Where the hell am I?

Okay, so Allie and I head out of the West Gate, planning to grab a taxi and go to her friends apartment to play Risk (sweet Friday night, right?).

We get out of the Gate, and on the side walk, I see a snake.

And this is not any snake. This snake is 3 feet long, with black and brilliant red stripes along the whole of its body. And its dark out.. and people are almost STEPPING ON IT.

Allie and I ran over, making huge "DANGER" gestures and save a few chinese people. This guy, seeing us, comes over from his car and, through sign language, communicates that if the snake bites us, our arms will swell up. I assume that to mean that this colorful, big snake is poisonous.

So I say, in my wonderful chinese: "I'll go and tell the guards. They'll help us".

Unfortunately, my hissing and mimicking a snake's movement and using the measure word for long and skinny could not effectively convey the fact that there was imminent danger nearby.

So we return to the guy with the car and he goes to his trunk and pulls out two things: a tennis shoe and a tote bag.

Of course, I tell him that he is not allowed to smash the snake, half in motion and half in chinese.

Dui, dui, dui, dui... Using the shoe, he ushers the snake into the tote bag and ties the handles.

Then he hands the bag to Allie.

Of course I'm yelling, "No! We cannot accept a big, poisonous, colorful snake!" Its 10pm at night. What would we do with it?

We ask if we could let it go but he's firmly against that. In the end, he threw it into the back of his honda and drove off.

wtf.

I still cannot believe that really happened.