Classic Life

Banks

2011-01-13T05:57:00.004+08:00

Last week I went to open a bank account at Key Bank, since they're in both Ohio and Colorado, where I recently moved to.
First, let me explain Chinese banks, generally speaking, from a foreigner's point of view.
I wouldn't have been able to open an account without the help of a friend, with the amount of papers you have to sign and the person behind the window has to stamp. not only does she have to stamp it, but get her boss to come over and pull out HER special stamp secured in her pocket, and then stamp with her own one more time.
I tried signing up for online banking myself, I think, and never figured it out. They gave me a changing password keychain, and again a bunch of stamped paperwork.
When my card got stolen, I had to go back to the original branch that i opened the account at. There was lots of paper, stamps, and signing, actually I had to copy a statement that said something along the lines of a waiver, but I was so slow in writing the clerk did it for me and I signed, she stamped.
Then I had to come back a week later to pick up the card, and after slightly less stampage I had a new card with the same number.
If you use your card outside of your province, there's a fee, at another bank (not abnormal) a bigger fee, and some banks (even bigger ones) won't let you use other cards.

A lot of hassle, all for a little piece of plastic to keep your money safe.

I walk into Key, tell the woman who was helping me what I wanted, and 10 minutes later I have a checking account. One signature, one piece of paper, and no stamps. It went so smoothly that when she asked if I had any questions I hesitate and say, "I can do everything I can do at this branch at a Denver Branch, right?"
Duh, i know, i didn't actually need to ask that, but she was polite in her 'duh' response and I explained why I asked.

Still waiting on my card in the mail though... maybe i forgot to sign something.

Retail

2011-01-08T03:47:00.003+08:00

Over the holiday season (early November to end of December) I worked in the retail industry. I am not going to reveal the name of my employer, as I may same some critical things that may or may not apply only to the establishment I worked at (I can guess that it applies everywhere though). I worked in a department store in the misses department, and learned more than I thought I would, and have a few requests to shoppers that have not worked in retail.

I was in the misses department, thankfully, though it wasn't until much later I realized how lucky I was. It was so much easier to learn about products there, as opposed to say, fine china or children's clothes.

What was my job exactly? As a sales associate you are responsible for not only checking out customers but helping them find items, cleaning out the fitting rooms, and organizing racks and shelves/putting away fitting room merchandise (called recovery in the bizz)

I was thankful to be hired in this position, apparently around the holidays they hire a lot of seasonal "folders and fluffers," whose job is solely recovery, not always fun for an 8 hour shift (though nice when needing a break from dealing with people). Also a lot of people in Jewelry. In fact at my orientation 20 of the 23 new associates would be working in jewelry.

I filled a shift in jewelry one time (if you know me you know I wear little jewelry). It was the most unpleasant shift ever. I have never been able to understand why people spend so much money on jewelry. Maybe I've never had the expendable income to allow for it, or can't appreciate fashion, but still. $25 for a pair of ladybug earrings that look like they came out of a quarter machine at the grocery store, $180 (marked down from $300) for a necklace, while, albeit nice, i can just think of so many other things I could spend $180 on. Worse than that (because I realize that's something I'd need to get over working there on a regular basis), is the downtime. In misses, there's always recovery to do (even if it is sizing the clearance rack), but in jewelry there's just not as much to put away. And what there is to put away isn't fun for me, and it's tiny. I am not graceful, and as I put away earrings on their little tiny hangers and onto the little tiny racks, i felt like a bull in a china shop, knocking down as much as i put away.

I've never been much of a shopper, but now know lots about how it works.
Take coupons for example, the company mails, and advertises lots of coupons. People would come in with a 2 inch thick stack of them, and we would go through and figure out which ones would work best, and if it took 2 or 3 (or 4 or 5) transactions to maximize their savings, we'd figure it out. Something I didn't mind doing as long as there wasn't a huge line of customers, I'm all about a good deal.
make sure you read the fine print though, as the thing you want to buy is usually what is excluded. people would ask me why, and I'd read the back of the coupon and point to where it says "Excludes ______" and then they'd get mad.
also, most everything will go on sale. just hang in there. and if you come back after the fact, bring your receipt with you, most stores will do a price adjustment 1-2 weeks after you purchase something.

Returns. Wow! the things people return, from worn to washed to purchased several months ago, my store took it all back. It was the worst after Christmas of course. I had a woman return something, and the money could either be returned to her husband's debit card (which she didn't have with her) or store credit. with a debit card return you need the card and pin (for your protection) and she didn't have it, and didn't want store credit. she said "why would i have his card with me? can't i get cash back?" not my fault on this one, no need to get angry. but customers need someone to blame, so all i could do was apologize as she rushed off in a huff. A lot of people don't understand that return policies are the way they are for a reason (security, liability, like why would we give you cash if you purchased with a card). and actually my store has a comparatively lax return policy.
also, please leave the tags on (2 barcodes at a lot of stores will get you far without a receipt) or at least bring them with you. and if there are no tags, you'll have to go to the department they came from.

Customer Service.
So apparently a lot of people aren't very good at customer service. This is not a surprise to me, although I don't go shopping as much as your average Suzie Consumer so I experience it less. I realize I'm tooting my own horn here, but many a customer commented on my customer service, how refreshing it is to have someone smiling all day and being helpful. A smile really goes a long way.
And associates love to be helpful. or they should because what's the alternative to helping a customer (i'm talking about responsibility to do so aside here), recovery? please, I'd rather talk to someone and hear about their party that they're shopping for or family dinner or whatever any day.
Some people love to talk, and it's amazing how long people will just stand and chat with you..

Fashion Consultant.
This was not in my job description. The first time I head "Do you like this?" and turned around to see a woman wearing a pleather rhinestone studded jacket, all I could say was, "oh, do I like it?" before i could consider an appropriate inoffensive response.
It's crazy the amount of times that I spent 15 minutes or more helping customers picking out clothes. I did my best to steer people away from fashion disasters. but then again, I have so little fashion sense who knows how I did. So customers beware, of associates like me, who mean well but really have no idea what they're talking about.

Sales Goals.
Each shift I worked I was given an (arbitrary) dollar amount for a sales goal for the day. Okay okay, i'm sure it wasn't arbitrary, in fact i bet a lot of money and time was spent figuring out how to calculate them. Luckily for me, making these goals had basically no bearing on my job (though i've heard at other dept stores if you don't make your goal for a few weeks in a row your out, no matter if you been there 3 weeks or 30 years). every employee is given a "scorecard" based on sales goals, items per transaction(ipt), and loyalty (how many credit accounts you open). You get 0 to 55 points on each section, e.g. one week i had 55 pts in goals, 0 pts in IPT, and 0 pts in loyalty.
woo! 55 points sounds like a lot to me! but who really knows. Say I was a full timer, when review-time comes around, my raise would be based on this scorecard (known to the full timers as the 'wall of shame'). I'd probably not get a raise, because my ipt and loyalty were always low, mostly due to i'm not pushy regarding credit cards (which people actually thanked me for), and even if someone was buying 20 items, I might do 4 or 5 transactions in order to save them more money. But these things, and that I give people a great shopping experience aren't quantified and therefore have no bearing on my raise.
no wonder associates aren't very nice sometimes. In order to keep their jobs (income and benefits) they're pressured into sometimes out-of-their-control goals. my heart goes out to y'all.

Theft.
it made me sad every time I saw theft (well the aftermath) the two big ones i saw were tag switching and fitting room. I'd be organizing a rack and spot an item that had an incorrect price. Upon further investigation someone has switched this tag with the real price so they can get a 'better deal.'
once i walked into a fitting room to clean it out, and saw a cute shirt, wondered which brand it was. well, it was from another store, which means someone walked out wearing something that belonged in the store. grr.

And now I'd like to make a few requests for the next time you go shopping.

If you try something on, you don't have to put it away, but at least hang it up on a hanger and bring it to the rack outside of the fitting room. If clothing is damaged from the way you treat it when trying it on, no one will buy it, just like you wouldn't want to buy damaged items
If you are going to put it back on a rack, find the right one. don't just throw it on any rack, this is much worse than leaving them in the fitting room, because it may be a long time before that rack is thoroughly gone through.
Also, when finding something on a rack, say you knock something on the floor, it takes you 10 seconds to clean up after yourself, but hours for us to clean up after everybody. Would you make a mess and leave it like that in your own home?

Returns. figure out return policy before coming back to the store. call or check online to see if you can return something without the receipt or card, or if you can return it from a different location than you purchased it. It saves everyone time and frustration.

Locating an item. If you call a store to look for something, it will expedite the process if you have a brand and good description, even better if you have a product number, which can be found on the internet.

Double check everything. Prices especially. Look at the register as things are being rung up. sometimes signs don't match the prices in the computer, and if it's a lower price on the sign, the store should give that price to you if you show them. Price checkers are good for this.
Also, if you see one item on a sale rack it may or may not be on sale, because it may be in the wrong place. Don't be upset, understand that people put things back on random racks.
also, ink tags. it's frustrating for you to come back to the store to get them removed (if you do have to, bring your receipt), and while associates are supposed to check, be real, people forget. keep an eye out.

A new shore.

2010-11-24T10:59:00.003+08:00

The other day I was mowing the lawn, a real treat, since I get to actually walk on the grass. And as the exhaust fumes were slowly killing my brain cells the odor brought on a strong feeling of nostalgia about Dalian.
I agree, there's something a little messed up about reminiscing over pollution, but it is what it is. For whatever reason this made me decide that I might just keep this blog going. That occasionally interesting things happen to me (shocker, I know) and I want to remember them someday. If you enjoy them too, that's cool, if not, that's cool too. It's all good. I might reference my year in China now and again, but that will fade. And besides all of my (appropriate for viewing) good stories are already in my blog. :)

So, here's one for you. On Nov 2 I went to see Steven Page (formerly of BNL) at the House of Blues. Alone. I was hesitant to go on my own, but, unable to find someone to accompany me, I said screw it, I like BNL/Steven Page too much to not go. It ended up being a very small audience and amazing show. I was 3 rows from the stage and I swear he raised his eyebrows at me once, and made eye contact with me multiple times during the show. woo!

After his 3rd encore he was like, "I'll be outside in the lobby if anyone wants to say hi."
what? in the lobby? srsly? So, I hopped in line, with about 30 people ahead of me.
A bit of drama to the moment - I took the rapid downtown and only had 40 minutes until the last train back west.
After about 10 minutes in line, he came out, woo! and thankfully people were being quick with 'Hello's and pictures etc. Well It came my turn, and I said something like
"Hi."
He says, "Hi."

amazing stuff. brilliant work.

"Can I give you a hug?"
That's right, Steven Page and I shared a beautiful embrace.

"it is just so nice to see you. You know, I've seen you from so far away and never dreamed of seeing you, it's just so nice to see you"

okay, had a little starstruck moment (didn't know that I could get starstruck)

"Yeah but now you can't tell your friends or you won't be able to get so close, right? haha"
"I really enjoyed your smile all evening."

What's up. He WAS looking at me all night, woo!

Then he asked my name, and said hope to see you again, signed me ticket. I opted out of a picture, because I feel like I see so many pictures like that and the celebrity generally doesn't appear thrilled to be in the picture. Instead,

"can I give you one more hug?"

that's right, 2 hugs. awesomeness.

homesick

2010-11-01T12:05:00.002+08:00

today I got just a little homesick, for Dalian...

Reverse Culture Shock - Final post

2010-10-18T02:13:00.003+08:00

I landed in Denver on the evening of September 29th. Drew, Family, and friends aside I definitely experienced some reverse culture shock. And more surprisingly are the things I miss about China, that I miss things at all.

Some things that I had to re-get used to:

Crossing the street. In China you go, whether there are cars/bikes coming or not. Crosswalks aka target practice are to be avoided. The first time someone waved me across, I was taken aback, almost with dusgust, certainly surprise.

Common Courtesy. Not everyone in China lacks this, but in general it is lacking. When you walk thorugh a busy street you just push, and that's acceptable. no apologizing. In stores I'd try to engage the cashier in conversation but would mostly be met with apathy, not surprising with the 15 checkout lanes, each 10 people deep. From the TSA workers who welcomed me at the airport, to the Safeway cashier who happily started me on a club card, so nice.

Spitting. I admit, I did it occasionally. But never inside, or on airplanes (yes this guy across the aisle from me from Dalian to Shanghai spit on the carpeted airplane floor).

Blending in. In China, my favorite part about winter was bundling up so I stood out less. Here, it's nice to do things without the hassle of being a foreigner. Whenever I hear people speaking Mandarin though I run up as close as I can to listen, because I do miss that.

Walking. a 10 minute walk to the store is out. I need 25 minutes for a walk, or bike or car to get to the store. sad. and no open air markets.

Responsibility. For all my complaining, I had a pretty easy way of life in China. I went to work, slept in 4 days during the week, went to bars whenever I could, and swimming in the ocean. Now I'm looking for a job, have much higher bills, etc.

Language. Even as my Chinese got pretty good, anywhere I went communication made things a challenge. So being able to clearly and efficiently communicate exactly what I want to is such a relief. I don't have to get the dictionary out before I go to the store.

Tax. so many pennies!

Clean air. Dalian was a 'clean' city. but even at its best moments there was a dirty haze over everything.

I am so happy to be home. But I wouldn't trade my experiences in China for anything. It may be a few years before I get back to that part of the world. It was a good run China, thanks for the trip, see you around.

Signing Off,
Kate, in the U.S.A.

Return

2010-10-05T08:47:00.002+08:00

Wednesday, September 29, 2010 11:06 AM Shanghai
And so the journey ends.
Getting back from the trip was a whirlwind of getting stuff packed, distributed and tossed. And having my last moments of hanging out with people. Which was really nice, especially yesterday. Okay, last Friday, went to Jinshitan and swam a bit with Dave and Nick. It was nice to finally be at a beach that wasn’t repulsive, in fact it was quite pleasant. We even climbed on and around this little island that when the tide went out you could walk almost all the way around at water level. I walked, Nick swam, I was scared. Then we had a quick snack at a nearby Western diner run by a Canadian, Susan’s. Really good cheap food. Yum-O.
Friday night Tingna and Cici cooked dinner for me, which was pleasant. The weekend was good, hotpot and then took the teachers from Jordan’s out on Sunday, they’re pretty cool, especially now that we’re just friends (my boss is only annoying when she has to be a boss, understandable).
Monday , after running around to banks all day, ugh, I made a carrot cake and we had dinner over Gigi’s parents’ house. The second dinner over there, and I think it was even better than the first. I literally could not stop eating. Crab, stuffed eggplant, clams, chicken thighs, fish, shrimp, niu rou bing(beef in a dough, amazing). Words can’t describe. I’m going to try and recreate at least the stuffed eggplant back in the states, but Gigi’s dad is really quite the chef.
Tuesday, my last day, ended up spending lunch and all afternoon with Irish James, which was nice, because he’s cool and I never really got to hang out with him much solo. Met up with Justin and Nick at Brooklyn then went off to have hotpot for my last meal. Because I love hotpot. Hotpot hotpot hotpot. James, Justin, Nick, Gigi, and Gigi’s friend Jing, a nice crowd. Daisy, Joe, Stephanie, Nik, Sandy, and Scott met us at Bobo’s, where Nick Daisy, James and I stayed till about 3, and then Nick and I went off to McDonald’s for a coffee and to hang out the last bits of time before I had to finish pack and go to the airport (first flight was at 7:55, so I just stayed up all night). When I got back to my apartment the sun was just starting to rise, and above the haze, my last morning in Dalian welcomed me with the rosy fingertips of dawn on a perfectly cool and but not too cool September morning. Cici and Tingna woke up to send me off in a taxi, which was really sweet of them, since it was so early, it was fun living with them, wish I would’ve known them for longer. I feel that way a lot about Dalian. Like in a lot of ways I was only just starting my time there when I left. It was an easy decision to come back to the states, I just wish I could pick out my favorite parts and people of Dalian and bring them stateside with me. Saying my goodbyes were tough but not heartbreaking, because I really like to think I’ll see these fine fine people again some day, in some country, some years from now. So now I sit here in transit, waiting for the next phase of things to begin, my life in Denver.  再见中国我会想你。

Tiger Leaping Gorge

2010-10-05T08:27:00.003+08:00

Wow. That's what I kept saying to myself as I hiked through the Tiger Leaping Gorge. It was a great hike, and it was a nice mix of, developed enough to have a few hostels on the way and a clear trail, and wild enough to have a few "i could fall off the enge and it'd be days before rescue (maybe) came" moments. Lijiang the city is at about 2400m altitute, and the trail at the gorge (about 2 hours from lijiang) is about 2400-2700 meters. Matt and I took a van from the hostel and so met a couple other people also doing the trail, a couple from Sweden/England, nice people. WE hiked a ways with them, and every now and then caught up to/passed/were passed by other people who started when we did. After sloshing through silver mud for about 15 minutes we had lunch at the 'Naxi family guest house' where we were introduced to Mint tea. Which since it grew in profusion on the mountain (along with sage, and pot), was super cheap and delicious. then onto the 28 bends, which is called as such because it's super steep. I had to take it really slow, later i decided not because I was out of shape but because of the elevation. men with horses/mules followed us in case we got tired, but we persevered! the top was amazing, and really after the bends it was a nice hike. The sun came out in the late afternoon (it started out as an overcast misty morning) and we pushed to halfway house to arrive just before the sun set. The guy who runs it is a very humble host, and the food was good and the beer cold. We watched an almost full moon rise over the mountains as the air quickly cooled and were in bed by 10. the next morning we got going on the trail about 11 and had a nice sunny hike to Tina's, walking over the waterfall covered path where all there was was a 4 foot path covered in wet rocks and showers from the waterfall. scary moments but good ones. Once at Tina's we decided to just stay there and have a huge leisurely lunch then go down to see the tiger leaping stone.
The gorge gets its name from the story about a tiger running away from hunters, and jumping over the narrowest point (27 meters) to safety.

