Description:
Welcome to China.
One wouldn't know it to look at him, but Frei -- despite his eccentric mix of Japanese and European features and distinctly non-Asian red hair -- spent a good chunk of his adult life in China. His Chinese is a little accented but he's certainly fluent enough to get by without needing an interpreter, and he's familiar with customs and the landscape too. It shows; currently, he's decided the best way to kill time before all parties involved get together for SNF is to do a little street shopping in the off-the-beaten-track street markets that line alleyways throughout the city.
Currently, he's dressed per normal: long, oversize black Chinese shirt with gold embroidery, the long tails of his matching headband twirling and fluttering about behind him as he walks slowly down the street, twisting to look at things now and then and deftly stepping out of the way of pedestrians and bicyclists. Of course he left a note with the people at the hotel front desk saying where he was going... if someone not familiar with the culture can get to him without incident is quite another.
His peaceful reverie is disrupted when he is suddenly presented with a chicken, and with some degree of force as well. "YOU BUY?!" bellows the aged woman, holding the hen up to Frei's face with both hands as the monk stumbles back a step or two. "Fry up good! Yankee boy have Chinese-style fry chicken! Ha HA!"
The chicken, for its part, simply clucks.
Perhaps they thought it would be funny. Maybe it had been total accident, or maybe it was simply for dynamic flavor. In reality, the answer to the question 'why' is irrelevant, what is in the past is done and now the present must be dealt with.
Ingrid has arrived in Beijing only a few bare hours before the fight was scheduled to begin, her first time in the city and indeed China itself. To compound this, she doesn't speak a lick of Chinese. Being around such a huge swarm of people is also rather shocking, though she has at least been to Southtown to get some of this shock out of her system. Her orders have been given to her, to find Frei after being given his general location and go to the Temple of Heaven with him where they will meet their opponents.
Another person might have become quickly confused and overwhelmed, but the young woman given this task seems to have taken it completely in stride. So she doesn't speak Chinese; she has three other languages she can default to, Japanese, English, and Norwegian. Through these she is able to find someone far better at navigating the city streets than she, and attains some rather general directions to Frei's location. Luckily, she doesn't honestly intend to get there on foot; that would take far too long.
[OOC] Ingrid decided to cut it off there so you can type some more, or could actually pose arriving to you. Just didn't want to take toooooo long for her first pose x.x
"I don't WANT to fry your chicken," the monk tries to explain to the earnest woman patiently, pointing at it. The peasant lady, on the other hand, appears determined to force her chicken on this guy whether he likes it or not. She did not walk all the way here from some village carrying a cartload of produce and on-the-wing poultry so some red-haired jerk in 'cultural attire' could shortchange her by daring to not want chicken.
The chicken, for its part, clucks.
Frei has been reduced to ticking points off on his fingers while the woman yells at him through everything he says. "First off, I have somewhere to be in a couple hours. Secondly, I don't have a deep fat fryer. THIRDLY, and I want to stress this as the key element to this argument, I DO NOT want to BUY your CHICKEN!"
A few moments go by. The monk and the woman stare at each other in silence. Well, *they're* silent. Everything else is making the same cacophony of noise that it was before, except for the crackling zone of mercantile dispute currently enveloping Frei and the old woman.
The chicken, for its part, simply clucks. Twice.
Five minutes later and $15 poorer, Frei walks out toward the street carrying a bamboo and wire cage containing one (1) chicken.
It clucks.
[OOC] Ingrid says, "That woman ripped you off."
[OOC] Frei says, "You don't know that. It could be an investment in eggs."
[OOC] Ingrid says, "They'd better be made of gold."
Out in the crowd, there is suddenly a parting of people getting out of the way as the pounding of feet on pavement approach, accompanied by a constant light warbling. As the people continue to move aside it is clear that it isn't out of any sort of reverence, but in fact simply to keep themselves from getting run over. There's a word of command, and the thumping slows and stops, along with the accompanying noise, a ricksha pulling up beside Frei and coming to a stop.
