Desperate to make music

What have I been doing in this crazy place? Well, it was really quiet until about 3 or 4 days ago when all the students started coming back so I tended to hang out and sometimes go into Taigu to check it out. It has been only a week and I already bought 2 instruments. I went to an er hu store as soon as I found out from Ben where it was in Taigu. It was a sweet little shop in one of the allyways lined with little stores selling just about anything you could want. They took me into the back and put together a cheap er hu for me. It was awesome to watch the guys put it together. Their shop was full of pieces of er hu and another similar instrument that is special to Shanxi province. I sort of hoped I could maybe come back sometime and watch them assemble an er hu from scratch...but although they were nice and somewhat impressed with my Chinese (once they figured out I was a foreigner) it was really one of the other customers who took an interest in me and showed me how you really play it and helped me check out the instrument. But he wasn’t from the area, so he couldn’t give me lessons.
I went 2 days later to get a guitar cause I desperately needed to express myself in some sad song longing for California (and someone in particular) so I ran off thinking I could get into the city, buy a guitar and come back in an hour to meet some friends for lunch. I had been to the store before, but he said all the guitars were 500 yuan or more. That was more than I wanted to pay for something that I might not bring back to the states, so I left. But I was back cause I desperately needed a guitar, and the store owner seemed like a nice enough guy, so I figured at most I would pay 300 or 400 at most (that was all I put in my pocket) for a good guitar plus nice case. I figured if he wouldn’t lower it that much at least I wouldn’t have enough to pay and I could just leave. Turns out he was happy to see me back and said he had one that was nice and for 400, but he’d let me have it for cheaper. It had a nice little dent on the bottom too, to make it more affordable for me. But he of course reassured me that the most important part—the neck--would not break off, as it had for a cheap 100kuai guitar that he had in the back. Turned out though, that he didn’t have a guitar bag that fit the guitar so he gave it to me for 300. He asked if I was a student at Nong Da (as everyone seems to assume I am) and I said, no I teach English. Immediately, he was more interested. Do you teach outside of the university? He asked. Not yet, I said, I just got here. He explained that he had a son and would like some lessons for him. Possibility I said, but not right now. So he gave me his phone number, name (I told him I didn’t have one yet...not quite true, but at least I had not memorized it yet...) and we will see. Perhaps if I’d like some guitar lessons, I could trade with English lessons. We’ll see. As it is, it was a nice deal, cause not only have I been enjoying it, but every time people come to the house Nick and I live in, somebody picks up the guitar and starts fiddling with it. Great. That was exactly what I wanted.