The hike down was scary and slippery, but totally worth it, hiking all the way down to the river to look up at the huge mountains above. We had to scream to be heard over the roaring river, which you did not want to fall into; little chance of survival if you did. The way up was scarier, up the 'sky ladder' which was more or less rebar and wood somehow lashed to the mountain. I was shaking by the time I got to the top but it did make for a quick ascent. After hiking up aa steep trail tot he top, we stopped for a cup of mint tea at the Bridge Cafe and then back to Tina's to hang out, have a nice dinner with a few victory beers and chocolate baba. Naxi sandwiches for breakfast the next morning then back to Lijiang. From Tina's a new road was being built, which was almost as scary as the sky ladder with its hairpin turns and half covered in landslides road.
We could've kept going past tina's to another part of the trail but were content with where we hiked, and on the way to being a bit sore. no need to push things, there's always next time right? I'd love to come back in the spring, when there's supposed to be an astonishing array of wildflowers all over the mountain

Lijiang

2010-10-05T08:18:00.003+08:00

If I had to sum up Lijiang in 3 words: Amazing Mountainous Clean air. Okay that’s two words and a phrase, but still. Really nice. My flight from Chengdu to Lijiang was really early in the morning, like, leave Chengdu at 5 to get to the airport. Early. Blah. Arriving in lijiang I was nervous because I was banking on the shuttle to downtown to get there. Thankfully the airport is so small there are only 2 doors, one for departures, and one for arrivals, and I had no problem finding the bus that was just outside the arrivals door. It was cool and rainy when I arrived, which I had feared but was going to have a good trip no matter what. From the shuttle station I got a taxi but the woman was like, “this place is in old town, so I can’t take you there.” I’m like, “well, how about nearby? Can you tell me how to get there?” Lijiang’s old town is pedestrian-ized, but my hostel (so I’d read) was actually on one of the few outer streets that could have cars. My driver was just being a nasty woman. But I was groggy, had to trust her since I had no idea where I was going, and so I didn’t argue and hoped she’d 1. Take me to the right place and 2. Tell me where to go. She stops and points and I’m like really? She was pointing down this alley that looked like it led to her friend’s psycho killer home. Okay, I’m dramatizing a bit but it was rainy and I was tired. Luckily, once I go down the alley I see a sign “Panba Hostel ” yay!
I check in, it’s still rainy, and go to put my stuff in my room, the place seems almost empty. I’m in a room with 4 beds, and 2 of the beds have stuff on them. My door opens and who is it but my roommates for the next few days, Brynn and Elliot, from Ohio! From the Cleveland area! They seemed super cool, I was so relieved because I hadn’t really met anyone cool in Chengdu. Not only that but it was the first time in almost a year I was around people who sounded like me, said the same sayings, had the same accents, I had never really missed that before but it was certainly nice to have around. They invited me to watch a movie with them, so I got settled in and met them downstairs where they’d started watching Kungfu Panda, how China appropriate, besides being a cute movie.
The sun came out as we were watching the movie, while still mostly cloudy at least it’d stopped raining. They invited me to walk around with them but I opted to go out on my own, we made plans to have dinner with the staff at the hostel later that evening.
By the way, our hostel was really nice, and everyone who worked there was amazing, here’s my plug for Panba Hostel if you’re ever going to Lijiang, it’s the place to stay. It was clean, cozy, great location and great staff.
So I walked around (in the wrong direction) for about a half hour, got caught in a downpour under my tiny, broken umbrella, but finally found my way to the heart of old town. They (lonely planet and others) say that Lijiang (which means beautiful river btw) is a wonderful little town that has old city charm, some even call it the Venice of China because of the canals that run through town. Others say that it’s too touristy and not worth the walk through. I tend to agree with the former opinion. Yeah Lijiang has its share of tourist streets, but at least they’re dressed up with old style architecture. And the thing that I’m most concerned about, food, well you can always find decent traditional food. And oh boy did we find lots of it. More on that in a bit. Lijiang is beautiful and it and the Tiger Leaping Gorge are the first places in China that I’ve told myself I must come back to see again one day. When the sky started to clear on that first day and I say the blue, blue sky, I was awestruck. After living in what is deemed a “clean” city for 10 months I’d gotten used to the haze that obstructs the true color of the sky from shining through. In Dalian I’d tricked myself into believing that the color the sky was there on a clear day was the color of the sky. And so in Lijiang I remember asking Elliot and Brynn, “is that really the color the sky is?” and them being a little confused about how to answer, since it was just a small patch through the clouds, and of course the sky is that color. The canals in Lijiang are not big enough to carry a gondola, but rather small streams that run along the sides of streets so that many places must be accessed by a small bridge. The water is impeccably clear, and you can see many shops using the water for, well, lots of things (let’s hope not cooking though, not sure it’s that clean). The water originates from a mountain spring, and there’s a park on the outskirts of old town (Black Dragon pool) where you can see little bubbles rising from the ground beneath the crystal clear water while you gaze upon the towering snow capped peaks of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in the distance.
That afternoon I met Matt, a cool guy(from Portland) who not only loved to eat as much as I do but had been travelling for something like 8 months, Europe, South Africa for the World Cup, Trans-Siberian, Mongolia, China, then onwards to Tibet and other places. He was in the midst of planning his Tibet trip when I sat down across from him to read a book. We started chatting and it turned out he too was planning on going to Tiger Leaping Gorge, but the next day (my plans were for the day after). I brought up maybe going together, and he was down, yay! I was happy not only for the company but that of a cool guy who also happened to be a solo-traveler. Staff dinner was yummy, if a little salty, and the conversation was a mix of English, Chinese, and a little Japanese (the 4th in our room joined us for dinner, Sako? from Japan, who was fluent in English and studying Chinese). We all just hung around talking that evening, it was a lot of fun.
At some point that evening Rob and Reve arrived from Dali, where Matt had also just been, at the same hostel. A couple from New Zealand, the reigning authority on everything travel (for the last 8 years or so they’ve been travelling on and off all over the world), and just really chill people. The 6 of us (Myself, Matt, Brynn, Elliot, Rob and Reve) kinda hung out over the next week whenever we were in the same place). We walked around the old town, ate awesome food together, though Matt and I championed that one. There was this little northeast style restaurant just down the road from our place, and Matt wanted dumplings, so we went there. He was appreciative of my being able to order (I was happy to be useful to everyone in translation services all week, kinda fun actually). Well we went back again later that week a couple more times and I chatted a bit with the lady who ran it, she turned out to be from a city not too far away from Dalian, how fun! I translated her menu for her, and she was much appreciative, and a blast to talk to. But anyway, we ate all kinds of good things that week. Tibetan dumplings called momos, with curry and vegetable fillings, yum! Yak, which was actually pretty good. Baba, which is the local specialty bread. For breakfast every day we had Naxi pizza (Naxi is the local minority people), which was fresh baba with an egg cooked into it, and this homemade smoked chili sauce, so good, also a 10 minute walk from the hostel. delish.

From the feisty woman who sold us postcards and chinese medicine to the honey guy to sitting around a table, being with good people, lijiang was awesome. And of course tiger leaping gorge, but that gets its own special post.

Sichuan Yunnan vacay

2010-09-25T12:19:00.004+08:00

4 dyas until liftoff. woo! let's do a quick recap of the last two weeks. I didn't have much access to internet, so i'll do my best now from my written journal. to get the full details you'll have to ask me in person. First Chengdu

I gave myself 3 days in Chengdu because I was coming to Sichuan purely to eat spicy food. I was nervous going becuase i was by myself, but I found my hostel easily enough and they were really helpful my whole time there. The first day I just walked around, got caught in a rainstorm without my umbrella, and took refuge in a mcd's with tarrow pies and coffee. Took a walk to people's park, which was neat, had a bunch of old poepl singing and dancing, your standard chinese park.
I ate dinner alone at some streetside restaurant, but the owner was friendly. Had some spicy fish dish, and eggplant, both good and spicy.

The next day was the pandas, which were cool but i always get a little sad when i go to zoo-like places, because of these animals that should be out in the wild. even at so called 'rehab' centers like this one. And they were saying how the giant panda should be preserved because it's such an old species, ie average lifetime for a species is 5 million year and the giant panda is approaching 9. But, who are we to perpetuate a dying species hen it's their time to go?

After the panda's i had lunch with this random guy from my room in the hostel, he was leaving after lunch. it was nice to have some company though. then off to Dufu's thatched cottage, dufu was some famous chinese poet. it was a really nice, deserted area, much of it was still under construction, but they had traditional chinese music playing in some parts which was nice, if just a touch cheesy. I decided to walk back until i got tired, and i'm glad I did. I happened upon this shopping street, which while was recently built, was in the style of old chiense architecture, and talked with a cool shopowner. That was my favorite thing about chengdu, that it is a modern city but still has tons of old-style buildings and lots of greenery. Dalian doesn't have that, instead we have modern ugly building and parks that are few and far between.
bought a couple mooncakes from a little bakery. It was mid-autumn festival on the 22nd, so mooncakes are the traditional food. there's only one or two kinds i like, the rest of them are just bland dough with funny-texture sweet fillings.
kept walking for a bit then caught the bus to where i wanted dinner, the oldest tofu restaurant in town. i had two kinds of tofu (cracked and mapo) and pumpkin soup. but again, by myself.
day 3 was at leshan, this giant 70 meter buddha carved intot he side of the cliff. I went with a van arranged by the hostel, and so met some people to walk around with. we saw the buddha then went on to climb up and down a bunch of steps to a more remote area witha cool temple, crossed a bridge where a bunch of painting students were.
I finally had some hotpot!!!! sichuan is famous for its hotpot. and i wwas determined to get some. so glad i did, and even had some friends to eat with

Last Day!

2010-09-10T16:20:00.002+08:00

2 hours from now i will officially be finished working for my school! Only one class today, should be quite easy, they're my oldest, and best behaved class. One of the few I will miss. I've been looking forward to this day for many months now, but it's been quite anticlimactic so far. we'll see what happens when I actually go into work, but so far it's just been a rainy day. Minus my credit card being canceled by my bank. Long story short, I bank with HSBC. which should be an international bank, but really it's international if you have lots of money, otherwise, not so much. I've had multiple "fraud alerts" on my cards, but finally this time they wouldn't do anything but cancel it, even after i verified the charges. Ugh!!!

So, other than that, nothing exciting. Dinner tonight with Nik and Scott will be fun, a mini celebration of finishing my contract!!! I leave for my trip on Monday, so will spend the weekend hoepfully relaxing/packing. Cheers!

september, the final frontier.

2010-09-06T09:43:00.003+08:00

I don't know where to begin. perhaps I can try to do it all and just be sparse in details...

23 days until liftoff. Since my last post I literally haven't had time to find a cafe, log on, and update my blog.

The last few month have dragged by, but now that I have just over 3 weeks to go I find myself needing more time to do the things I want to do.

I'm going on a trip starting the 13th, return the 22nd. I'm excited but nervous, because I"m going by myself (though my former Chinese teacher said that she would try and mee tup with my halfway through). I'm going to Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, mostly to eat sichuan food, but I'll be able to see pandas and the giant buddha oh LeShan. 3 days in Chengdu then of to LiJiang in Yunnan Province, reputably one of the most beautiful places in China. The city itself is said to be full of old style stuff and history. Then the main event: Tiger leaping Gorge. A 3 day hike 2300 meters above sea level, supposedly the world's deepest gorge. My friends who have gone have spent 2-7 days there, I've giving myself 3-4, and can't wait, should be a blast. Please don't worry about me travelling by myself too too much, it's likely that I'll pick up hiking/general travel buddies along the way, since I'm going to fairly touristy/backpacker destinations.

This trip really cuts my time in Dalian, and there are still far away beaches I haven't had time to go to, food I haven't eaten, and hanging out to be done!

My last day of work is this Friday, hip hip hooray!!! I've been training the new teacher, whom I don't particularly like but whatever, and hopefully he'll be ready by the time I leave. It's interesting seeing him make all the same mistakes I made, being the experienced teacher.
I have 6 'last days' at work, since i see everyone once a week. My favorite class on Saturday made me particularly sad to leave. I like the teacher, Kevin, because he's really easy to talk to (i.e. his English is amazing) and he does well with his classes. Almost all of the students are really smart, and even the ones that aren't are enthusiastic, or at the very least attentive and not disruptive. Anyway, Angel, one of my students (who when I say things like 'am I beautiful/pretty/nice/etc' as vocab words she says, "noooooo, ugly teacher! hahahaha"), comes up to me after class, and hands me this watch made from shells and plastc green beads (they all know my favorite colors etc, we play favorites word games a lot), says 'Kate I'm going to miss you" and starts crying. Aw! I gave her a good long few hugs and reassured her that the new teacher was good and she'd like him, and told her when she grew up she had to come visit me in America. I've only been with that class since February, but still it's my favorite class, and Angel one of my favorite students (any teacher that says they don't have favorite students is a liar). It was the only class I gave my e-mail adress to, and i told the kids i'd only respond if they wrote me in English, to which i received a loud groan.

My favorite class, Angel is in the white dress in front

I honestly never thought that I would grow such an attachment to these kids, and them to me. When the new teacher was teaching, I would see the kids looking at me for confirmation of what they were supposed to do. A truly validating feeling, like yeah, i've done good. even my 3 year old students, who won't remember me in 5 years, or 5 weeks even but now still look to me when the scary new teacher make them afraid or cry, when I made them afraid just a few months ago.

No, I don't want to be a career teacher. But I'm glad I did it. I did enjoy it. I learned a lot from it. And I will miss some things about it.

Let's see, what else. Oh I hosted the quiz again a few weeks ago, and it was a really good one, but bad weather so there were only 10 people there to take it. Nick came and sat with me, I was glad to have the company.

I went to Ayi's house for lunch last week. The same Ayi (who asked me to call her Mama) whose family I went to hotpot with a few weeks ago. A really lovely family. I asked her if she could teach me how to make dumplings, which I've made before, but i figured it'd be a fun activity for us to do together. It was fun, I ended up hanging out with the family/eating/walking around from about 10-3, they wanted me to stay til after dinner, but I was kind of tired from being paraded around town to Ayi's friends. XiaoYi, Ayi (Ma)'s daughter was going to start her senior year of high school the next day. Get this, she was going to a school that takes like 1 1/2 - 2 hours to get to by bus, and so she would be staying over night during the week and coming back for weekends. As a senior in high school! All so she can go to a good high school so she can go to a good college so she can get a good job. crazy. I'll hopefully get to see them again before I leave.

Shushu, xiaoyi, xiaoyi's friend, and ma

Peter, and his mom and dad. I taught Peter (3 years old) one on one for about 2 months, and in that time ran about 50 miles chasing after him

molly and her boyfriend Andrew came for a visit this weekend! it was so much fun!

Cheers for now, will try to frequently update til the end, it should be an action packed few weeks, not sure how often i'll have access to internet cafes on my trip, see you all soon!!!!

Life without internet

2010-08-23T14:49:00.002+08:00

Well, not really. obviously. since I'm writing this entry.

Still no pictures from the new place, next post I promise.

The dog is gone though!!!! Yesterday I got home and Cici was like, "I gave my puppy to a friend."
I was like yayayayayayayay!!! "Oh that's too bad, I"m so sorry, why?"
"It was smelly"
Oh you mean like how the apartment smells like pee? "Yeah a little, what a bummer you must be so sad, I'm sad to see him go"
"Yeah I've been sad all day."

But really, amazing. I like dogs, and I want one. someday. but one that sheds little and doesn't pee everywhere and bark all night.

And it'd not worth the cost to get internet capabilities in the apartment, so I'll have to do without. sadness. So that means checking mail at school, that's fine, or going to coffee shops. At least I won't have to buy a coffee every single time I go though, my other housemate tingna (she named herself) told me about a place I can go and use the internet for free!!! I buy bread there sometimes anyway so it works out. Just not in my house. Maybe I'll be more productive in other parts of life from now on.

Finally, yet another grief about my school. On Friday, Eva says (my paraphrasing to better English), "so your lease is up sunday right?"
"yeah, I just returned the keys today."
"oh you did?" accusing frowning look "oh. well. we still have some um..."
"Well I have to go back monday to take care of the last electricity bill etc."
"okay well we'll send someone with you."
"um, why? for the deposit? I can get that myself."
"no, something else"

and i wish I would've pressed more for what that something else was (i was on my way out the door when she asked me so was just focused on getting the hell out), but i said fine whatever.

So I had to go today to get Kevin so he could come with me, adding another 45 minutes of inconvenience to my day, and when i ask him he says he's going with me to get the deposit. This really pissed me off, considering I'd asked Eva that question directly last week. Tomorrow I intend to inform her that she needn't waste my time like that. Just another reason why I can't wait for September 10th.

That's my rant for today. Sorry about the lack of interesting or heartwarming stories. Next time.

Moooooooooving

2010-08-19T11:11:00.002+08:00

Today is moving day.
I know what your thinking, "But Kate, aren't you leaving China in like a month? Why are you moving?"
Well, as logical as it would be (and convenient, even though i'm not a big fan of my place) to stay, my landlord wouldn't let me extend the lease.
I know what your thinking, "But Kate, you've only been in China 10 months, shouldn't you have 2 more months anyway?"
Well, that would make sense. But of course it all has to do with my school, who signed a 10 month lease (even though apparently they assumed I'd be working 12 months?).
So here I am, moving day. Thankfully finding a place turned out well. Well, we'll see. It's a friend of a friend, and there's two girls sharing a room, while I'm staying in the other one (I would feel bad, but I"m paying rent, so I don't). It's a bit noisy outside the window, but i'll deal. I don't think there's internet. And there's a 2 month old dog who pees all the time.
Pluses: water pressure in the shower, working gas stove, and a beautiful view of the ocean. haha, can't wait to post a picture of my 'oceanfront view.'

How did I move all my stuff? Got lucky there. Last week someone moved out of my building and I saw this guy with a truck, I went up to him and said, "Hi! Are you helping them move?"
he says, "yup"
"Oh cool, do you do that a lot"
"yeah sometimes"
"is this your job?"
"i do lots of things"
"ah, well, can you help me move next week?"
"where are you moving to?"
"I'm not sure yet" (was still looking for a place at this point
"ah, well. call me when you do."

So I called him Monday,
"Hi, I'm that foreigner from WuChangJie(my street)"
"Oh yeah yeah I remember"
"So I'm moving, can you help?"
"where to?"
"(My New Address), on Thursday."
"Sure no problem, call me Wednesday night. Bye"
"wait wait wait, so, yes? and how much? and what time?"

Briefly worked out price (i offered 200 (~$30USD) and he said okay. if it's too much then whatever, i was glad to have found someone so easily.
So I called him last night, no problem.
moved today no problem. He even helped carry stuff, which I knew not to expect. so I tipped him well.
The whole thing took an hour.

Now I have to finish cleaning the old place, clean the new place, and unpack. woo!! will post pictures once the new place is clean and i'm unpacked.

(no cows were harmed during the writing of this post)

the big meeting.

2010-08-11T11:58:00.002+08:00

Last month I informed the school I would now be renewing my contract, which ends August 31st. My boss Eva was not happy with this news, and said things like, "we were sure you were going to stay another year. You will have only taught for 10 months, you should teach 2 more. In fact, since you've only taught 10 months, we're not going to give you your flight reimbursement and bonus." I said, "well, I'm not going to, yes you are correct i have only been here 10 months, but i shouldn't teach 2 more, since I am working til the end of my agreed-upon contract. And I am certainly entitled to my bonus and flight reimbursement, considering it wasn't actually my fault that I arrived 2 months late."

Now, over the last few weeks I've gone back and forth with Eva (and the owner, supposedly), them refusing to pay me what I'm owed, me telling them logically why i am owed it, and finally requesting a meeting with the owner, who doesn't speak English. I waited until today, because I was expecting the worse and yesterday was payday.

