend Daniel, his girlfriend Penelope, and a bunch of Austrians, so I should be able to learn plenty of quirky idiomatic expressions, like the one he taught me yesterday: Das ist mir Hans wie Heidi. Translation: I don’t give a shit. Sounds more like a declaration of bisexuality to me though.

(Click photo to see the rest)