Down from it steps Ingrid, handing what amounts to about twenty Dollars, American, to the driver in local currency. "Xin xin." She at least took the time to ask her previous guide how to say thank you, it appears. The ricksha driver nods to the young woman and then turns his vehicle and begins plodding back to the airport, where he is most likely to find someone to pay for his BLANK service. Luckily, the SNF organizers at least told Ingrid what Frei looked like, and her high seated vantage point gave her just enough viewing distance to find his red hair in the sea of black. She seems to consider him for a few moments, and then states simply. "I hope you aren't intending to use that as your weapon."
[OOC] Ingrid says, "Oh dear. I forgot to replace BLANK with the correct adjective."
[OOC] Ingrid says, "Novelty. That's the word I was looking for."
[OOC] Ingrid will change it when she log edits :)
It's not everyday one buys a chicken and then has a rickshaw screech to a halt in front of you on a Chinese street while you were walking around Beijing waiting for a fighting tournament to start only to have the rickshaw be containing your partner for the tag-team match you'd be fighting in for said tournament and then have her imply that the chicken you've been railroaded into buying by an obnoxious and pushy Chinese peasant woman is some sort of weapon you'd use in the aforementioned tournament which is, in fact, now only a short time away so it's a damn good thing she found you, isn't it, Frei?
He pauses for a moment, then shrugs at Ingrid and says, without missing a beat, "It could be. I've used stranger."
[OOC] Ingrid grins, "2v2 Simultaneous, not tag team"
[OOC] Frei sighs. Whatever.
[OOC] Ingrid says, "It doesn't matter here so much, just for the actual battle. I just don't want you to be expecting one and then 'Whaaa?'"
With no further hesitation, Ingrid's mouth widens into a smile and she gives Frei a small bow, "Ingrid Holmann, I'll be your partner for today, though I'm sure you'd already realized that." She takes another short look at the chicken, wondering why he bought it, not knowing how pushy the locals can be like Frei no doubt does. "Do you happen to know the way to the Temple? We should start out now if we're to make it on time, especially if we'll need to found our way." That rickshaw ride did take a bit longer than she had thought, but perhaps it had been worth it, it was rather fun.
[OOC] Frei says, "As it's 5:54 I'm going to wrap this up, I think, with this pose."
[OOC] Ingrid nods :)
"Oh, sure," the monk says off-handedly, giving a little greeting wave in the process. "I know my way around the city, more or less. It's actually about ten blocks up that street and through the Temple of Earth first," he adds, turning 90 degrees clockwise and pointing up the low incline of a nearby hill, buildings thinning out along its path. "Good thing you ran into me, don't you th--"
He's interrupted by a man tapping him on the shoulder. The man, having emerged from the alley, gives Frei a beatific smile and then points in his and Ingrid's general direction. "Fifty! I give you fifty," he says enthusiastically.
Frei, uncomprehending but perfectly happy to get rid of the chicken, shrugs and says "Sure!", then attempts to hand the caged bird to the man. Net profit $35, can't beat that. Right?
"No, not bird! I give you... seventy! But won't go any higher." The monk just blinks at the man uncomprehendingly for a moment, furrowing his brow. What the hell could he want if he doesn't want the chicken?
A pause. Frei glances at Ingrid. He glances back to the man, who smiles.
"...I think," the monk says, weighing the options, "that we should leave." And with that, he turns to guide Ingrid away from all this. With unwarranted speed to someone who's not paying attention.
The chicken, for its part, simply clucks.
[OOC] Ingrid says, "...wow"
[OOC] Ingrid says, "Well played!"
[OOC] Frei says, "It will make for an interesting flashback during the fight, anyway."
[OOC] Frei says, "And now I must run."
[OOC] Ingrid waves!
Frei heads OOC.
Log created by Ingrid, and last modified on 16:21:44 10/13/2006.