I solicited some advice from Nik, Scott, and well everyone I talked to, and I went into the meeting with this plan:
Explain very clearly (citing my contract) why I should be compensated as promised (sounds silly to even have to say that), and that's that.
I typed up everything, in English and Chinese, which took me the better part of Monday night and Tuesday morning. My argument, plan A. Plan B, my compromise of 5/6 of the bonus/reimbursement, since i taught 10/12 months. Plan X, quit, forfeit August salary and bonuses, but leave with my principles and standing up against the year (well 10 months) of shit i've taken.

I get to the school at 9:30, chat with the teachers a bit, the owner isn't there, great. Hoping he's stuck in traffic (busy part of town). As I'm reviewing what I wrote, trying to get into speaking Chinese mode, he walks in with a hearty "Hello!" and big smile. Doesn't appear to be upset at all. I was planning on it going something like this:

He comes in, I explain my case, he tells me to f off, threatens to take away my visa, I say I don't care and walk out with his dragon talons chasing after me. Although I walk away triumphant, now I have to figure out a new visa.

Well, this is how it went:

Me: Man it's so hot these days eh? and those cicadas are so loud! I wish it would rain!
Owner: Yeah I hear ya, I wish it would rain too. And how bout when those bugs land on your window!
Me: so loud and annoying!
(this is me trying to relax myself and make the interaction as non-argumentativeas possible)
(he smiles, waiting)
Me: Okay so, I know there has been some disagreement about my contract, how I started 2 months late and will be leaving at the end of this month.
Him: There's no disagreement. It's totally our fault. Of course you will be compensated as you should be. You've done a good job here and so we've no reason to say or do otherwise.
Me(with my jaw on the floor): Oh, ok, cool.
Him: but here's the thing. Like I said, you will be taken care of as your contract says. (and here I am seriously paraphrasing, due to my poor Chinese) As you know it's hard to find a new teacher, and although we're looking, who knows how long it will take. If there is no foreign teacher, the students and parents will not be happy. These days we are very anxious about this problem, because we want to keep them happy. And so I would like to ask you to help us out a little bit. Perhaps you could stay longer to teach.
Me. Well, thank you for understanding about everything, but as far as staying, well, I've already bought my ticket back.
Him: Oh yeah? for when?
Me, the end of September, the 29th.
Him: Oh, the 29. Well, could you help us out by teaching for us until then?
Me: oh you know, I don't think so [i hate working here, what i wanted to say].
Him: We are just so anxious these days. How about another 2 weeks.
me: welll....
Him: It would really be nice if you could help us out.
me: well how about 10 days.
him: 10 days, well, okay.
Me: and how about my salary?
Him: Well we will pay you on a per-class basis
Me: how about 1/3 of my monthly salary.
Him: okay.

and we shook hands.

Now granted, in none of my plans was I going to stay and teach beyond August 31st, and I may come to wish I hadn't. But I was just so floored by how respectful he was towards me, and that he actually admitted the school to be at fault. And asked me for help for help's sake, not as leverage for my bonus. So I guess that's why I am staying another 10 days. That leaves me 19 days to travel if I want, and I'll probably only need 10 or so, so yeah. I think it went as well as it could have, aside from the 10 more days thing.

Another weight lifted off my shoulders (until next payday, we'll see if he's true to his word. but I think he is, and can't worry about that for another month now).

Job's okay, visa's okay, moving next week, ticket home, just need to plan my trip to Chengdu!!!!

"Look at my American friend!"

2010-08-09T11:02:00.002+08:00

This weekend was the same as any other. can't go out friday because have to get up early saturday to journey to work. Work was okay. I like most of my classes on Saturday, cute, well behaved kids. My 3 year old 1 on 1 after that even listened to me and sat with me for more than 2 minutes at a time (we played with blocks again, love blocks!!!!)

But the big thing was after work Ayi (means auntie, a polite way to address older women, and usually filling roles of cleaning person) had invited me to go to hotpot with her family. Last week her daughter was at school again and we were talking about likes and dislikes. Ayi makes her daughter come in to practice her English with me. Her daughter, xiaoyi, 17, hates speaking, and so we usually just chat in Chinese mostly, with some English to please her mum. nice girl, and I have lots of time between classes so sometimes it's nice to chat with them. So anyway last week they invite me to hotpot, i say yes, i love hotpot!!

I get off of work at 5:30, and we get to their neighborhood around 6:00. I assume we're going straightaway (i didn't want to be out late, with work, baking, and quiz preparing for the next day), but her husband didn't get off work til 7, so we had to wait. She says, "what do you want to do? where should we go?" I'm like... this is your neighborhood, you pick. Their neighborhood is actually quite similar to mine, except mine is downtown and theirs is far away. and apparently very few foreigners ever walk through.
Anyway, xiaoyi said 'let's walk through the market, they don't have these in america, right?' which is true, but I think she forgot for a moment that I've been living in China for so many months and must have been to at least on open air market. I told her how i actually prefer to shop there rather than chain stores because food is fresher and it's better for the local economy, she seemed satisfied with that answer. but every few feet she'd say to me, "there are so many people staring at you!"
I recognized this of course, because I can't hide my tall foreign appearance, and I haven't gotten used to it (i often find myself wanting to be in the states so i can blend in), but I've taken to sort of, not focusing on peoples faces when I walk around, so i can at least pretend like they're not looking.
and since this was the market where Ayi shops, she knew every other person and at one point said to me something to the effect of, "look at me and my American friend!" Beaming.
normally this too would annoy me but I like Ayi and was happy to make her happy.

So we finally go to the hotpot restaurant. And we're chatting, and shushu (uncle) arrives. I was expecting a big scary roughneck (because he works on the railroad lines), but Who i met was a reserved, polite, humble, and enjoyable man. A bit of a scratchy voice from either smoking or work, i don't know. You could tell that he really loved his wife and daughter. just a lovely family.

Shushu and ayio don't speak English, but with Shushu we were able to throw back and forth a few basketball player's names, Shaq (sounds like Oh-nee-are), Lebron James (ja muh suh), Kobe (koh bay), and that's always fun.

The table across from us was staring with abandon at me, so I waved and said hello, my usual reaction, because it's often met with an embarassed chuckle and look away. which makes me smile.
I explained this to ayi shushu and xiaoyi, that I think it's funny to call people out on their staring. They somewhat seriously responded, 'it's just that you are a foreigner and they are curious about you'. So I said, "yeah, and they think that's fun, I think saying hello is fun. So, we both have fun!" which satisfied them okay.

I told them about my family, again, that i have siblings and divorced parents is a really big deal. And i can say Boston, Washington (close enough to baltimore, sorry mom), and New York City in Chinese (Cleveland too, but I usually just say, 'by the 5 great lakes'). They asked me what do i usually eat with hotpot, this is by the end of the meal and i'm stuffed, and ayi keeps putting food on my plate. I say "about what we've had, we like to get potatoes too." and i'm glad i didn't way anything else because before I could stop him shushu had ordered potatoes. not what i thought that question was about. I had to tell them 10 times that if we got noodles too it'd be just ridiculously too much.

It was after 9 when we finished, i was tired, wanted to get a cab home (I was still far from home and i don't like cabs but i was tired), but ayi wanted to pay for my cab so i took a bus (which she had her daughter force her way onto the bus before me to pay anyway), and got home after 10. a long but fun night. I like spending time with nice people. they invited me back, and maybe to their house for dumplings (she's made some for me before and they're yummy!!!)

all grown up

2010-08-02T16:39:00.004+08:00

Been having a "i hate China day." It started when I woke up at 6 per my alarm, and promptly returned to sleep. I want to get up early one of these days and spend a peaceful morning at the beach before the throngs of tourists cover every open area with tents (yes, tents). But I decided today would not be that day. however, around 7 i hear this "waaaawaaaawaaaawaaa," no not a baby, but a cicada. As I remember Cicadas in NE Ohio, they sound like loud rustling of leaves in the trees, not so annoying. but here, from sun up til sundown (which is like 4 am to 7 pm these days more or less), it sounds like a police siren with a smokers cough. so ridiculously annoying. and this morning it sounded like one was right next to my ear. I finally got out of bed at 7:30 because i felt my eardrums vibrating and sure enough, right on my screen, waaaaaawaaaaaaaaawaaaaaaa. it took three flicks to get it to fly away. ugh! so now i'm up, ok, i'll be productive, did some laundry, a couple other things, and made a to do list.

post office, work to drop off my time sheet, bank, gym, supermarket.

first two no problem. i go to the bank, one i don't use very often, and enter the wrong pin and so my account got locked. As soon as i got home i remembered the right one, but can't try to fix things til tomorrow.
-why is this a "i hate china" moment? because in the states I could've gone intot he bank and clearly explained my problem, but my chinese isn't that good, at least i was pissed off and so had no desire to attempt to stumble through.

okay, no problem, off to the gym for a nice swim. usually no more than 4 or 5 people in the pool. today there were about 15 kids learning how to swim and 10 lap swimmers, ugh. I got through about 15 laps without anything more than having to swim around kids, which is less annoying because they're kids. But then, all of the sudden there were two dudes swimming straight at me! adults. they should know better. If you swim laps, you know how annoying it is to have to concentrate on things other than swimming. so the guy stands up sees me, and move aside, for the moment. I get to the end, turn around, and the second guy has moved right in front of where i was about to be swimming. Now there' just not enough room for this bullshit. I started to try to swim, but then this other guy starts too. That's just too much for me. I stomped out of the water with an angry look on my face, hopefully triggering some sort of guilt for being inconsiderate swimmers in these two guys. More likely though they were just happy i was gone so they could swim. I realize it was such a passive aggresive thing to get pissed off and leave instead of confronting them. but once again, i was too pissed off to try to explain to them pool etiquette. On my way out i asked when swimm classes were. Every day 9-11,1-3.3-5, basically all day. going to try 9 tomorrow, hopefully fewer people.

walked to the supermarket in a huff, blew off some steam and felt a little better. Got potting soil to repot my plants, but they didn' thave any enpty pots, wtf! thankfully i had a few takeout containers at home I used. So, a few repotted plants, chocolate chip cookies and a mountain dew later i'm not so pissed anymore. here are my plants!! Look at Spring Sprang Springto see them when i first got them

so pretty!

Homeward Bound

2010-07-27T13:08:00.002+08:00

It wasn't an easy decision to make (though having a visitor helped), but I'm officially returning to the states at the end of September, putting my journey at 11 months and 1 day, just a month shy of a year, but it's time for my return. I was considering staying at least a semester and enrolling full time to study Chinese, but I wasn't sure what I'd do with it (my time here has reaffirmed my lack of desire to be a teacher), and I don't think I could make the what should be at least a 2 year commitment to really become fluent.

honestly had it not been for the wonderful people I've met here, I might have jumped ship and gone back sooner. I've never settled into liking my job (the random hours, poor management, and lack of challenge), and without these awesome people I would've been not only bored but crazy with my job. Thankfully due to their fault, I arrived here two months into my contract and they didn't have me sign a new one, only committing myself to 10 months with the company. They obviously weren't happy and said things to me like, "You need to work 2 more months, how are we supposed to find another teacher? Your bonus is in jeoporady," but none of those things were my responsibility and I told them so. We'll see what happens about the rest of my flight reumbursement and bonus, but another month before I have to deal with that.

In the meantime I have to find an apartment for a month(have to move out Aug 22), change my visa into a tourist one(Around aug 31), find teachers for my private students, and plan my trip to chengdu/maybe also qingdao. but, the first step is done, my plane ticket purchased for September 29th to Denver, October 11th to Cleveland.

touchdown in t minus 2 months and 2 days

Cold Skin

2010-07-23T19:51:00.003+08:00

For the last three days I've had 凉皮（liangpi), cold skin, for dinner. A Xi'an specialty, when Drew and I were in Xi'an we had the most delicious liangpi I've had. Still looking for some in Dalian that match the quality. So what is this delicious dish?

The noodle is made from rice flour, very thin a little bit bigger than a vinyl record. Chopped into pieces. The noodle

other ingredients include majiang(ground sesame seed paste), lajiang(spicy oil), vinegar, sugar, salt/msg, shredded cucumber, and often another type of noodle that looks like a sponge, and is yummy beause it soaks up the sauce.

A couple a pictures that don't quite do the dish justice, but looks are not always important...

Today's failure, too vinegary

The 非常地道凉皮. (totally genuine liangpi)

Pistachio Cookies

2010-07-20T11:12:00.004+08:00

Been able to do a lot of baking recently, and cooking/relaxing in general because my morning private students are on vacay. Made brownies the other day, yum. pretzel encrusted chicken with a mustard marinade for dinner, yummer. and today, yummest, pistachio cookies.

Since Christmas I've only been making choc chip, peanut butter, etc., nothing exciting. So with a glass of chilled (cheap) Chardonnay in hand last night I looked for new recipes and came upon this: The Italian Dish

Didn't have any almond flour so I just used regular and added a half a stick of butter to replace the fat. was tired of peeling pistachios so topped them with green m&ms, bits of chocolate (semisweet), or just a bit of powdered sugar. Amazing. very different texture from your average cookie, will definitely make them again, highly recommended!!!

Nice people.

2010-07-19T20:06:00.002+08:00

My time in China has truly changed me to more of a cynic than ever. So when someone tries to lend a helping hand or seems to be nice I am wary. Today when I was out I had two really nice interactions with people, that made me remember that not all people are out to rip me off or insult me as a foreigner....

I was shopping for something I didn't know how to say in Chinese, wire, asking for "iron line" and this guy chatting with the shopkeeper said to me in the most perfect English I've heard here, "Can I help you? you can speak English, it's okay." And although the shopkeeper didn't have it and this guy didn't work there, they helped point me in the right direction. :)

On my way home I wanted to pick up some broccoli for dinner, something that isn't super uncommon, but not at every vegetable stand for sure. So I went to the vegetable stand that's inside the mall where my gym is (yes all three together), because they often have it. I looked around and the clerk looked at me and i asked her then saw one head.

"Oh, only one left?" I said
"yeah, the only one"
a quick look and it looked okay, not rotten, but then she said, "you know, it's kid of old, are you sure you want it?"
and really it was fine, been sitting for a free days yeah but was in my dinner plans for this evening so i said, "I'm eating it tonight, so no problem."
"but look here, it's a little old" pointing out a few discolored buds."
"eh, eating it tonight, don't care."
"well, I'll give it to you for 1 kuai[15 cents]"
normally at this place the veggies are more expensive, and it would have cost me probably 4 or 5 kuai (75ish cents for the same head of broccoli, fresh).
but she was so nice, unwrapped it, pointed out where I'd have to cut around (which really wasn't that much)

So yeah, I like nice people.

and one more, yesterday as I was getting home with dinner in hand my neighbor (old man and family, see the old man all the time, who leaves his door open now that it's summer) asked me if I had food, because they were just sitting down to dinner. I did have food, and he may have just been being polite, but I still appreciated it. :)

stickers

2010-07-15T12:29:00.002+08:00

Coming into this teaching gig with no training or experience made me learn a lot of things about dealing with kids the hard way. For example, discipline, as in i have no idea how to discipline kids who can't understand what I'm saying to them (pretty sure i'd still have problems if they could). And so as a result unless we're having a particular good day, all of my younger classes are really draining. Sundays especially, I have 5 classes back to back in the am (essentially 3 hours), 4 of which are with 3-4 year olds and one 5-6 year olds. This past sunday I had 5 or 6 crybabies, 2 tantrums, 1 ball thrown out the window and 1 toy hammer broken. A particularly, exciting, day. Lunch, then 3 classes of older kids in the afternoon, half hour each, over 5 hours, no big. still was very tired from the morning and a bit frustrated, and was sitting in the office when a student came up to me and poked me on the neck, playfully.
I turned around and it was Grace, 4 years old from one of my morning classes, she was still there to make up a missed class or something, and waiting for her parents to pick her up. The last thing I wanted to do was talk and play with her but no one else was in the office and I couldn't leave her alone. That day in class we learned colors, so I got out some stickers and told her if she told me the colors i'd give her a sticker. well, 20 minutes and 12 stickers later, she was telling me about the 4 stars, 5 flowers, yellow giraffe, etc. she had all over her hands. So happy to get all these stickers from me. It was great though, because I really must've spent 20-30 minutes with her just saying "what color is this? what animal? how many stickers do you have?" and she sat there fascinated by the beautiful sitck colored paper on her hands. Then she took them and put them in her book and said [in chinese], "the stars go in the sky, the flowers go on the ground,..." and made a little scene with the stickers I'd given her.

After she left to go home I felt just a little less tired. For those 20 minutes I wasn't thinking about my sore throat or tired feet or gross lunch I'd had, I was just playing stickers with this cute little girl.
Solid day :)

Watch your step

2010-07-08T09:59:00.002+08:00

Last week my friends Nik and Sandy (newlyweds) asked me to stay a night with Sandy while Nik had to go out of town on business. I said, "No one will get past these guns," kissing each bulging bicep. Okay, i didn't do or say that but I did say sure I'll hang out for a night. So last night after work I hop on the bus that I know goes to somewhere near where they live but haven't taken it before. I get off at the correct stop, and I can see my destination in the distance, across a bridge and construction site. I look around, decide that going around the construction site will tak emuch too long of a time and make my way in. Now, this was fine, because it started out ona road that was closed down but not actually being worked on. Then I see why it had been closed: the bridge had been taken down in order to work on pipes or something.

Shit. do I walk all the way back around? no, it's already late and we're going to dinner. I turn to my left and it looks like I can walk through the actual construction area to my destination. So I start walking, to my left over a big pipe is a straight drop down quite deep where bulldozers are digging even deeper, to my right, the dirt from where they already dug. I had to walk over a few piles of the dirt but no big deal. I see an opening in the fence so I go over to it but behind it is another fence I can't get through. Hmm, now what. So I go back to the path between the pipe and dirt and suddenly there's no more path, only huge piles of dirt. not wanting to slow down I without thinking take a big step up onto this hill of... mud. squish my foot sinks in halfway up my shin. Shit, my first irrational thought is that I stepped in drying concrete and i'm screwed. but no, just mud, so i leverage up with my hand and other foot and quickly skirt across the pile in another 10 steps with minimal squishage. Wearing capris and my hiking sandals made for much less of a mess than could have been.

I finally get out of the site and meet my friend at this mall where we're going to dinner. She's like, "uhhh what do you want to do?" I say "wash my hands and go to dinner while my therapeutic mud bath soaks in!" :) so that's what we did, i got a few odd looks but not many more than usual.

the rest of the night was fine, we hung out for a while, i went to bed early, made sure to check for monsters and burglars before doing so, which got a good laugh from Sandy. And left this morning. no big!

On my way back up my street, I ran into that woman who knocked on my door again. stopped to chat with her a bit. and although she talked to me like i was 3 (a bit too slow and clearly, mostly i don't understand what she says because of vocabulary, but how should she know that), otherwise uneventful. cheers.

A knock on the door.

