Rotesserie Chicken

I found this the other day at our local Carrefour! I was so excited! One thing I do miss is the Rotisserie Chicken from our grocery stores back home. I love the smell and taste of them. They had about 5 different kinds of flavored rotisserie chicken when I was there and I bought one and brought it home for lunch. It was so yummy! I remember buying a chicken from Costco in Taipei when we lived there and when I opened the bag, the chicken still had it's head on it! That turned me off a bit on buying anymore full chickens in Asia. But this one was on display with no head! I will be buying these more often.

Bound to Happen

first scratch, originally uploaded by Armstrongs in Asia.

Well....here's the first fender bender we had with the car! I was driving....but it wasn't my fault. There are so many crazy idiot drivers here that it was bound to happen sooner or later. Some guy was going down the wrong way on the wrong side of the road while I was turning into our complex when he hit the front of my car. He drove off, which is a big no-no here in China. You are always supposed to stop and wait for the police to come and determine fault. Who knows why the guy left - most likely he knew it was his fault and didn't have money to pay out. It was a big ordeal going down to the police station and making the report - it turns out they had the accident on video from a street camera nearby and could state for insurance purposes that it wasn't my fault. The accident was on a Tuesday, I took the car to the dealer on Wednesday and picked it up on Friday all fixed! And the cost....300 RMB - that's about 43 USD! That was 30% of the total price - insurance covered 70%. I was amazed how cheap.

Going down to the police station to do the report was eye-opening. It was absolute insanity. I took a friend who can speak and write Chinese with me as they have no English speaking officers (yes, in a part of town where there are THOUSANDS of foreigners, they do not have anyone in the traffic police department who can speak English). We had filled out the report at her house in pen on the report form - but when we took it in - we were told we had to use a "special pen" to fill it out. So my friend had to write it out all over again using the pen from the police station which cost us 10rmb as a deposit to use. It was a normal black felt tip pen. While she was filling it out, I was watching all these people come in to dispute accidents and decide whose fault it was - some of these people had obvious broken bones, open wounds with blood gushing out and bruises with lacerations. The shouting and fighting over who should pay what was very loud. There were open arguments going on while police officers just sat back and listened. It was insane to me. I've never seen anything like it. When you visit a doctor here, you have to pay for it up front - so people were not getting treatment for injuries, they were arguing for money so they could go seek treatment after getting paid by whoever caused the accident. Sometimes, the injured would just sit back while relatives or friends would argue on their behalf. I was just stunned and amazed by this process. It makes me see how far this country really needs to go to become modern....

There was also a board up at the station listing the number of accidents for the month in our area of town (Zhangjiang 119 square km or 46 square miles) - the number for August was around 2400. I have no idea what that means or what the number includes (bike accidents, pedestrian accidents, motor vehicle, etc) but it is the traffic police, so all accidents would involve traffic somehow. I'd be curious to see real statistics on this versus other countries.

I've talked to several people who drive and own cars here and I've been told that accidents and scratches happen ALL the TIME. It is just so common here. One of my friends doesn't even tell her husband anymore and at the end of the every year, she gets the whole car body redone.