A Day of Accomplishments after a Night of Concern

June 12, 2010--Haerbin (Continued)   In the evening, I went to town as usual.  Where the Pedestrian Street meets the river, there is a large square with a tall column.  It has been closed for reconstruction.  Well, tonight the barricades were down and a stage was set up for entertainment to celebrate its reopening.  I arrived just 10 minutes before the performance.  I stood with the large crowd and watched various acts perform--dancing dragons, exercising women, kungfu performers, etc.  (I'm sensing that I have already written about this.  I cannot access my blog in China to see what I have already posted and what I haven't.  It's a Google blog, and they are all blocked due to Google's dispute with the government that led to its withdrawal from the China market.)   Sunday, June 13, 2010--Haerbin   I spent much of the morning at Stalin Park watching people.  The sun was out, and so were the crowds.  When it started getting warm, I went to Wal-mart to buy a diet cola and headed to the train station to buy a ticket for my night trip to Dalian on Tuesday.    When the sun comes out, it really gets HOT here, so I returned to my room, turned on the air conditioner and read and worked on the computer.  I finished reading The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard.  It is set in China, Japan, Hong Kong, and Britain and won the National Book Award a few years ago.  It's one of the best written books I've read in a while.  I'm sure some people have problems with it; I had to concentrate myself.  The author has her own special style of prose (unique sentence structure) that is not as simple to follow as most writing.  It's sparse, yet vivid.  I gave the book 4 stars out of 4.   Worked on the computer.  As a part of that effort, I tried changing the language and changing the home page.  It is so difficult to do anything when it is all written in Chinese characters, though.   Returned to town for another evening much like all the others.  Then I came back to the room and faced disaster.  Every time I tried to use Internet Explorer, I would get a window that required it to be closed.  I checked, and it looked as if I were connected to the Internet.  I could see the timer going showing how long I had been online.  And the wire was connected as usual.  I tried rebooting the computer and got the same problem again.  I turned the computer for for a couple of minutes and then restarted it.  Same problem again.  I had to give up.  Apparently something I did when trying to change things or some button I hit when it made me make choices related to webpages had created the problem.  I went to bed thinking I would take it to the shop tomorrow morning and hope that they would reinstall Windows or that they could reset Windows and Internet Explorer to their default settings.  But how would I communicate all of that?   Monday, June 14, 2010--Haerbin   The sounds of people setting up their stalls on the sidewalk for the morning market awoke me at 4:00.  I tried to go back to sleep after putting in my ear plugs, but I was worrying about the computer.  Finally, I decided to get up at 4:30 and try it again.  I was hoping for a miracle.   Well, I got one.  The computer came on, and I was allowed to go to webpages!  I was so relieved.  I vowed I would not try to make any further changes to Explorer while I was still in China unless I met a Chinese person who was a computer expert and could help me. Then I spent 4 hours writing e-mails, reading newspapers, etc.   The breakfast lady likes me and likes to make sure I get everything I should to eat.  If I don't pick up a piece of bread, she brings me one.  She always makes my bowl of porridge for me and sweetens and stirs it before bringing it to me.  What she doesn't know is that I always eat what I like the LEAST first to get it out of the way for the better things.  Well, this morning she noticed that I had finished the green vegetable (a little tough and stringy for me) and still had lots of everything else.  So she brought me more green vegetable!  I ate it.   Since I had no need to take my computer to the repair shop, I decided to try to get my sandals repaired.  I asked about a shop and discovered there was one at the end of the block.  I took my sandals there, and the man told me to have a seat.  He repaired them while I waited.  He used something like super glue to do it.  First, he pushed the strap back into place using a tool, then he put glue and held it in place.  Then he went around the soles finding all the loose places between them and the base of each shoe and putting more glue in each while pressing them together afterward.  I'm hoping the sandals will now last me through the rest of my trip.  And the total cost for the repair job was less than 50 cents, U.S.!   With that out of the way, I headed to Stalin Park again.  Every day as I have gone that way, I have passed a group of ladies at a corner sitting on paint cans and holding paint rollers in their hands.  They have signs.  I don't know if they are on strike or if they are protesting.  Possibly it could be for equal wages as the men get.  Or it could even be for the right to work as painters if that profession is currently restricted to men.  Anyway, they have been there on that corner since I first arrived over a week ago.    Today is the first day of a 3-day holiday in China.  It comes right after students finish their university entrance exams, and the last day of it is the Dragon Boat races.  Because of that, the park was even more active than it had been over the weekend.  More men and women were swimming in the river.  Many men were fishing.  Lots of students and elderly people were strolling.  A large group of elderly people were singing while being accompanied by 3 accordians.  (They started out la-la-la-ing to popular tunes which included Red River Valley and Old Black Joe.  Then they sang the words to Chinese songs.)  Children were taking in-line skating lessons.  Another group of elderly were performing tai chi.  Bubble blowers and pressure water guns were popular with the younger crowds.    Because I got up so early and had not slept well due to stress, I returned to my room in the afternoon.  I took a nap for about 2 hours.  Then I got on the computer.  As I finished within my e-mail, I noticed a recommendation on the page that I upgrade to Explorer 8.  Although I had vowed not to make any more changes that could be a problem, I hit the button.  Then I thought, "What if the directions are in Chinese that I cannot read and I hit the wrong button and create a bigger problem?"  Well, it was too late.  The download screen was there.  The directions were in Chinese, but they had an "R" on one button which I figured was short for run.  I hit it.  Then on the next screen, I did the same thing.  Then aother miracle happened.  The download was for the English version, and all the directions were in English!  When I finished, I not only had a better version of the program, I had one that had all words in English!!!  The whole computer is not in English, but most of what I will do will be within Explorer.  So having that in English is such a relief.   I took time to figure my spending update so far.  Then I headed into town feeling quite good about what had been accomplished today.  Due to the holidays, the crowds were massive.  I watched the sunset over the river and visited briefly with two young men who work here in a factory producing in-line skates, ice skates, protectors, helmets, etc.  Then I listened to some of the street musicians.  I returned to the room around 20:30.   Spending Update (not including today or the new computer I bought):  I have been in China 39 days and have spent $1041.66 for an average of $26.71 per day.