2010-07-07T11:26:00.003+08:00

So I generally spend Friday and Saturday nights in because of early and long Saturdays and Sundays. This past Saturday was no different. I was watching yet another episode of Bones, minding my own business when someone starting knocking on the door. I ignored it as usual, because I don't have guests over my house, and so there is never a reason to answer the buzzer or the door. But this woman was persistent. And I could tell it was the voice of an older woman, and the rational thought "if i have to I can take her" came into my mind.

So I answered the door and say "who are you?" She rattles something off to me that I don't really understand, sees my blank face and asks me if i can understand chinese, I say yes. She speaks a little slower and shows me this paper. She is apparently the woman who cleans the stairwell(indeed there is someone that does this), and has come to collect her annual cleaning fee. Immediately I think fraud, and tell her I don't believe her. I say, why wouldn't I pay my landlord this fee? And she says that she's indepent from them, or something like that.

She goes on and on about how she's tired, been doing this all day (it's hot and she's super sweaty and does look tired), and she's not cheating me, collects the fee from foreigners and native people alike. I sigh, and rationalize paying her by the relatively low amount of money, 24 yuan for the year ($3.50USD). She gives me some little piece of paper with a red stamp and a phone number (red stamp means 'official' in China), and says i can call the number the next day to verify.

After I close the door I watch her give the same schpeel to my neighbors through the peephole and decided either she wass telling the truth or at least everyone was getting ripped off.

The next day she is sitting out in the common courtyardish (think rundown courtyard with stray cats, garbage, and plastic flowers planted in the garden) area handing out fliers to everyone.

Monday I take the fliers to my chinese teacher and ask her about this. The fliers are a reminder to not litter in the area, and a survey of public services. legit. okay. But She agrees that I should pay this fee to my landlord (though the fee itself is legit), so still unsure whether or not i've been had. But at least I got a blog post and chinese lesson from it. :-)

June! Where did it go?

2010-07-02T08:44:00.004+08:00

So now that the summer is here and I'm not shivering while sitting at my keyboard, the time is passing too quickly. My birthday was fun, 23 now, woo! I made myself a chocolate cake and took it to the bar to share with lots of people (it was a small cake made from my small oven, but still good). Nick and Poly and soon Dave have gone on summer vacation and others of my friends are leaving soon. :( a transitional period is what the summer seems.

I'm currently at the 2 month point left in my contract, after which I'm still deciding whether to stay in Dalian and enroll full time to study Chinese or return to the states.

Most importantly and fun, aka the main reason why June flew by, I had a visitor! Drew traveled alllllll the way from the states to see me, and we had a wonderful couple of weeks together. We went to Beijing and Xi'an, and hung out around Dalian for a week. We did all the touristy stuff in either city, in Beijing: Great Wall, Forbidden City, Summer Palace, Tiananmen Square, Wangfujing snack street, ate Peking Duck. We also visited where I used to go to school and had dinne with Molly and her boyfriend. In Xi'an: rode bikes on the old city wall, Terracota Warriors, Muslim Quarter, Goose Pagoda. All the while eating delicious food like paobo, mutton soup with bread and noodles, yumyumyum. and liangpi, cold skin, rice noodles with a sesame spicy sauce, xi'an specialties!

Some pictures, will have the rest online soon....

Classic Drew and Kate pose, in front of the Summer Palace

On the Great Wall at mutianyu, what a hike!

Some Sichuan food, delicious, flaming tofu and hongshaorou(meat and potatoes in a delicious sauce), unfortunately gave us a 24 hour bug!

A nice view of the SUmmer Palace and lake (we took a paddle boat out on it!)

Me Drew, Jenny and Kevin, teachers at my school

useful vocabulary

2010-05-29T19:27:00.002+08:00

I was doing this exercise with my older class, 10ish year olds. Writing two things on the board, winter/summer, cats/dogs, taxi/bus, etc. and letting the students choose and defend their preference. When I wrote ice cream/cake on the board the split was pretty even. I asked the standard, "why ice cream and not cake" and vice versa. One of my students said, "Ice cream, um, um, constipation!"

10 year olds with a limited vocabulary, full understanding of constipation....

be wary of street food in China.

you looka lika chinese boy

2010-05-28T14:01:00.002+08:00

so I got my hair cut, needed a big change

I showed the guy this picture...

this is a before shot...

an hour and a half later, this is what they did to me and how they styled my hair (it looks remarkably like my stylist's hair)

an after washing the hairspray, how i might wear it sometimes...

Jeff and Coco

2010-05-25T14:21:00.002+08:00

Jeff and Coco are the two hosts of an English program on the radio. I'd never heard it before, until today, but had heard that it was full of incorrect and just plain funny (albeit uselessish) English. Today I was lucky enough to hear a gem for myself. Jeff, a foreigner, asks Coco, chinese, about going out for food or something. Jeff says, "oh, but i'm a veggie, I don't eat meat." today's new word is veggie. Coco explains in chinese what a veggie is and then asks Jeff to spell the word. "V e g g i e. I am a veggie. I love to eat vegetables." and Coco repeats back, "Weggie, way e g g i e. you are a weggie, I am not a weggie, I like meat."

So remember, if you don't eat meat, you're a weggie. gotta be painful

A Chinese Wedding

2010-05-18T20:45:00.003+08:00

Shortly after I arrived in China, maybe 2 months, my new friend Nik asked me to come to his wedding. I was hesitant, as we were still getting to know eachother and weddings are for special friends. But as it turns out, Nik is a great friend now and it was an honor to go to his wedding.

Okay, so, Chinese weddings are nothing like western ones. This one was Chinese with western characteristics, but still way different. Nik, English, and his bride Sandy, chinese. Nik and Sandy both wanted a quiet affair held in Dalian, with a handful of select friends and Sandy's family. However, Sandy's parents would have none of that, and so it turned into a huge event with 200 guests (190 of which were unknown to Sandy and Nik), in Sandy's hometown of Yangquan. Yangquan, a small town of 1.2 million, with only one McD's, KFC and Wal-mart each, a village compared to Dalian, but not quite rural. We heard there were one one, maybe two resident foreigners, but we would be the main show in town. That is myself, Scott, Brett, John, and Nik's friend from Amsterdam Damon. Brett's role was best man, and as Nik doesn't speak much Chinese and Brett is fluent, he also helped with vows.

We get into Yangquan friday afternoon, have a nice dinner with Nik and Sandy, and then Nik and Sandy go off to take care of some stuff. We were planning on at least taking Nik out for something of a night, but I'd gotten a cold on the plane (surprise surprise), and everyone else was tired too, not to mention that festivities were to start at 7-8 am the next day.

Saturday morning we woke up about 6 to get ready. I was treated as a groomsmanish and so was allowed to take part in the pre-ceremony traditions, which we were told that would include the following:

At Sandy's parents house, Sandy would be inside the house, and we would have to bribe our way in with money. Sandy's parents and family would make Nik do stuff (push ups, etc) and when he'd done enough he would be allowed inside the house.
Nik would also have to carry Sandy's mother for 50 meters
Sandy had to eat 100 dumplings (fingernail sized)
Fireworks are shot off outside the house to scare away demons
manholes are covered with red paper to keep demons underground.
then a caravan to the hotel where the wedding would be held

All of this happened except for hazing Nik and making him carry mom. Although he did carry Sandy down 4 flights of stairs in his suit and her voluminous white dress.

At the hotel, Nik and Sandy had to stand in the entrance and greet the 200 guests they didn't know (note the time is about 11 AM)

When we get upstairs to the banquet hall... there are 20 tables with red tablecloths and red covered chairs and in the entrance is a giant red heart made out of paper or whatever. Did I mention the stage with the red backdrop and a 3 foot picture of Nik and Sandy in the shape of a heart?

On every table there's already 10 dishes(no chopsticks yet), a bottle of wine, coke, orange juice, and baijiu. Most tables are already into the alcohol, but we're waiting, as should be tradition until the ceremony starts.

The lights dim and the emcee starts. yup that's right, emcee. A host for the day who talks in flourished Chinese about love and commitment (quite rehearsed as he's done it who knows how many times before). Nik and Sandy enter together and give eachother something like vows, Nik has to pledge his faithfulness to her father (Brett helps). the emcee says some more stuff. Then Sandy pours her heart out in thanks to everyone for coming, but as she is doing this people are talking and eating, hardly paying attention (chopsticks had been given out by now).

After the ceremony, Nik and Sandy spent the rest of the meal going around getting drunk doing thimble shots of Baijiu with every table in the room. Then it was like the place was suddenly empty. Everyone was gone by 1:30. crazy.

As far as gifts go, it's not the norm at Chinese weddings. hongbao, or red envelope full of money is. The emcee company or whoever (not Nik and Sandy. remember they wanted a simply no frills no gifts wedding), set up a book and a box. you dropped your red envelope in the box and they wrote your name in a grid, one square for every 100yuan ($15) you gave, for all to see. tacky? seems to be a theme.

All in all it was a lot of fun, and even though they had to make a big ado out of what they wanted to be a small ceremony, I think Nik and Sandy both also had a good time. We had a low key Saturday night, tried to not keep Nik away from his bride for too long (they're going to have a honeymoon sometime in the hopefully near future). On Sunday Nik and Damon flew back to Beijing for some sightseeing, and we came back to Dalian.

what a trip.

p.s. working on scrounging a few pictures. I took 100 plus, but, my new camera's SD card ate basically all of my pictures, argh! here are the three that survived...

Sandy, Sandy's Dad, Mum, and Nik. This was taken as Sandy was pouring her heart out in love and thanks to everyone, while they're all (few of whom actually know Sandy) stuffing their faces. Note the heart of candles on the left

Our spread of food, yumyumyum

Damon, Nik, and Brett (best man/feifei)

six months, sick, seeing things clearly now

2010-04-30T09:37:00.002+08:00

on an S kick for titles I guess.

So as of Thursday I've been here for 6 months. The last month has gone by quickly, but the rest, well, it has its ups and downs. I really live by the saying about being abroad is like living on a rollercoaster. Who knows what the next 6 have in store for me eh.

It's also been nearly a year since I graduated. A crazy feeling. Was talking with my friend who is still in Ithaca and she mentioned classes were almost over and I had to catch my breath. I had a moment of, "and well? what have you done with your life in that year?" And while sometimes I don't feel like my job is necessarily the greatest (okay, i often hate it, the management at least), and I have struggles in daily life (from my water heater, to assaults, to my next story about being sick), overall I'm having one hell of an experience here. And enjoying it, despite everything bad that happens to me....

...including Chinese hospital visits.

So I'd been sick before Shenzhen, swollen tonsils, but took some antiobiotics (a lot of stuff is OTC here) and was starting to really feel better. On Sunday though, after a day of running, etc. I felt miserable and it was difficult to swallow. So, Tuesday I went to a hospital, and my amazing friends Nick and his wife Gigi came along to help me translate and whatnot. We went to a hospital where I heard there was an English speaking wing, but it was inpatient only so we went down the road to a smaller, but still decent hospital. Gigi was a trooper and in my absolute misery helped me through talking with the doctor and everything. He wanted to put me on an IV for three days because he said things were serious. Gigi was like, she can't stay overnight (go Geeg!) so the plan was to come and get the IV and then I could leave. We went to the pharmacy and got two armfuls (and wallet emptying) of drugs. 3 bottles the first day, 2 the second and 3 the third. The antibiotic was the same that I had just gotten for my second attempt of self medication, but it was better to be administered in a hospital, right? In fact, the doctor said if i felt better I could keep taking the pills I'd bought already. haha.

I should describe the doctor's office. Two chairs, two doctors treating patients at the same time. they have this little table and stool they have to sit at all day. The chair is like a big scary dentist's chair, with mirrors and lights and stuff, and inbetween the two chairs is a bunch of instruments, metal, because they reuse things like tongue depressors (though not immediately of course). No tests, just one look and poke (ouch) at my tonsils and it was, take these drugs and IV. by the way, you might get a little fat from the hormones. hormones?

Now the IV room. Around 25 lounge type chairs, not very comfortable but do the job. Luckily it wasn't too busy and there were only 4 or 5 other people getting IV treatment while I was in the room. Nick and Gigi come in and keep me company until the needle is in and I'm not dead or whatever. They were so awesome for spending so much time to help me.

2 hours later, the first bag is done. Not sure what's in it, I assume the antiobiotics, but they change the bag to a bottle, and I ask, 'one more, right?' and they say 'yup.' Things are okay for a few minutes on this new bottle but then I start feeling very figity, and my hand hurts where it's going in. I start to get hot, breathe heavily, uh oh. I page the nurse and text Nick to ask them to come back. By the time the nurse comes over, i'm doubled over and losing my vision, and I can't answer anything they're asking me. then i guess (guess because I can't see now), they brought in a stretcher, got me up on it and took me to a room to hook me up on a machine. tubes in my nose and everything. On the way i started to get my vision back (as soon as they took the IV out I was feeling better), and was able to call Gigi so they could tell her what was going on, gosh I must have scared Nick and Gigi so bad!

I felt weak for a while but got my senses back to me. Nick made helpful jokes to make me feel better, like trying to make my heart race by asking questions and talking about what would happen if he pushed the buttons on the machine, while Gigi superwomanly dealt with the doctors and refunding my unused drugs and all that.
Don't know where I'd be without those two, I tell ya.

The doctor, very nice guy, said then that he didn't feel he was confident to give me any other drugs and I should go to a bigger hospital the next day. At least he was honest, eh?

So, Wednesday, I went to a hospital (by myself this time, hopefully saving Gigi and Nick time and worry), and told that doctor what happened and that I absolutely didn't want an IV. she said, "that will be ver slow" and I said "no IV. no way." "are you scared?" she asked me. yeah, you could say that.

So, 21 pills a day for the next week or so and I will be good to go! A combo of antibiotics, hormones, and chinese herbs(violets), and 2 days later i'm already tons better.

Please family, don't worry about me. I'm okay now!!!

Nick + Gigi 4 ever.

Shenzhen, Soccer, Stealing

2010-04-29T23:07:00.002+08:00

Shenzhen is just on the mainland side of HongKong. A nice, rich, clean city (from my perception), with beautiful weather (70s when we were there day and night). When I got out my lonely planet to check out what there was to do in the city, this is quoted from the first paragraph, “ Though commercially successful, Shenzhen isn’t a pleasant city and the extreme imbalance of wealth and poverty lends an air of desperation. The crime rate is high and visitors should be wary of walking alone after dark…” and goes on to say that it’s useful for shopping and for getting to hongkong, and that’s about it.

We were down for the weekend, to play some Gaelic football (I liken it to a combo of soccer, volleyball and basketball), put on by the Gaelic Athletic Assocation of Shenzhen, it was a pretty big deal, with lots of really happy athletic Irish and other foreigners, like me!
The games were on Saturday, with Sunday free, so I had originally intended to spend Sunday exploring, but after reading my lonely planet decided against it. I don’t like shopping anyway. Friday night we got in late, our plane was delayed an hour or so, and head to the local Irish pub for a beer and to say hello to everyone already there. Didn’t stay too long, because of an early start for the games on Saturday, so returned to my 5 star hotel room (package deal with the team!!!!) took a shower and relaxed and went to bed.
Saturday morning, get up, enjoy breakfast in the hotel, and off to the games. Wow, the local team really put a lot of effort into planning everything. Sponsors, tents, gift bags, water stations, everything was set up quite professionally. Really impressive. There were… 12 or so men’s teams and 6 ladies teams playing in the games, so each game was comprised of 2 7 minute halves, with a 2 minute break for halftime. The guys were divided up into 3 brackets, and us ladies played everyone, that meant 5 games plus any finals.

There were 2 guys teams from Dalian, and although they played well and looked great (did I mention the many athletic/attractive Irishmen at this thing?), the competition was just too fierce(teams from Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou, Shenzhen…). they’re still number 1 in my heart!

Most of the girls on our team are newbies to the game just like me, so we were all pretty set on just having a good time, knowing we wouldn’t win. And it's hard to describe the group of gals we were, but all really amazing people. From all over, China, US, Ireland, Canada, and aside from our nationalities a really swell group of women. We were a few short, and Shanghai had a few extra gals, so they played with us, and it worked out great. Got along and played well together. We even won our first game!!!! The next 4 we weren’t as lucky, but hey, we played well as it was and didn’t give any of the games away, so that in itself is a big accomplishment. I played midfield, and even scored a point! The way they had the tournament set up, in the finals team 1 would play team 2, 3 4, and 5 6, well by then we were ranked 5th, having only won the one game. But 1st place gets a cup, 3nd place a plate, and 5th place a bowl. So if we won our finals game we could still walk away with some hardware. By our 6th and final game however, we were all just wasted tired. We had also learned lots from playing all day. So had the other team, it was a really close game, and we ended up winning!! So while it was 5th place, it was a hard earned and satisfying 5th place. I immediately proceeded to buying a hamburger and a beer, which is what the guys (who were already finished) had already started on. I was so tired I worried I’d drop my beer, thankfully that didn’t happen. Remember, this was an Irish event, so drinking and partying were an integral part of the weekend.

After all the finals were played we went back to the hotel to clean up and then out to dinner at a Sichuan restaurant (yumyumyum). Each team was given a theme, though I didn’t take it too seriously, ours was Angels. There were cops, robbers, Indians, cowboys, demons, angels, etc. and most of the other teams went all out. Luckily a teammate Tom let me wear his black angel wings all night, don’t know what I would’ve done without him!
A lot of fun. Our team was the last one to leave that bar, and then we went on to a club to dance. More fun and dancing, so much so that I set my bag down and it was taken. Camera, Wallet, phone, all gone. Most importantly and what made me the most upset were the pictures on the camera and the non-money sentimental crap in my wallet. I've since taken care of my cards and got a new phone, for whatever reason I had my driver's license in there too, yay for dealing with that whenever I get back to the states.

Sunday, basically spent the whole day at the Irish pub, recovering. I had a lox sandwich on ciabatta, yummy. Can’t get foreign food like that in Dalian. Even though I was miserable, sore, and upset at myself all day, it was still nice to be around everyone, there are a lot of really awesome people here.

==
I am an idiot. let's face it. If you know me at all you know I'm quite a responsible (even borderline anxious worrier). no not quite, like, this stuff should never have happened. Am I getting too comfortable? There's no excuse for a stupid thing like setting my bag down, and I suppose it's another one on the list of lessons learned while in China. But in spite of that it really was a good weekend. Go football!!!

