Hey Hey and a Big G'Day toya
 
Art supplies.
 
Being the budding artist that I am (NOT!), I thought it best that I visit the cities major art supplies centre to stock up on all those art 'things' that I don't have. You know, like a paint brush, some paper and better yet some crayons! So I simply rose and crossed Nan Dajie (the main road from the Bell Tower to the South Gate) and there I was, at Shuyuan Xiang (the name of the cities main street for art supplies.)
 
The art district can be found in the south east corner of the city walls.
 
Parts of it are built in Qing style architecture and most of it is usually packed full with Chinese tourists. Here you can stock your pack full of paintings of all sizes, calligraphy, paper cuts, paint bushes (once again of all sizes) and fake rubbings from the Forest of Stelae Museum. After viewing the paintings and calligraphy I decided to quite my art life. Mine are obviously of greater quality and I wouldn't dream of making anyone else feel bad.
 
The real reason was that they didn't stock crayons!
 
I spent many hours walking slowly back and forth, to and fro, up and down, round and round and in and out of all the small streets in the art district and then headed down towards the cities mobile phone district where I decided to take a rest and send as many text messages as I possible could whilst my phone was open to do so.
 
By this I mean that for some reason my phone will only send text messages for a few hours a day. I never know when these hours are but when I find out when they are I simply take a seat somewhere comfortable and let my fingers do the walking.
 
While I was breaking world speed records with my thumb I was watching a guy on the footpath near me trying to sell baby turtles. It was so funny. He had children coming from all directions with their parents chasing after them. He would let them hold a turtle and they would then race off screaming hysterically.
 
Other children would run off screaming in fright.
It was as if Freddy Kruger was coming out if the shell and chasing them in their minds shell.
 
He arrived not long after I did and he had a mid sized fish bowl with a heap of baby turtles in side. By the time I left I'm sure he had only sold two or three of them and the others, I guess were in the pockets of the crazy children who obviously thought he was a Teenage Mutant Santa Turtle.
 
I really did feel sorry for him.
He tried so hard to keep the children happy.
 
From the looks of him he was very poor and like many wouldn't have much to his name. When I left there was only three turtles left in his bowl and a very sad look on his face. I went over and purchased a few bottles of orange juice from the little drink seller near by and went back and after giving him one I purchased the rest of the turtles from him for fifteen Yuan (two Aussie dollars). I'm sure he was selling them for two Yuan a turtle. It is not something I make a habit of but if any of you could have seen the look on his face when he looked into his bowl and found that nearly all of his turtles had gone, I'm sure or I hope you would have done the same.
 
He could have begged for money like many here do.
Maybe that is what he normally does as he looked as such.
But there he was with a bowl of baby turtles trying his hardest to make some money.
 
Honestly I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
 
I gave the last three turtles to a pair of twins who were standing with their mother nearby and I then continued my city wanderings which led me to the time worn stone streets of the Muslim Market streets. Here I feasted on small snacks and said a million 'No Thank yous' to the 'You Buy You Buy girls and then headed back to the Youth Hostel to do the days photos and have a quiet beer.
 
I then headed back to my hotel to watch the movie 'Heat' which was dubbed into Chinese along with having Chinese subtitles. Even though I thought I did good job of figuring out what was happening from memory.So, turtles huh! Even now I can't stop laughing at the scene from today. I am also wondering as to what has happened to Val Kilmer. Seriously, a great actor, handsome as buggery and was born to play Jim Morrison.
 
So where is he now?
 
For all I know he is probably in season four of Lost which still lays untouched in my pack on the opposite bed. It has taken all my strength to leave it there laying in wait for when I arrive home and by home I simply mean my next port if call where my big pack is to be unpacked.
 
Where ever I lay my pack, that's my home!
 
Beers N Noodles toya.....shane
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The soundtrack to this entry was by another of my favourite
'various artist' releases. The album was 'Real World'.
This one is enough to take you anywhere!
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