Chinese Jenga, Big Brother Cake, and a Happy Dance!

Hello, USA. This is Mallory speaking.

So, for the past three to four days, I've been downright sick and have been bundled up in our apartment trying to recover. Last night, though I was still feeling crummy, I decided I could get myself out of pajamas if it meant I could eat pizza. And I did. Ben and I got into a rickshaw with two other English teachers and made our way to Gu Lo, or Kaifeng's downtown. I was absolutely beside myself with hunger and excitement that I wouldn't have to eat something served over rice. At about 7:20, we ordered one large pepperoni and one large Hawaiian pizzas. Little Ben (as he has been dubbed because he is so much shorter than my Big Ben) found a game of Jenga in the restaurant, oh excuse me, I mean Folds High Wooden Toy, which we played for the next hour while we were waiting for our food. Granted, playing this sort of Chinese Zodiac Jenga was very amusing, but nothing compares to the joy we found in reading the box. On it, we discovered priceless mishaps of Google translate, such as, "While listen attentively to the natural rhythms, lets the baby know the basic scale," which is related to the game in no way whatsoever. Then, all four of us were holding our stomachs in laughter at this little beauty, listed under the Caution section: "Place toy in mouth to prevent chidren (sic)." Once we had calmed down, our pizzas finally arrived, and they were actually delicious. Crunch crust, warm cheese,... fruit cocktail????? Seriously, instead of having ham and pineapple on our Hawaiian, we had ham and drained fruit cocktail. Yes, there was pineapple, but there was also pear, peach, and cherry pieces on every slice. I am so in China.

This morning, my stomach told me that it was not ready to handle anything from a street vendor, so I chose instead to get a muffin for breakfast from this chain bakery called Gege Cake, or in English, Big Brother Cake. Ben and I got a few items to sample, because really, when it's six yuan to the dollar, why not? The rundown: what I thought was chocolate cake was in fact prune cake, still tasty but I don't understand why they like prunes so much; the cookie tasted like angel food cake, so okay there; my lemon muffin was very satisfying if not slightly on the dense side (darn that milk-that-doesn't-need-to-be-refrigerated-and-is-sold-in-pouches). We still have one pastry left to try that looks yummy but will most likely taste nothing like we expect. That's what you get with the food here. Never thought I'd be so grateful to have a McDonald's close by.

And the final bullet point of this post is... Our bag finally came! For those of you who don't know, we somehow managed to lose the bag with all my medicine and contact lenses on the plane from Atlanta to Tokyo and have had a hell of a time trying to get it back. Well, it finally arrived in the mail today. Ergo, the happy dance. :D

Love you America!