The curse of the mango

2010-04-21T21:03:00.002+08:00

Sunday morning I awoke to a rash about the size of a quarter near my mouth, just barely overlapping my lip. Hmm, I said to myself, what could that be from. Saturday night I'd eaten western food at a nice restaurant, so I didn't think it could be from that. So I led myself to believe I had scarlet fever. now, this wasn't a huge jump out of nowhere, my already big tonsils have been giving me even more trouble the past few days, all I was missing was the fever.
Sparing you details on my health (which I am on the mend, so no worries), I spent Monday and Tuesday in bed, luckily with classes canceled except 1 hour on tues night. So today I say okay, I have to go into work. I get to work and of course the teachers are like, 'what's that rash on your face?' I tell them I have no idea. Then one of them says, "you know my sister gets a rash like that when she eats mangoes. Have you been eating the big ones?"
I said, "The big ones?" as in, why would it matter if they were big or small
"Yeah, you know, they have big mangoes and small ones."
me,"Well, as a matter of fact I have been eating one big one a day for the last 4 days or so."
"yup, that's eat, you should probably stop eating them, or only eat the small ones."

My logical way of thinking (yup, the same logic that led me to think I might have scarlet fever) is still stuck on what does it matter if they're big or small.

well, sure enough, mangoes are in the same family as poison oak etc... and coming in contact with mango skin can potentially cause a reaction. Who knew! Didn't have too many mangoes growing up in the midwest. In fact, I don't remember ever seeing them at the grocery store. well, they're delicious, and in season now. i.e. 5 decent sized mangoes for $1.50US (about 2 punds worth). So it looks like I have to eat the little ones or be super careful about the big ones!

mangoes. poison oak. wtf!

And so it goes...

2010-04-19T12:18:00.002+08:00

random update....

Yesterday two really cute things happened in my classes. In my youngest class, of 3-5 year olds, I was making the rounds of "hello, how are you" and all of a sudden one of the kids got up from across the room and came over to give me a kiss on the cheek. Monkey see monkey do, and I had 10 kisses from my kids, adorable!!!!
In another class, slightly older, maybe 6-8, we were doing the dialogue, "I like pizza!" and "I like pizza, too!" and I hold up two fingers to let them know they need to add the 'too' to the sentence. And sure enough, at one point it was "I like pizza" "I like pizza too" "I like pizza three!" Stuff like that always makes me happy, it's really amazing how quickly they pick things up and expand on them.

Also regarding work. I mentioned before that they changed my schedule so I now work Tues-Fri evening (all afternoon weds), and all day on the weekend, really far away. And I was pissed because while on the weekend I was there from 9-5 I only had 2 or 3 hours of class. huuuuuge waste of time. well, so wihle my weekends are quite long and it prevents me from being about to stay out late (which may be a good thing), I figure as long as I can be productive (aka study) during those free hours then all is well.

My Chinese studying is okay, gone a bit stale recently but I'mt rying to pick back up. I had a conversation with a couple friends last night about handwriting and, as lame as this sounds, it got me excited about learning again. It's tough not having a bunch of classmates to bounce ideas off of etc.
also, another friend and I talked about how little actual chinese food we eat, or we eat the same thing all the time (street food and noodles), and this conversation helped to renew my desire to go out and try random dishes. will report back to see if either of these goals are realized.

untl next time, good good study, day day up!

Carrot Cake Challenge

2010-04-09T14:53:00.003+08:00

This week, carrot cake. Why? well, at this Bar/Restaurant called Brooklyn, owned by this nice American-Born Chinese Wayne, you can get lots of yummy things just like back home. Pizza, pulled pork, paninis, etc, all pretty good. and Carrot Cake. The thing is, it's a bit on the pricey side for my teacher-budget, but I get it every now and then anyway, because it's yummy. Last week my friend said, 'that's how much? you could just make that yourself!' and i thought, yeah i could! so voila, the biggest success (in my opinion) since my chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, Banana Bread with walnuts and a "Cream cheese" icing.

the challenges:

pans to bake in
no nutmeg
cream cheese
good butter
a method for making the icing

the overcoming of the challenges:

Halved the recipe, tiny pans, only had one of them overflow!
no nutmeg but enough cinnamon, would be nice for next time though
Interesting substitution that worked well for cream cheese. Plain yogurt that is drained overnight in cheesecloth(i used coffee filters).
still no great butter, but my latest one is alright, compensate with a touch more vanilla (and i wouldn't have that or coffee filters without my gma lawell!!! thanks!!)
method. I was out shopping yesterday and TESCO (the British? version of Target or such) was carrying a new item. A FOOD PROCESSOR! OMG. now, it's tiny, capacity maybe 2 or 3 cups, and it sounds like it's going to break when I use it, but for the moment, I have a food processor!! with gentle use and care, I could be making icing and hummus etc for months!

Here's the final product, yumyumyum...

----
In other news... My job is annoying because of the change of schedule, and they're making me do a class on Fridays which is one of my days off (the other being Monday). They told me this yesterday that this was a definite change, and so I said, "I'm sorry but you need to give me more notice than one day." which they didn't take well, but, not working today so woohoo! And they're trying to give me a hard time about paying me overtime, but hopefully when I bring in my contract all will be well.

----
In other random news, here's a picture of the 4 of us that go swimming on a regular basis, Nick Scotland, Mikey Ireland, me, and Poly Cyrpus. This is how I differentiate people in my mind, first name and country of origin, or at least the place we met, last names are optional and later on...

Why I sometimes like teaching

2010-04-05T12:39:00.002+08:00

I remember, when I was in 5th grade a class about what we wanted to be when we grew up. We had to list 5 things we wanted to be. I wrote, "I don't want to be a teacher." Now, this still rings true today, I will not be having a career as a teacher, it's certainly not for me. If my 5th grade self were to see me today she'd say, "What the heck are you doing? We decided not to do this a long long time ago."

And while I indeed don't think I could stand more than the 15 or so hours of teaching little ones (my private tutoring doesn't count as teaching and is actually enjoyable), and I am unhappy with the management and lack of communication with staff (due to not only language barriers but in general), sometimes it's fun. Like, I walk into a class of 5 year olds dreading the day I was born, and 30 minutes later everyone is tired from laughing and playing, including me.

Here is a list of some of the things my kids have done to make my day better:

Give me stickers of cartoon characters, shapes, and the chinese flag during my first class, and not take them off all day, so when I see my friends who ask about them I say, "gifts from my students."

Around Christmas, a student gave me her barbie doll, which still sits on my shelf so I can see it when I come home, in all its dirty and ragged glory and beauty.

I always worry about having fun games to play, and learning that I shouldn't, because the sillier/simpler I think the game is, the more fun it is for them, for example some games(the rules are simple and each one is exactly what it sounds like):
~roll the ball under the chair
~throw the ball at Kate and laugh at her falling over
~jump and say a word while Kate hits you with a toy hammer
~playing catch, but through a hulahoop
~throwing a sticky ball (suction cups) at the whiteboard
~put yourself through a hulahoop
~anything that involves Kate hitting you with a hammer
~pass the ball until Kate says stop, then read or whatever
~Down by the Banks (of the Hanky Panky)
~Red Light Green Light
~Throw a big soft dice and say the word x # of times
~Remove one chair and everyone changes their seat, last one standing says sentence (can be dangerous but still fun)
~Rock Paper Scissors
~two students through a hulahop at the same time
~jumping over flashcards while saying the words

and more, well, hopefully. and I'm always trying to think of new games so please feel free to tell me, anyway, back to the list...

One of my classes one day a student on my way out said "I miss you Kate I love you!!" and now every class the whole class says this when I leave

We do activities "one by one" to give each student helo on pronunciation. One student (age 4) came up to me when I was doing a group game and said with the cutest puppydog eyes, "One by one?" and smiled a cheesy smile.

The first time they had an oral test, the class didn't realize that there'd be a much shorter lesson afterwards that day, so when I left after only 10 minutes of review, without exception they all groaned and said, 'so quickly today!'

When I put my angry face on and fold my arms to get them to quiet down, and they make faces at me, and I can't keep a straight face.

In my younger classes the other day, we were doing letters, and so far they had learned to say, "A A A, /ae/ /ae /ae/, ant ant ant." in a chant. and I was adding "A for Ant." the word "for" to each one, and by the letter C, before I could teach it a couple students made the jump and added 'for' all by themselves. "C for Cat" So, when students make the jump and can extrapolate usage of words.

When I run into students on the street and they run up and say "Hi Kate!!!" and give me a hug.

Every now and then I'll say something in Chinese, or catch them talking to eachother and let them know that I understand what they just said and they go, "teacher, can you speak chinese?" And in Chinese I say, "Yes I can speak Chinese," and in English, "but right now we all speak English, okay?" and I get a wide eyed "Okay." and nod from them.

At the beginning of every class I go around the room and say hello to each student. I say "Hello how are you" and they say "fine thank you and you?" to help them learn other answers I ask if they're tired, happy, sad, etc. and do motions with each so they understand. For hungry I tickle their belly and angry I make a face and growl at them. now, a few students are always "very very very very very angry," or "very very very very hungry."

===

So, those are some fun things that happen in class, thanks to my students, who are for the most part good and adorable.

out like a lamb....

2010-03-31T23:21:00.002+08:00

With 5 months under my belt I look forward to the next seven. As I was walking home tonight I looked up to the sky and saw the just waning still full moon hidden behind the night fog. A lovely evening, one of many of the last couple weeks. With the good weather comes good attitude right? I think so. I met a new friend at dinner tonight, Adam from London, who has been in Dalian for 4 years. he said to me, "from here on out it only gets better." And concerning the weather, I think he's totally right. When I arrived here, my first few days were warm and toasty and sunny, then snap, for 5 months bitter cold causing a bitter life. But I haven't had to wear my winter jacket in over a week, and swimming has become just lovely with the daytime temps around 50.

And as much as I am upset over the changing of my schedule (which now includes lots of inefficient time at the school), hopefully I'll get used to it.

i'm also considering the purchase of a food processor, which will open up my cooking a bit, at least to hummus, which I miss.

Cheers!

Banana Bread

2010-03-26T15:24:00.002+08:00

Sigh. I was really excited about my baking challenge for the week, banana bread. I have this really great recipe for it, and thought I had the proper ingredients. One thing i'm still searching for is a neutral yet delicious butter, all of the ones I've found so far have a bit too much of a taste, including the one i used for my bread, which essentially tastes like the butter and not much else. sadness. i hope my friends will still enjoy eating it anyway, the texture is good and i know it can be done in my oven and the glass pans i got (yay for IKEA having small baking dishes).

Last week's baking challenge was oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, and they came out great and to rave reviews by my friends. On the other side of the quality spectrum is today's banana bread... maybe next week I can find some middle ground, a good standby that i can make with local ingredients (the key component of the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies was the chips my grandma Ulicky [who we toasted to all night] had sent in her care package). Still on the hunt for non milk chocolate i can bake with, though i might try pretzels or bagels next week, also considering snickerdoodles. requests are appreciated!

In other news, the weather is nicer these days which means happiness for all. Walking home in the sun today was just lovely, if chilly with the wind. nothing too spectacular at the moment, my school is about to really mess around with my schedule because of some new classes, and it looks like i'll actually have to work all day on the weekends instead of just part of the day. bah!

truly no news. just saying hello to everyone.
5 months and counting...

Spring Sprang Sprung

2010-03-19T17:18:00.003+08:00

A beautiful day for a swim! overcast but warm (40s), and the waves were great! usually the sea is completely calm, but there were 3 or 4 foot waves today, other than dirtier than usual water it was fun bobbing in them for a bit.

After the swim we went for a coffee as usual, just Nick and I today. Gigi, Nick's wife, and her friend came to meet us. Gigi had a lovely present for me:

just plants you say? well, you'd think that, but. last week I had randomly mentioned in a conversation with Nick (Gigi not present) that I wanted to have some life in the house besides the cockroaches, and that I wanted to get some plants. Nick, the sweetheart that he is, offered to give me a part of one of his plants to help me out. Just this offer was nice enough. I was figuring on going out and getting a por and some soil so that when he gave me the plant i could get it home to soil quickly. Well. Nick must have said something to Gigi, and then Gigi to her dad. Because her dad, whom I've never met (though I've heard has great culinary skills and is a great guy in general), took the time to pot not one but three plants for me!

It was so heartwarming beyond words when Nick told me what he and his family did for me, and he said it like it was no big deal. And yes, as you say dear reader, they're just plants. But, they're my little baby plants that were given to me by some very thoughtful people.

And that makes for one hell of a day
:)

No Mr. Policeman, you can't come to my house.

2010-03-12T10:14:00.002+08:00

I haven't written in a bit because well, I had nothing pleasant (or unpleasantly entertaining at least) to write about. I went through a week, turned into two or so, of being really unhappy about being here. Things are looking up now though, so no worries, and I have a fresh bullshit story to share the start of my happier times here.

Yesterday I was walking home. It was a goreous day, sunny and pushing 40F. Beautiful. I'm about to walk into my apartment complex when a police officer says "hey" to me. So I smiled and said "ni hao" and kept walking. Unfortunately he wanted to talk to me. Well, I haven't done anything wrong, and I was taught from a young age that police officers 'are your friends,' so I went to talk to him. I was forseeing a very short covnersation anyway what with my limited language skills.

He wasn't mean to me but certainly spoke with an air of "I have more power than you in life." He asked me where I live, I said just up the street. How long have I been here, 4 months, standard stuff. The he asked to see my passport. As luck would have it I had just cleaned out my wallet and forgot to put the copy I usually carry back in it. So i said to him, "I'm sorry I don't have it on me, but I live just up the street and can get it and show you." He said no, and then he started saying stuff that I didn't understand, and he wanted me to give him my phone number. I asked why, a perfectly normal question (apparently rude to ask to one's 'superior'), and he said some more stuff I didn't understand, and wanted to know my address. I told him the number of my building complex and apartment number, but that I didn't know which number the building was (there are 6 or 7 buildings for every block number). I said "it's the one on the corner, and like I said let me get my passport I will be right back."

He says, "Just take me to your house."
Instead of getting angry and demanding to know why he was bothering me (which I may have done with better Chinese skills), I just said "I don't understand why you need this, what's wrong what's wrong?"

So he tells me to get a friend on the phone who speaks Chinese. I call the school, and they talk for a while. When the cop hands me the phone Eva from school says something like, "because it's the New Year you need to re-register with the Police, we didn't know this. you have to go to the police station tomorrow and get a new paper."

that is a load of bullshit. None of the other foreigners (or Chinese) that I asked have ever heard of anything like this. The general consensus was that even though I hadn't done anything wrong (The cop had confirmed with my school all the basic questions he asked me), because he had already taken the time to bother me and my school, he may as well make up a reason for it in order to 'save face.'

I had to cancel my class this morning, which was really really really irritating. Not only that, one of the teachers from school had to come to translate for me (she was so nice about everything though), and the nice guy that fixed my hot water heater from my landlord's office had to come too.

We spent about 45 minutes at the station doing all the same paperwork as before. Lingling (the teacher that came with me) and the man from the rental agency, LiXia, talked about having his daughter enroll at our school at one point, which was appropriate, that being the only useful thing that came out of this whole ordeal.

I didn't really understand what exactly it was but LiXia had to sign some paperwork and pay some money for something, and got into an argument with the cop over who is more familiar with the rules. It was heated.

So now I have two blue papers, both of which along with my passport I am supposed to carry with me at all times. I have already put a new copy of my passport in my wallet and will be making copies today of my blue forms. I just know that this cop (who is apparently the neighborhood patrolman) will stop me again to spite me. Because of refilling out the paperwork he now knows exactly where my apartment is, but I don't answer my door anyway so that shouldn't be a problem.

the point of this story? Sorry if you're looking for one and have wasted your time reading this, kinda like I wasted my morning and that of two others at the police station for no good reason.

ta. da.

fireworks, again!

2010-02-28T19:41:00.003+08:00

Because of the holiday I haven't had to get up before like... 9 for the past month. It's been rough I tell ya. So today I got up at 7, classes are back to normal. But. When I woke up there was this strange sound.

Silence.

Well okay. Once I paid attention I could hear traffic on the street but there was a definite lack of the cound of fireworks, which has been more or less constant for the last 3 weeks straight (not exaggerating, the week leading up to and the two full weeks of Spring Festival). Well, today is Lantern Festival, the last day of celebrations (and 'legally' setting off fireworks). It was nice this moment when I woke up and the relative quiet, but I really am going to miss the sights and sounds of the holiday season (which between American and Chinese holidays has been going on essentially since I arrived). Not so pleasant was when I was walking to my school and 6 feet away firecrackers were set off that I hadn't seen. So other than the headache, hurray for fireworks!

While laying in bed and watching Sex & the City, outside the sun was setting on a cloudy day in Dalian with big fat snowflakes falling from the sky. As if a timer went off, just after 5 o'clock the booms began. All over the city people started their last night of fun. It's now almost 8, and between making dinner and typing, I keep running back and forth to my window to watch the displays people are putting on. Pictures only minimally capture how awesome and closely surrounded by this stuff I am... but here I try with a few:

Taken laying down from my bed, looking out the window

Someone lighting a Roman candle leaning out of their window

Another one just peeking over the buildings, but some were really high up!!

Down in the 'courtyard'esque area between apartment buildings. Note the red ground and small child.

4 months later... and bread.

2010-02-26T16:40:00.004+08:00

So i've been in China for four months. well. in 2 days, but I left the states four months ago today. This whole last week I've been going through this "I really hate being here" phase. And I'm aware that it's a phase, though it doesn't stop my from stuffing my face with chocolate etc. while watching my $3 copy of Sex and the City(for the whole series, woot). But yeah, just generally have been miserable, from the same old smell of sewage that welcomes me on my walk up the hill to my house to an attempt at being overcharged for my Chinese classes (at a school I also teach at nonetheless!). Finally today I was starting to feel better. My Chinese teacher is awesome and she laughs at the bad jokes I make and whatnot. So class was good, and we had a great swim this afternoon. Low tide so couldn't do much swimming, but did some running around and splashing, and it was very invigorating. So good class, good swimming and a good coffee and chat afterwards. On my way home I stopped by this bakery to get some bread.

As a refresher, bread in China is generally sweet (though we found some great stuff in Harbin!!), and the texture is generally spongy. occasionally you'll stumble across a Wonderbread-type loaf but that's rare. Also, there is often a hotdog in the middle of what appears to be a danish. Or a sweet dinner roll with 'meat floss' on the top. (meat floss is well, imagine cotton candy made out of beef jerky.) And for a girl who likes multigrain and whole wheat breads, or sourdough with a nice hard crust, well, it doesn't exist. But i've found a place that has something akin to wheat (i'd actually call it less white, not quite wheat) that I use for toast and sandwiches.

Okay, so that's that. I have one place to buy bread at, where there is one kind that is almost kinda reminiscent of wheat. Well, the other day I found another bakery where they have this really nice Italian-like bread. It actually tastes like something you'd find in a bakery in the states. A 6 inch loaf is about $.75USD, my new breakfast after I work out.

So anyway, I go there this afternoon, pick up a couple of loaves and I see this:

That's right, those are seeds and grains on the outside, multigrain? could it be? have I found my lost love?

I get home and dive in. MMMMMMMMmmm, the texture isn't quite there but the taste is amazing, just like 12 grain from home. I'm already planning all the breakfasts I will have with this scrumptious delight. And then, to my horror, I get to the middle and taste ham. HAM? REALLY?? I look, and sure enough, in the middle of my whole grain loaf of bread there is a piece of ham wrapped around some nasty piece of cheese (cheese here just isn't the same either).

I was able to eat the outside of the roll, but disappointment still reigns. And this bread is a perfect example of what gets me down about being here sometimes. I get excited about something, because initially it looks fun/good quality/good value etc. And then, ham.

Wipe with the president?

2010-02-23T15:30:00.002+08:00

That's right, you can be the proud owner of your very own Obama embroidered toilet paper

15 but married with a spare tire

2010-02-22T18:27:00.002+08:00

2 funny stories that have nothing to do with each other.

First, In my Chinese class today I learned the word for spare tire (被抬，beitai). I wondered if you could also use 'spare tire' the same way we do in English, referring to someone's (usually a man's) impressive but oversized gut. Before I could ask though, my teacher says "we also use this phrase, 'spare tire', when talking about a woman who has many boyfriends lined up just in case her current one doesn't work out." And she, jokingly, asked me if I had any spare tires. I laughed and told her "no I'm really not fat." She was confused and I explained to her the English usage of the phrase. Good laughs had by all.

Second, swimming today attracted an unusually large crowd that some of which came over to talk to us. I was with Nick and his wife Gigi (who happens to be Chinese). They asked Nick and I if we were married, we laughed, and I said no, and Nick said no, his wife is actually right there. After a few minutes of "wow! you're married to a foreigner" (poor Gigi), a woman asked me, "so your how old? 1..." asking if I was in my teens. I said "no no, 22. I'm a teacher." standard response. and she said "wow! I thought you were 15 or 16, just a child." This is the same woman who had asked me 5 minutes beforehand if I was married. Hmm.

Fireworks!

2010-02-20T11:14:00.002+08:00

I really wish I could convey how amazing the fireworks are here. Since that night at the train station (Chinese New Year's Eve) there has been a constant sound of them in the air. This morning I woke up to my building shaking from them, some big ones were being set off just outside my building. By big ones I mean the ones that are in wrapping paper sized tubes, 36 at a time. The ones where you hear a 'thunk' for the launch and it's 7 seconds or so before it's up in the sky and bursting with light and sound. But, I don't think it's possible to appreciate the magnitude of it unless you're here. I couldn't find the words to describe it two years ago and I can't now.
Some of it is seeing a bunch of middle aged dudes(mostly men) gathering around a roll of firecrackers, setting them off, and running for cover while giggling like teenagers. I love it! Fireworks are pure fun. And yes they're loud, smelly (which I kinda like, is a weird way like a lit match), and make a mess. But for these few precious weeks, they're also pure fun.

哈尔滨 - Harbin

2010-02-17T14:16:00.004+08:00

Got back from an awesome 3 day trip to Harbin this morning! And now, after another 4 hours of sleep (sleeping on the train wasn't very restful), ready to share!

The trip started out the night of the 13th - Chinese New Year's Eve. The streets were mostly deserted because people were inside having dinner and watching the New Year's TV Gala Program: a Chinese New Year tradition, gather around the TV from 8-11 to watch all kinds of performances (Jackie Chan was in this year's) set off fireworks for 2 hours or more to scare away the bad luck monsters and then make and eat dumplings after midnight. So, streets deserted I walked to the train station, thankfully only about a 25 minute walk. I arrived just about 9 o'clock, and a bunch of the train employees were lining up an arsenal of fireworks that would rival any small town Fourth of July celebration. There were around a dozen boxes of the big ones that explode in the sky all pretty colored (each box had 25 I think), they had these lines up on the railing, whatever if they fall over and start shooting sideways, right? Those, and easily 200 meters worth of small firecrakers that are good for noise and a bit of spark. I had my fingers in my ears for 10 straight minutes, it was amazing. all of this happening not 10ft away (at one point i positioned myself slightly behind a car). I was glad to see that even though they had to work on New Year's that the employees were still celebrating. here's the aftermath, streets covered red from the wrappers:

The train station itself was empty, absolutely empty, except for the maybe 200 people for my train. They were all gathered round the only TV in the waiting room watching the Gala.

I arrived in Harbin about 7:30 in the morning and immediately got in line to get a ticket back, which once the windows opened at 8:00 only took about 20 minutes to get through the line. While I was waiting in line, I kept checking the board for my train and the number of tickets left: 26. Not many but luckily I got one with no problem!

Then it was off to KFC to wait for Molly to arrive from Beijing. It would be one of 5 fast food stops we made that trip, but they're really a great place to sit and camp out. And they have cheap coffee.

Some info about Harbin:
China's 10th largest city is located in Heilongjiang province, way way north. Avg summer temp is in the 20sF, in the winter around 0F. Being so close to Russia and having been invaded and whatnot by them, there's a lot of Russian influenced architecture. A bunch of history, yada yada. The main draw for tourism is Harbin's winter Snow and Ice Festivals. all around the city there are ice sculputures, and there are three main locations for big displays. An Ice city, snow park, and Disney Ice World. Along the banks of the Songhua you can do everything from driving a car, riding a horse, to sliding down a huge slide made entirely of ice.
for more details here's wikipedia: Harbin

My friend David had gone to Harbin the week before, and had given us the name of the hostel he stayed at. But when we got there, there was no room at the in. Nor was there at the next 5 places we asked. that's what we get for traveling during the new year. I had looked up how to get to a couple of different hotels i had seen on the map online, and they thankfully had room, though we had to pay 2 times more than what the hostel would have been ($25 a night vs $12US).

After checking in we start walking towards the Songhua, where there is the flood control monument (a long time ago the Songhua flooded and killed lots of people) and a bunch of stuff on the frozen river. On the way there was St Sophia, the Russian Orthodox church that is one of the main sights of Harbin. we looked at the outside but didn't go in, wasn't worth the entrance fee and Molly and I have both seen a lot of churches.

Once at the river, well, it was pretty awesome. Just tons of different things to do on the ice: slides, skating, tubing, go karting, horse rides and carriages, cars, seats with skates, dogs pulling carts (the dogs looked sad though), spinning top things. Molly went down one of the big slides, but I opted out. I somehow managed to mess up my quad muscle and falling on the ice would not have been ideal. otherwise I would have like to go ice skating, staying upright on the ice was fun enough itself though.

We had lunch at basically the only restaurant open in the area. Sichuan food, nothing special but hot and good. One thing that really bummed me out about this trip was the absolute lack of hole in the wall restaurants (they were all closed for the holiday).

After lunch we started looking for a way to the big ice festival which was too far away to walk. There was a public bus that went there but we spent like 20 minutes outside walking around finding nothing. Then we walked by this van that said "free ride to the Ice Festival" We didn't want to trust it but there were other people in the van so we decided to give it a go. I guess how they make money is they fill up a van and then get the group rate for tickets and charge us full price. I'm okay with that. It would cost the same for the two of us either way and we had a nice warm van ride there.

The Ice festival in two words: awesome, freezing. As night started to fall the lights came on, and everything was lit up with a neon glow. Absolutely beautiful. The magnitude of everything... and how much there was, I can't even imagine how many hours went into the creation of things. Even though we came at the tail end of the festival and things had started to melt a bit, it was still incredible:

Halfway through walking around we had to go inside for a bit, I just don't have the good circulation to be in that kind of cold (though I bet it would have been worse if I hadn't been swimming for this long!). All around the park there were little 'restaurants' selling over priced warm beverages and snacks. It was worth it though to be able to get out of the cold for a bit. We spent probably 2 hours at the park total (1/2 hour inside) and then we were ready to go back. We found the bus back okay, and once in town knew where to catch it for the next day when we came back to see the snow park (across the road).

We got back into town, tired, hungry and still cold. but, being new year's day the only restaurants that were open were either out of our price range, too full, or fast food. So it was at KFC that we had our first Harbin dinner. My first meal in KFC in China, and it wasn't bad. if I go to Harbin again, I won't be going around Spring Festival. so mad that we missed out on all the good food I read about: hearty stews and soups, etc, that Harbin supposedly has to offer.

Back at the hotel we watched the winter Olympics and just hung out. Our shower had no hot water that first night. Which really sucked. Molly decided to opt out of showering, but my cold water swimming paid off! and I was able to get in a quick shower that, while making me shiver, allowed me to wash my hair.

Day 2

We picked up some bread from a market and yogurt and headed to McDonald's to eat it where I got a coffee. Chinese aren't big on breakfast so considering I think we did alright. After breakfast we headed to 果戈里街，guogeli street, which I had read had lots of cool cultural architecture and food. With the architecture being a disappointment so far (well, sure there was Russian and Western architecture, but it was only interesting in that it was in China, nothing particularly special about it), i was looking forward to an area loaded with domed buildings and gothic architecture, once again though, it was only interspersed within modern buildings hotels and western name brand shopping areas. Underground, finally we found a non-disappointment: 秋林 qiulin shopping market housed the famous Harbin sausage and bread. The bread is the size of a basketball and weighs probably 5 pounds. i have yet to eat it but brought it back and hope to share it with friends one night. We got two types of sausage: 红肠，黑肠。Red and black sauage. We also got a couple more loaves of wheat/wholegrain bread. This was our lunch. Seriously, Harbin has the best bread in China so far, I haven't found anything like this in Dalian, and Molly in Beijing either. yumyumyum. So with our wheat bread and sausage we went to McDonald's to have our lunch:

The red sausage was like a mild kielbasa, the black was very very smokey. both pretty good, apart from the large chunks of lard mixed in.

Dropped off our bread at the hotel and made our way to the Snow Sculpture Park. On the way there this taxi driver (took a bus then taxi) tried to sell us tickets that were 10RMB cheaper, and I asked him "how do we know they're not fake tickets" and he said "In Harbin we don't sell fake tickets." He said it with such certainty i wanted to believe him. And really, I don't think we got cheated once while in the city. He may have been right.

The snow sculptures were beyond amazing, I think they were better than the ice sculptures. There were more of them, bigger, and you could see the detail more clearly; reminded me of those giant sand sculptured you see. We spent 2 hours there easily, and left just as the light was waning. I was glad to see them in the daylight, as they don't look as impressive with neon lights shining on them, showing their cracks and pockmarks from melting.

The bus was much too far to walk to, we were thoroughly frozen by the time we left, and taxi cabs were 40RMB for the return, double what a metered ride would cost. I ran up to this family and asked if we could share a cab, in Chinese, but when the guy turned around and replied in Chinese, turned out they were Sri Lankan. So we shared a cab back, and they were really nice people! the driver upped the price to 60 after we got in, but we saved 10 each by going together, and the family was really cool. Considered inviting them to eat with us, but didn't. We had hotpot for dinner, at a chain that has locations in Dalian, but it was the only hotpot place open. Still very yummy. On the way out, Molly spotted people eating popsicles, and I remembered the CCTV special I had seen on Harbin: the popsicles were one of the must-dos while there. So we had our posicles in feezing weather and yummy yummy! Almost like a dairyQueen Starkist.

Day 3.

Harbin can be done in 2 days, easily. we figured this out when we got there and so had been doing everything very leisurely. After checking out we had to carry all of out stuff with us around, so we ended up going to the Wal-Mart and using their lockers to store our stuff while we walked around more. We ate some candied fruit on a stick, and went to a dumpling restaurant for lunch, ym yum. I love dumplings. The only thing really that we didn't get to eat, other than a good Harbin stew, was a chunbing (春饼）which sounded a lot like my favorite jianbing but with more stuff in it. Basically a chinese drep or burrito with lots of fillings.

Molly's train left at 3:30, so I had 6 hours to kill by myself. I thought about walking around but as the sun started to go down it was just too damn cold. So I shopped a little bit then headed to the train station. I was just about to resign myself to KFC for dinner again when i saw this huge dumpling restaurant. Sure I'd had dumplings for lunch but given the choice dumplings or kfc, i'll take dumplings any day. It's 5:00, a bit early for dinner and the restaurant is failry empty. I get a 2 person table kind of out of the way, perfect. the server comes over and asks me in English, "Russian menu?" I tell her in Chinese that a chinese menu will be fine. We get to chatting a little, and she asks me how to say a few of the things on the menu in English. she has a limited vocabulary but enough to be helpful to people who can't speak/read Chinese in the restaurant. I'm in no rush, so it's nice chatting with her and my food is taking a long time anyway. We ended up exchanging emails and I'm going to help her translate some of the menu and keep in touch. Liuming was her name, super nice! She even bought me a blueberry juice, after I told her a million times not to, which i'm sure was a huge expense for her.

I was able to spend an hour and a half at dinner. Then went to KFC, which was packed, grabbed a coffee so i could sit down. I was able to squirm my way into a corner table, where another single traveler sat across from me. There were a lot of people there doing the same thing I was, waiting for their trains. Much more comfortable than waiting at the station. I read some of my book and finally got on the train to come back.

Arrived in Dalian about 6:30 this morning, immediately went home and slept for another 4 hours, trains are just so uncomfortable (and there were about 3 snorers in my compartment). Poor Molly had a seat, not even a bed, so her ride must've been a lot worse. I woke up from my nap to find it snowing, everything is pretty once again! When I got back into town I wasn't overwhelmed with a sense of homecoming or anything, but was glad for the whole trip and to be back.

A great time in Harbin. All of my pics are here on facebook: Harbin pics

And that is crap.

2010-02-11T12:15:00.002+08:00

...when I sign up for Google Buzz, assuming that I even know that this massive overshare is about to happen, all of those "features" will have to be turned off, one by one, in a confusing and vaguely annoying interface, and I can't do it on my phone. And that is crap.

Google Buzz

Doesn't sound like something I want to be involved with. Facebook has been bad enough since it expanded beyond the college world.... 3 years ago or whatever. With the Chinese government (most likely) monitoring everything from my phonecalls to where I buy groceries, not to mention the censorship of information, I think I'll pass on this one Google, but thanks.

SwimTrainRun

2010-02-08T23:16:00.003+08:00

Today was a pretty good day! Well, except for what happened in my Chinese class, but good things first!

Swimming was great today, especially after my class. I like days where the air temp is warm, because it's just enjoyment, no suffering. When the air is cold it's really just a brutal time. Today it was Mikey, Nick and I. Mikey's daughter Kiki came along to watch, she's adorable!!! but still warming up to me. So I was able to take some pictures (Mikey had to go for a swim after Nick and I. It was warm weather, but very very foggy, which made things a touch eerie. granted we never go out very far so it wasn't dangerous or anything, but as you go out you can see less and less beach and well , you stay close. Some pics: Nick with his towel and Mikey in the fog!

After coffee I had to brave the train station to buy my ticket to Harbin. I was nervous 1 about my Chinese and 2 about the lines. But I only had to wait 45 minutes or so to get a ticket. THey guy in front of me, I thought he was letting some women jump to the front of the line, but he was really just asking the clerk if the tickets to where they wanted to go were sold out, nice guy! Then he stuck around to watch and see if I got mine okay. I could understand the clerk but she spoke sooooo fast I had to pause and digest what she was saying, so this guy helped speed things along, and when she asked me if I wanted a seat or a sleeper, i didn't know the word for sleeper so I said something like " I want the kind of ticket where I can sleep" and the guy had a jolly laugh and helped me a bit there. I love nice people!!!

Football practice was this evening, oh man I"m out of shape. Was talking to one of the guys, Peter, and he told me about a pool not too far from where I live, man I'd love to start swimming again! 7 weeks til the competition in... Shenzhen I think. need to get it together!!! Be Aggressive!

Alright, so my Chinese class. My teacher has been running late the last few classes, but it doesn't really bother me and she usually goes over our time together anyway. but today she wouldn't let me pay her!!! Not only did she take a taxi, which is half of what she'd amke teaching me anyway, but then She wouldn't accept money! Ridiculous. She said because we talked about Spring Festival, not my book, that it was more jsut chatting. but I learned a lot of realy useful vocab for the next week, and it was certainly a class, no question. She's only a couple years older than me, and we've been to lunch a few times, but I've tried to not cross the line of the teacher/student relationship. When she said "it's okay we're friends," I said "yes but for this hour you ar emy teacher and you should get paid for your time." We argued for like 10 minutes, half in Chinese half in English and I finally lost. sigh, going to have to take her out for lunch a few times I guess? I really don't understand why she didn't accept the money, just was very frustrating! As a teacher especially, i understand.... i guess, maybe I don't!

Sewage

2010-02-04T20:17:00.002+08:00

Sometimes I walk into my house and it smells like sewage. like today, i just did laundry (which took all morning with my non-automatic washing machine) and so I was expecting to walk into an apartment that smelled like clean laundry. well, on top of that smell tonight was a particularly bad night for sewage. the open drain in my bathroom that serves as a shower drain i don't know why but sometimes provides me with this free potpourri. joy. And to top it off, on the way home I stopped and bought a couple of buns fromt he bakery and some chocolate hazelnut looking bar. When it came time for the chocolate, i tasted chalk. the buns? filled with red bean paste (a popular dessert item, red bean, personally not a fan). Sometimes I would really really just like some food that is just what it says it is, no crazy flavors, none of this looks like chocolate but tastes like ass, or made with funky milk so it looks like cheese, says it's cheese, and tastes like my foot smells after teaching all day. but this sewage bullshit really gets me, gross. i hope it doesn't stick to my clothes so i walk out of the house smelling like it. ew. sometimes I feel like hopping on the next plane to, well, anywhere but here. The last couple of days have been like that.

There have been good moments this last week. I've not been sick (knock on wood!) for a few days now, swimming is good times, and another gaelic football practice was this week. So i'm still doing fun things, just in my downtime moments not super happy and fun. Looking forward to my week of no classes next week for the Chinese New Year. I have the 11th to the 18th off, and so I am going to try and meet up with Molly (she's in Beijing right now) in Harbin for a few days. Harbin is much further north than Dalian, and much much colder. but right now they have a really cool (haha) ice festival, and the city is full of Russian-influenced architecture. So it will be a fun trip!

Hanging in there.

Proof!

2010-01-26T21:34:00.003+08:00

Today I went swimming, and have pictures!! David wasn't feeling up for it, so he became the photographer. Himalaya is the other chap swimming with me, enjoy!!!

Gaelic Football

2010-01-25T21:57:00.002+08:00

Man I forgot how much I missed sports. I really haven't competed in anything since volleyball and track in high school. Tonight was my first practice with the Gaelic football team here in Dalian, and may I say, Mikey I think she likes it!

What is Gaelic Football you ask? Well I'm still figuring that one out myself, we did mostly drills tonight. Here's the wikipedia for ya:Gaelic Football
It's a mix between football(soccer), rugby(which i don't really know anything about either), and basketball. none of which I play, but i used to run, and there are hand passes which are kind of like low underhand volleyball serves. And the ladies' team is a little short handed. need 12 for the team (that travels!!!!) and i think tonight we had 7 gals total. I was a bit nervous I would be outrun and played by everyone, but most of the ladies were new, and I'm in slightly better shape than I thought. So all in all it was prettty good, though I'll be hurting a bit in the morning. Mikey's a good coach, not sure if he'll be running all the practices, but i hope so! He was encouraging, helpful, and pushed us just enough. But yeah, it really felt good to be doing drills again. Never thought I'd say that, there were so many times in track that I was bored to death of stupid form drills, and I hope the same thing happens here.

So yeah, good end to a day that started out with dragging myself out of bed not feeling well to chinese class, and skipping swimming for a headache and whatnot.

Tomorrow, class and swimming, go team!

drowned... at pool

2010-01-23T22:32:00.001+08:00

So I participated in a pool tournament tonight. 24 people. I was the only female (the only non-staff in the hall even). and I finished dead last. sigh. It was nice at least to play again, haven't played in a while... :-(

just keep swimming...

2010-01-22T19:01:00.002+08:00

Today I actually brought my camera to the beach. next time there will be pictures. I am finally starting to very very slowly get used to the shock of the cold seas and winter air. Monday was nice, the air temp was around 34, no wind, cake. Today was in the low 20s with some wind but the sun was out and there were 5 of us swimming, so it was better. I tried rubbing chili pepper on my toes before swimming to help the circulation... I don't think it did anything. I might eat a hot pepper or something before next time. gotta get that circulation going!! Also, saw some chinese swimmering wearing wet suit gloves. I think I'm going to make a trip to the sporting goods store and get a pair of gloves, boots, and a swimming cap, to try and prevent the whole, loss of feeling thing in my hands and feet. But today was good. It's definitely getting easier.

The seat of your pants

2010-01-17T17:26:00.002+08:00

I always do my best thinking while in the shower. Like today I came up with an amazing idea/invention. I call it "the seat of your pants." An apparatus that attaches to your pants/maybe built in, that when you press a button turns into a stool, or chair, depending on the setting. while you are walking or standing the 'legs' of the chair remain on the outside of your legs, and a swivel joint at the knee, so that when you're not using it it's like it's not even there! But then whe you want to sit down voila! press a button and the legs of the stool slide into the back of the chair, which fits over your jeans pants pockets. No pockets? no problem! can just as easily be used with the belt attachment.
This light-weight porduct can be used anywhere! at work, school, waiting in line, even at home!! never again will you be without a seat, bring your own! Only 59.95 Call now now now, limited time offer.

Want to fly by the seat of your pants? When you call now, we are offering a special discount on the rocket adaptors. Never be late or tired from standing again!!!

A warm day of physical foucation

2010-01-15T19:20:00.003+08:00

I opted out of swimming today. I think it was a good call. With the windchill hovering around 0F, I knew that I was in for another brutal swim/hypothermia fun times. Monday is supposed to be in the 30s, so I think I will try again then. And hereafter when the air temp is 30 or warmer.

I did something last night though that was almost as daring as swimming in the icy water...

...

are you ready? you should probably sit down for this.

...

i purchased a hot pink hoodie. my first ever pink purchase.

whoa. I know. huge. Don't worry, I'm still the same Kate who wears jeans tshirts and track jackets every day, but I was feeling adventurous. Besides. "Physical Foucation"? I'm a sucker for Chinglish.

Also, the yellow label that says "Jordan" looks remarkably like the logo for my school, also named Jordan's. So really it's my newest form of school pride. :-P can't wait to wear it to work!

Speaking of work. I will be so happy when Spring Festival is over. Since Thanksgiving, my schedule has been so variable! And tomorrow the new branch of Jordan's opens, so my schedule will be all upside down. I keep saying this though, as I was telling Nik last night, that schedule-uncertainty aside, I am so lucky in Dalian. It's filled with some really awesome people, expats and locals alike, easy to get around, and has everything I need, more or less. I will be so happy in 2 months when the weather warms up and I can be outside more!

Agony on the Ocean front

2010-01-13T17:25:00.002+08:00

Swimming yesterday was really rough. We get to the beach, it's max 10F outside, windchill bringing it down to 0 or less easily. The tide is way way out, and my toes are cold just from being outside. On the bus ride there even i was like, well, maybe i'll just watch them today, and i wish i would have. but i got there, and Mikey was already there jumping rope. i thought, what a good idea! he said 'yeah, or a really bad one, getting your heart rate up.' So instead of sprints i did some good stretches to get the blood all flowing throughout. okay, sure, i'm here, i'll just do it. the crowd today was Mikey, David, Nick and myself.

Well, with the tide so far out, the water was super shallow. Like, 25 yards out, it was only thigh/waist high. so at that point we said screw it, dunked under, and ran out as quick as possible. the feeling in my feet is long gone, sandals were a great choice. i turn around and david says "i lost my glasses!!" I take a 1/2 second scan of the area around me (the water was quite clear) and say "forget them we'll get you a new pair." he stays in another minute looking for them and finally comes out.

not. fun. at. all.

At the much needed sauna, it takes another 10 minutes to get my feet back to a normal coloring and for my legs to warm up. my feet were various colors ranging from bloodless white to red to dark purple (but no black! which would be frostbite, none of that!) thank goodness for the sauna/shower though, seriously i may have been in a tight place without it.

I'm going to give this cold swimming thing one more try. going to try to do it one more time anyway. but with the air temp around 0F it's just damn impossible to keep your body warm at all.

At coffee after we were all warmed up I was finally able to be a little sympathetic for david and his lost glasses. ! he was pretty cool about it, all things considered. there was an eye place nearby so david asked Nick and i to help him try and get contacts (and worry about glasses another time). I was trying to prepare myself for everything you have to go through in the states to get a prescription (the fullblown exam, whatever else). But the exam took abotu 5 minutes, was free, and was only on 2 machines. I was able to understand like 90 percent of what the dude said, and between the three of us we got david some contacts. great success to an otherwise agonizing day.
______

Also, today was the first time I've ever wanted a 9-5 schedule. Between my main school I work for, and my other school, and private students, my schedule is really super random. i worry about forgetting to go somewhere because it's always changing. Hopefully it will settle down after Spring Festival, but man! It would be nice to know exactly when I am and am not working!

Chinglish #whatever, swimming.

2010-01-08T17:49:00.005+08:00

I have quickly run out of Chinglish pictures to post. There's really not as much around the city as I thought, and I am constantly forgetting my camera. So Chinglish Fridays will now be Chinglish whenever I have something interesting to post days. Here's a couple...

yurun meat products, you'll pee it out eventually anyway right?

Deer apparently poo multicolored bubbles...

In other news, i went swimming for the second time today. Nick and Polly went on Monday with the windchill at -10F. I opted out, I think they're crazy for going. It's been cold all week, today the wind wasn't too bad, but it was still probably around 10F. I had a nice warm lunch and coffee, but was already cold by the time I arrived because of the unheated bus ride to the beach. I did remember my hiking sandals that I wore in the water, but no cap, need to go buy one. The water certainly felt colder, and in fact I was probably only in half as long as the last time (that means 1 minute versus 2). Maybe because I knew what i was getting into this time, the worrier that I am, I had trouble breathing for a moment and so i said to myself "no kate, this is a bad time to not be in control of yourself." so I got control but decided to exit the water after just one dunk under (Nick said that it only counts as a swim if you go under). But talking with Polly afterwards I'm realized that I'm getting slightly addicted to this craziness. I like a challenge, and this is one like I've never had before. Going to try and go twice next week, we shall see!!
Jolly-O!

Spoons

2010-01-07T14:45:00.003+08:00

There are lots of spoons in my dishwasher right now
from ice cream, the pints that I bought many nights after a tough evening of work.
coffee, stirring in a bit of milk to take the heat off.
peanut butter, a jar of peanut butter is my best friend
soup, even on a warm day, makes you feel good inside.
lemonade, stirring up some coolness on a hot day.
cereal, a delicate balance of milk and grain

there are lots of spoons in my dishwasher

Just a sampling from the last blog I had on Livejournal. It's quite different from my current one, as I have yet to compose a poem about lots of chopsticks in my sink.

My friend David told me he googled my name and found my livejournal blog. I had totally forgotten about it!!!! I kept it from the end of my senior year in high school til right before I went to Beijing. It was interesting going back and reading some of what I wrote. The language that I used to describe things... feel free to check it out, see a whole new side of your darling kate.

So why bother blogging about a blog? Just feeling a bit... home-loving these days. Not homesick. home-loving. :-) I watched Major Leauge the other night and it made me happy to see the shots of downtown Cleveland. And then lsat night I met a gal, Heidi, who grew up on the East Side, Euclid, Mentor. Last week I defended the Browns to some asshole from Pittsburgh. His name was Brian, and I was very unhappy that he had the same name as my brother, who is awesome.

....

So yeah. China. what's going on these days? Chris is leaving at the end of the month so they hired a new teacher to replace him. Going to dinner with the bosses to meet him tonight, I hope we get along!

I have been talked into going swimming again tomorrow, please think warm thoughts for me!

I have never been much of a bar person. I don't like gross beer, and in China I don't like coming home reeking of smoke. But I find myself going out at least once or twice a week, drinking tsingdao or harbin beer (ick) and coming home reeking of smoke. here's the thing though, I meet a lot of really cool people/expats when I go out! for the first month and a half I didn't go out at all! maybe with scott and chris once, but it was just us. then a few weeks ago I went out with David to this bar where I met all these cool people! And going to a bar here is so much better than in the states. When the girls at work in Ithaca would talk me into going out, I enjoyed their company but I didn't enjoy being hit on by sleezeballs. here I don't have to worry about it, because everyone I've met so far is just out to hang out and have a good time, no expectations! Now if only I could get everyone to not smoke around me....

Polar Bear Club

2010-01-02T10:18:00.002+08:00

I've been told it takes 3 times to be considered a "regular member," but i am in the beginning stages of membership of the Polar Bear Club here in Dalian. I don't actually know if that's what they call it, it's not really very official. Just a few expats who get together twice a week to go swimming. In the ocean. In winter.

Why did I decide to join them? Well, I don't know, it's kinda like the time I went bungee jumping in China... because I'm in China! After living on Lake Erie from 22 years and never once going for an icy dip, why start now? China! is inevitably my answer to questions about why I do random things.

I was invited to go last week at Christmas by my new Irish friend Polly and Scottish friend Nick, both really awesome people. So I told them sure, why not, I've always kinda wanted to try it out, so what better time to start than on New Year's Day? My other new friend David from New Zealand was coming to, this was to be his third time.

There was also talk of going to a sauna afterwards. Also a new (but warm sounding) experience for me.

So I get to the beach about 1:45 (we're meeting at 2), and I take a stroll around. It's a pretty large beach/park area, I can only imagine how packed it is in the summer (pictures next time). It has a very interesting landscape, rocky outcrops changing into the coastline. That was the second thing I noticed, the rocky beach. and I didn't bring sandals. shit. I'm going to break my feet. oh well.

That was the second thing I noticed. The first was the number of people at the beach, and the lackthereof(i.e. zero) in the water. There were hundreds of people all around the beach. I'm walking around looking for something like a less-noticeable area that we'll be swimming in so I don't have to parade around in my bikini (to make changing later easier) in front of a crowd.

Well, when my friends arrive, apparently we just do it in front of everyone, and usually attract quite the crowd, especially men that gather for the ladies. ugh. whatever, i said i was going to do it.

Next time (if there is one) i will be bringing a cap and sandals.

it was cold. really really cold. thankfully?? the wind wasn't too bad and the sun was out. but oh man it was cold. about 30 feet into the water it was only maybe 3 feet deep, but sand at least by then. so we had to go out pretty far, which means we were in for longer than I thought so. Nick and Polly (the seasoned pros) actually paddled/swam around a bit. David just kinda stood with his arms crossed, shivering. And I dove under once, then did some jogging to help attempt warmth and blood flow. I was cold, freezing, but the worst part was my feet! they has lost nearly all feeling soon after getting in. Sure enough, looking at them now, I stubbed a couple toes and have a bruise and a tiny cut, not broken, just a little bothersome. ah well. sandals are key.

So then getting out was interesting too. the tide was low so we had a long walk up the rocky beach, with a crowd easily more than a hundred people watching. In any situation here I only allow staring if there's conversation involved so I started asking everyone if they're cold, happy new year, how's the weather, etc. And when asked if i was cold i said "no no no!! i'm dying of heat!!" which got a lot of laughs.

After getting changed the only body parts still frozen were my toes. getting my shoes on was interesting.

On to the sauna. nick decided that since he'd have to take his clothes of soon anyway he'd just throw his coat on and leave his sandals on. I told him he was a B-A-M-F, and he truly is.

I'll spare most the details of the sauna/spa. However it was a large room, one side with 10 or so open showers, and 5 hand showers, with an open wall. sauna room with glass doors and next to that 6 beds for massage, msotly full body massages were going on. So yeah... a lot of naked women hanging out together, i guess that's what a sauna is? I guess there was an upstairs but we didn't know that til after. My chinese was stilli n cold shock so even if i new how to ask anything I couldn't.

I enjoyed a frozen coffee afterwards with my new polar bear friends, and 'next time' 'if' i might bring scrabble, finally found some players!!!

Oh yeah, and on the beach? tons!!!! of beach glass, i'm going to start a little collection for myself :)

Christmas in Dalian

2009-12-31T16:12:00.003+08:00

Christmas was certainly different this year. It's the first time I've never been with my family, and so in a lot of ways it was lonely. But, I was able to talk with a bunch of everyone on Skype, which was awesome, and got some really home-feeling packages in the mail :-) which helped a lot.

Christmas Eve was spent baking cookies during the day and going to a western buffet for dinner. Turkey and mashed potatoes, yumyumyum. pumpkin soup, and lots of other tasty foods.

Here's the sign outside of Eddie's. Eddie is a french/italian-trained chinese chef, so he makes lots of yummy food. we went back for dinner the other night and I had a Philly Sub!!

My friends who I ate with....

I didn't take a picture of my dinner, but here was my chocolate cake for dessert, yum! We also had eggnog with Kaluha. not my favorite, but I was happy to have eggnog.

On Christmas morning I woke up to snow!!! this is the view outside of my window!!!

After opening presents and spending a nice day to myself/baking cookies still, I went with my New Zealander friend David with some Irish and Chinese friends to a Hibachi dinner, then to the bars. All in all a well spent Christmas!!

Cookie Saga, the finale

2009-12-31T15:48:00.005+08:00

Alright, so i wanted to write about each cookie as its own episode in the saga of my cookie making. but between being sick, busy, and working, and having to make cookies, there was no time. The cookie saga is over, well, almost, there's still a bit of a mess in my kitchen to clean up... maybe next year :P

I learned quite a bit about making cookies. First. It takes a hell of a long time when you can only bake 9 at a time. I didn't count the total number baked, but let's see, 5 kinds of cookies for 13 friends, ended up with 5ish of 4 kinds for each of them and like 8 sugar cookies for each... so like, 250-300? yeah, it was quite the three day long event. in fact it was so epic I watched all of the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings movies while I was baking. In general the flavors came out okay, I think the Johnny Walked I used instead of vanilla extract worked out fine. A friend of mine got his hands on both baking powder and baking soda for me, the angel. Here are some pictures of the event, in addition to last blog's peanut butter blossoms i made choc chiip, oatmeal raisin, sugar cookies, and thumbprints with blueberry jam.
(not pictured, oatmeal raisin, guess i forgot to snap a pic)

first, chocolate chip, next time, when made with proper chocolate, they will be much tastier...

My first few attempts at sugar cookies ended up in crumbs because they stuck to the pan. I was so frustrated that I thought cooking them on a rack would be a good idea. um, DUh!!!!!! melted cookies....

with the help of a little foil (never did find any parchment paper), they came out better....

thumbprints!! they came out really well, the jam i used was super tasty. not very pretty though...

And the final products, just before the final wrapping and ribbon....

So what will I bake next? If I can find kosher salt I am going to attempt pretzels, and maybe a cake if I can find some decent cocoa. Requests are appreciated. :-)

Cookie Saga part 1

2009-12-22T21:59:00.004+08:00

Even harder than speaking chinese is attempting to bake Christmas cookies here in good old Dalian. I have all of these great new friends that I want to get Christmas presents before, but don't know them well enough to shop for, so i said, I'll make Christmas cookies! who doesn't love them!!
Well,
not as easy as it sounds. First. the lack of oven. I purchased a toaster oven, and the goal is to make 5 different types of cookies :choc chip, sugar, oatmeal raisin, thumbprints, and peanut blossoms. i know the first three aren't really christmas cookies, but for the challenge it's going to be to make them, if they come out well it will truely be a Christmas Miracle.
here is my toaster oven, with my first piece of toast and slices of cheese i've had so far, 2 months in. :-)

And after a Christmas secret amount of time and money spent to get the ingredients, here is my first batch of cookies. peanut blossoms. They came out okay, if a little dark. Some of my hershey's kisses melted a bit too much. ah well. tastes the same.
I did them first because they had the fewest ingredients I was worried about (aka they only have 3 ingredients). For example, I am a bit worried that chinese baking soda and powder are different than American. Also, I couldn't find vanilla extract, so I'm going to use whiskey (I read it works!!). I think I found brown sugar that is like American stuff (I'm pretty sure chinese brown sugar is made from dates or something). And I bought Imported Gold Medal Flour... everything else, eggs, sugar, salt, i'm okay with.

Future challenges include: christmas shaped sugar cookies sans cookie cutters, whiskey extract?!, no parchment paper, and a general lack of counter space.

until next time...

The truth??

2009-12-14T21:46:00.003+08:00

One of my fellow ESL teacher-friends gave me some good advice a few weeks ago before I started teaching a new student. He said, paraphrasing, "Remember, it doesn't matter what they [your students] talk about, only that they talk. This is why it's good to assign them opinions and have debates. This way they focus on the words they're saying in English, and not their thoughts in Chinese. There is no need to tell them the truth, as long as they keep talking..."

At Outstanding School, I teach 5 classes on Sunday and 4 on Wednesday. I have no idea whose class I'm teaching in until I get to the school, and the Chinese teachers have no idea what I should teach, because they find out I'm in their class when I walk in. Productive eh?

So if neither of us can come up with anything on the fly, I have so far been letting them talk until a grammar point or chance to introduce new vocab comes up.

Did you know that I know Lebron James? and we went to the same high school?

Well, my students think I do. :P

One of them said "I like to watch basketball!" So I said "Do you know who Lebron James is?" 90% of the kids got really excited and nodded their heads. So I continued to tell them about how I was from the same city (more or less) as Lebron James, and that we went to high school together. (Used it as an opportunity to teach them about The Great Lakes). They were soooooo excited, and actually paid attention almost the entire class!!

Okay so I don't know Lebron James (I did drive by his high school in Akron one time though!), and I may have been lying, but what a great class it was! not the usual, painful, nothing to talk about for 50 minutes class. :-)

Go Cavs!!!!!

Chinglish Friday #3

2009-12-12T09:44:00.005+08:00

K so it's Saturday, but still Friday in the states... The weather sucked and I was busy this week, so nothing realy fabulous...

"Mission Corea Hair Beauty Salan"

mission impossible...

Auspicious Pharmacy...

Feide sea slue proteol si capsule...

k so Feide is the pinyin of the first 2 characters, then seas slug, but proteol si? sounds like a bad scifi sequel

On my way to work. Ho! it's the seven dwarves over yonder!

Happy and the crowd were passing out advertisements for some restaurant.

Tall, Blonde, Bullseye.

2009-12-07T13:40:00.002+08:00

Firstly, this is an unpleasant story, scared the shit out of me, but I'm okay because there are some really nice people in the world. Nothing bad happened, just was frightened. So please don't worry about me!

I woke up late this morning, so I did not get to drink coffee or review my homework before my Chinese lesson, which made for a really painful hour of speaking Chinese. Afterwards, I wandered around the square where my lessons are until I found a post office (had to mail a couple of things stateside!). An hour later after a lot more painful speaking of Chinese and a very helpful post office clerk I was done. I knew roughly where I was, and so started heading towards this really big shopping area that was maybe 5 10 minutes away to have lunch. I was thinking about which kind of yummy Japanese noodles I was going have when this guy started talking to me and held out a 1 yuan coin in his hand. At first I thought I had dropped it and he was returning it to me. As long as they seem friendly, i usually talk to random people like this, it really helps my Chinese. But I quickly learned that no, he wasn't giving me money I had dropped, he was showing me 1 yuan because he wanted me to give him 1 yuan.

Alright. 1 yuan is like 15 cents US, but as soon as he asked me for money I said no way, goodbye. At that moment there weren't too many other people on the road, and I didn't want to risk taking out my wallet and him running off with it. Mind you, this man did not look like a beggar, he was maybe a little underdressed for the weather, but had on clean clothes, was clean shaven, and seemed like most of the other people I talk to, loud and curious. But when I said no he turned from nice to persistent. As I walked away from him he initally didn't follow, but then caught up. So I turned down an alley filled with street fod vendors and lots of people. I was getting really close to this shopping area, and I figured he'd back off once I was around other people. But he starts yelling! when he grabbed my arm (not forcefully, but I don't want him touching me), I turned around and yelled "don't touch me!!!" in english and "I dont' want to give you money, go away, goodbye" in chinese, more or less. This is in the middle of the busy alley. I'm the only whitey around, and you'd think that SOMEONE would say something to this guy, he's obviously crazy or something and I obviously don't want him around. But everyone just stares. So, I book it. Not quite running but using my legs in their full stride, but he runs after me!!! I am sooooo close to the mall, I know he won't follow me inside, I just have to cross the street and go through the doors. He's getting really mad now, when all of a sudden I hear someone say 'what's going on are you okay?" I turn and this Taiwanese woman has grabbed my arm and come to my rescue. She says something to the guy like "what do you want?" he says something like "all I want is 1 yuan!!" And she actually gives it to him and grabs me quickly and we cross the street.
she's saying "let's go to starbucks and get away from him, he's crazy, we'll call the police." Now that I have this wonderful woman helping me I thought he'd be gone but he keeps following us saying something about the pretty foreigner and how scared I am.

Um, hell yes i was scared, I felt so helpless because I could not shake him!

Well, She says something to him about calling the police, and finally he stops following us as we enter the shopping area. She gets out her phone to call the police but I ask her not to, I'm just glad he's gone and I don't want to make things a big deal, he probably would have been gone by the time the cops got there anyway. But she calms me down, starts talking to me about herself (Canadian businesswoman born in Taiwan in immigration) and had me talk about why i'm here, to take my mind off of what happened. Whew. Gloria. Glorious Gloria. without here who knows, he might have followed me into the mall.

We exchanged numbers and I am going to see her again to thank her properly for helping me. She was on her way to a meeting and couldn't chat long, and I just wanted to go somewhere out of the way, so we parted ways.

I decided to continue to lunch as I had originally planned, that way I could sit in a restaurant I knew and didn't have to worry about anything. I'm glad I did that. It gave me time to think about what had happened and why it scared me so much.

As a foreigner in China you're bound to run into people who treat you like crap, becuase they're racist or they just don't like foreigners, or whatever. Examples of this would be being gawked at, being charged higher prices because you're a "dumb waiguoren," taxi drivers refusing to take you places, and being pickpocketed. All of these things suck, they're no fun, but they're all superficial and you can get around them or prevent them from happening by taking a couple of extra steps before you walk out the door. Or in the case of being gawked at, turn it into a conversation, which is what i usually try to do, and failed at miserably this time. I just felt so so so trapped, and alone, because there were like 200 people witnessing this and all of them, just watching.
This guy, who was probably out of his mind or on drugs or something, just made me feel totally helpless. Until today I had this false sense of "well, I'm bigger than most Chinese, so I can handle myself" and sure enough, I was a good foot taller than this guy. But his menace outdid my height by far, and I was shown that maybe I need to think twice about having a real confrontation. Because it's bound to happen again, it's a little hard for me to not stick out of the crowd as a target, I won't be able to wear a winter hat in the summer to cover my hair color, and I can't chop off my legs. ANd I don't want to! I want to be able to walk around and have the freedom to go from the post office to a restaurant without being assaulted. I think though, that I won't get that here, and instead I will prepare myself for the next time this happens. whatever that means, i'm still working on it.

And I won't be going near that street again.

More or Less

2009-12-05T10:50:00.003+08:00

A quick story about a really fun class I had the other day. Often (aka every class) when i teach at Outstanding, I walk into the classroom and have no clue what I'm supposed to teach about. More often than not, when I walk in the teacher says, "Oh we have foreign class today? Hooray!" They excited to have a break, a surprise break, because they don't know anything about what I'm doing eaither, or that I'm coming at all.

So this particular class, Mabel, my third class of the day of 4. I've redone Christmas and Thanksgiving already, and it looks like another Thanksgiving class. The kids are pretty well behaved, before class I sit down next to one of them and we have a nice little chat in Chinese filled English. So the whole class is good, we talk about when and why Thanksgiving is celebrated, the parade, and now it's time for dinner.
I discovered while teaching this lesson in another class that the kids really got a kick out of the hand turkey. They'd never seen it before. So I started out by saying "On Thanksgiving we eat turkey! Watch as I draw one for you." And sure enough, the class erupts in laughter and awe when they see this little-kid hand drawing of a turkey that all American children learn before they can say gobble gobble. As this is an English class, I ask them "Does this look like a turkey?" in hopes to start a conversation. "chaaaaaaaaaaaabuduoooooooooooo" I get as a response from one of the kids, Steven. Oh! what a perfect time to teach them a new phrase. So I teach them that "chabuduo" means "more or less" in English. And so I ask again, "Does this look like a turkey?" And I get about 3 yes answers and 17 "More or less!" (my drawing skills are limited, so it really did look more or less like a turkey).
I am so happy because I have taught them something really useful that they can hopefully use again soon. However, Steven, every question I asked thereafter answered "more or less" because he thought it was soooo funny. I couldn't be mad though because 1, he remembered the phrase this way, and 2, wasn't being rowdy, just kid-like.
So thank you Steven, I think this teaching this will be alright. more or less.

Chinglish Friday #2

2009-12-04T15:14:00.007+08:00

Before I share this week's photos, I would just like to say that yes I do in fact enjoy being in China. I often write about things that annoy me, or unfortunate events that take place here. And well, frankly they're more interesting than the good things that happen to me (i'm amused easily). but I will make an effort to write about happy things sometimes! Like when I was out shopping today, "Time to Say Goodbye" was being played on the loudspeakers in the main plaza. :)

Anyway, onto the Chinglish!!

First, a picture of some KFC coupons...

Now, a fast food shop that has nothing to do with KFC, any pictures look familiar?

You know that this place has good prices, because they tell you so!

The fairprice shoemarket

If only you could find the ideal beau in a store...

The beauideal shop

Finally, For your every imported-goods need...

(They really do have imports here too!)

Coffee Time

2009-12-01T14:37:00.004+08:00

Recently I have been consuming a fair amount of coffee. Now, I have always been a coffee drinker, but for fear of becoming addicted/I don't usually need the caffeine anyway I maybe had an average of 3 or 4 cups a week. As I may have mentioned, Chinese cuisine does not really include the following things: cheese, chocolate, peanut butter, pretzels, bagels, and coffee... among other things. but these foods you might say are my favorites. Coffee (well, crysalized instant), is the only thing that I can find where the Chinese version is close to edible, and even exists (no bagels or pretzels at all!).

I brought some coffee with me, and I'm hoping Santa will bring me some as well (hint hintfolgershint), but until then I've been having quite a lot of this instant stuff. I finally found unsweetened instant, but for the most part it's like 1/4 cofee 3/4 sugar (I like my coffee black).

Alright I'm sure you don't care about my coffee drinking habits, but in the coffee aisle at the supermarket today I found the following:

I don't know about you but so many times at the store i say to myself "I can't believe they expect men and women to drink the same type of coffee!"
puh-lease.
Could you Imagine seeing Lady and Men Coffee in the states? right next to the Lady and Men Ketchup. This is one of the many times I'm like, really China? really?

I wanted to see what the difference was, so I purchased a box of each (for a total experiment cost of $5 USD). Before I share my results, let me translate the descriptions on the box, what the company says the difference is.
[note this was done with my electronic dictionary, but I it's pretty accurate if a little Chinglishy]

On the Coffee for Lady:
清香型(qingxiangxing). "Fragrant Flavor"

On the Coffee for Men:
碳烧型(tanshaoxing)."The carbon is burning Flavor," more or less "dark roast flavor"

Both coffees had an enormous amount of creamer and sugar added, but the Coffee for Men actually had a little bit of coffee flavoring. Not burnt, or even strong. The Coffee for Lady was essentially sweetended milk with an afterthought of coffee flavor. maybe if you took coffee ice cream, heated it, and added more milk and sugar.

I am going to politely keep my comments to myself on what I think about the implications are of bs things like this, though I'm sure you can draw your own conclusions.

Chinglish Friday #1

2009-11-27T17:23:00.006+08:00

So one of my little pleasures in life, in China at least, is Chinglish. Chinglish is a result of poor/direct translation from Chinese to English, and usually results in something like "Classic Life" on the cover of a notebook. :-) Well, there is so much Chinglish, everywhere in China, that I have decided that every Friday from now on will be Chinglish Friday. This means I will have to be better about bringing my camera with me when I go out, because so many awesome Chinglish sayings are on billboards, store names, advertisements, etc.

Click Here to see my favorite Chinglish sightings from my time in Beijing.

To start things off, the namesake of this blog:

next, okay, not Chinglish, but apparently if you come to Dalian you can ride whales and dolphins, that interact. That or Dalian has mer-people.

My new coffee mug:

"Joyful small gruff pig." and on the side of the cup it says "This cultivation season arrived. The pipi daddy rides the tractor to prepare the farm work."

My other notebook (No fun picture, just fun text). No typos, verbatim:

"Love you 02

Especially for you
The best and most beautiful things in the world can not be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart.

You like a lily in the valley blossom and wither by yourself and never regret of that.
In the prime time you are't arrogant and in the bod time you don't repent.
Your light sceat belongs to a eternal spring.

You never avoid mountain's heaviness and despise water's shallowness. You are as stead as a rock.
You look the storm as you dynamic power.
you are a bosom friend of mine both in my study and in my life."

Thanksgiving Eve

2009-11-25T21:16:00.002+08:00

I didn't realize just how interesting the day would be. Probably the most... unusual Thanksgiving Eve I've ever had.

Started out with randomly having no water when I woke up, so I had to wait a couple hours to take a shower. But that's not unusual. Pretty normal so far. Met Chris for lunch at Mr. Li's, the have chicken noodle soup. like. it tastes like American chicken noodle soup. yum.

Alright so yesterday I went into the place I take Chinese lessons (It's called AuShi), to pick up the book I will be teaching this Russian woman out of. Sunny is the director of, well everything at AuShi, and she's a pretty awesome person. You might say she has a 'sunny' personality. I've only been taking lessons for a couple weeks and she already has hooked me up with this awesome job (well if i get it. I have to do a demo class for the woman to see if she likes me. if she does, 6 hours extra a week, woohoo!). And she's just generally a pleasant, understanding person. So yesterday she says to me something along the lines of "our school is having a Thanksgiving party tomorrow night. Would you be able to come by and talk a little bit about Thanksgiving?" For Sunny I have no problem doing her a favor, because she's so awesome, and plus I finish class at 5 and have zero things to do right now. So I say sure!

Now, I'm expecting this to be a party with a bunch of English students. Jordan's, the main school i work for, had a Halloween party with like 20 kids and their parents, and had me say like 4 sentences about Halloween. So i figure they want something similar, except Gordon, the headmaster asks me to do 4 or 5 minutes, no problem. in Chinese. huh?! "bukeyi." i can't. i tell him, my chinese isn't good enough. So we resolve this be deciding Sunny will translate for me. So last night I prepared/copied from various sources the following. I'm sharing it with you because I think it's pretty elementary sounding. because i wrote it for little kids:

In America, Thanksgiving Day is the fourth Thursday in November. Most other countries do not celebrate Thanksgiving. European countries do not celebrate the holiday but Canada does. In Canada Thanksgiving is on the second Monday of October, to celebrate the end of the harvest season. In China, the Mid-Autumn Festival is celebrated for many of the same reasons we celebrate Thanksgiving in America.
In America it is a federal holiday, so schools, banks, post offices, and government offices are closed. Thanksgiving was the first holiday celebrated in America. It was first celebrated in the autumn of 1621 when the Native Americans and the pilgrims got together for a three-day feast and festival of fun. The pilgrims were a small group of people who sailed from England to North America in order to start a new life and have religious freedom. They sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the Mayflower ship and landed on Plymouth Rock, which is located in present day Plymouth, Massachusetts. Today, families celebrate Thanksgiving by eating turkey and other dishes. A turkey can take 5 hours to cook in the oven! Families also eat stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, corn, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie for dessert. Thanksgiving is also a time to ‘give thanks’ for things we are grateful for: family, friends, health, and good fortune.
Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is a very special Thanksgiving Day event. The parade takes place in New York City. It consists of many large balloons depicting famous cartoon characters such as Mickey Mouse, Ronald McDonald, and Snoopy. In the parade there are also many performers, including famous singers, Broadway shows, and high school marching bands from all over the country. Santa Claus ends the parade and officially starts the holiday season. The parade lasts 3 hours, from 9am until noon, and many families first watch the parade on TV and then have Thanksgiving dinner.

So today I had 4 classes at Outstanding (Jordan's affiliate, kind of). I had no idea what I was teaching for any of the classes, and only one of the teachers when I walked into class gave me a topic to teach about. The other three said, "so what will you be teaching today?"

Well, I turned my Thanksgiving intro into a 50 minute class. 3 times. It actually went well, maybe even better than my Christmas classes.

At 5, I rush to meet Sunny at AuShi, she told me to meet her there and we'd go together. That the party wasn't very far away. When I get to AuShi, Gordon is rushing us out the door, he's driving us, woohoo! (having a car is a huge status thing btw). I thought it was like... across the street. more like a 20 minute drive (in rush hour traffic, so maybe like 5 otherwise).

Anyway, we pull into this gated hotel-like building parking entryway thing. I think it was a spa? I still don't know exactly what we went to. I'm going to go with spa. well, imagine a spa the size of a hotel. We walk in, sign our names for a drawing thing, and get gift bags that contained real-estate postcard, a couple brochures, and a booklet called "stopandsmelltheroses." that's the only thing on it in English, i think it's a bunch of ways to relax. there's a list of 600 or so short messages, like "Every day ask 3 people questions." How to better your life.

So I'm obviously not at a school function talking to kids. In the lobby/hallway, there's a stage set up, with maybe 20 rows of chairs, 4 wide, and a tv with more chairs in another not visible part of the lobby. yes. this "party" is going to happen in the lobby. There's probably 100-150 people there. TV cameras, reporters, some bellyish dancers in outfits with so many feathers they kinda looked like turkeys. I can see 2 other foreigners in the crowd, who I later meet, one of them is the editor of one of the English Dalian magazines, the other his girlfriend.

Sunny and I go 'backstage,' more like just out of sight, and wait for our turn. She's super nervous, because she wasn't too too familiar with the translation of my introduction. I wasn't nervous because I was still getting over how different it was than what I had expected. So we did our thing, left the stage, yay! we can leave now right? Nah, staying for the whole thing. So we find seats, and I attempt to understand what they're staying on stage. Every now and then i hear "gan'anjie" Thanksgiving. and "lansede, lusede,huangsede" Blue, Green, yellow. they might be talking about spa things, or clothes? At one point they did have a buffet, so we had that for dinner. among the chinese dishes they had penne pasta with sausage and red sauce, italian sausage, scalloped potatoes (more cream sauce than anything but not bad), and a mildly chocolate flavored cake. much to my disappointment. They also had juices, water, and wine. I opted for the wine, some New Zealand brand, don't remember.

I only had 2 glasses though, no worries! And here's what I've decided: 2 glasses is enough to make me confident in my Chinese enough to speak with random people on the street for extended periods, but not confident enough to take part in the 'fashion show' at this party. Someone came up and asked me if I'd walk on the stage and model. I was wearing express jeans, a longsleeved black t shirt, and a semi-cute buttondown over it, but hell no! They had lots of people from the audience doing it. weird.

I hope I have conveyed my odd experience of this evening. First note that I'm pretty sure that this indeed was a Thanksgiving party. Oh it turned out that Gordon's friend who works for/runs? the spa this was at wanted a foreigner to introduce the holiday, and that's why I was there. I don't know if people paid to go to this, but the buffet was pretty decent, and open wine bar? Weirdness number C, it was held in a lobby. So everyone was pretty crowded together. I thought while I was there, I wish I had my camera to capture this, but I don't think photos would have done it justice.

Ah well, tomorrow is dinner at the ShangriLa with Chris, his girlfriend, and Scott, and his girlfriend. As long as they have Turkey, Mashed potatoes, and gravy I will be happy.

The day I got a new water heater.

2009-11-24T12:45:00.004+08:00

Let's see, where to start... Sunday.

Sunday is my longest day of classes. I have classes from 8:30-12 at one school, and from 1:10 to 6 at another school, for 7.5 total teaching hours. I don't know how teachers do this every day! once a week is enough for me. Anyway, after work I met Chris and Scott for some hotpot, yummy!! If you don't know what hotpot is, come visit me and we can have it every day! It's kinda like fondue-esque-ish. delicious.

So, we have a nice long dinner, and it's a nice night out, so by the time I walk home it's about 10 PM. I walk in and hear water dripping. A LOT of water dripping. maybe, streaming, is a better word. My hot water heater is leaking in like 3 or 4 different place, and water is everywhere. Thankfully I guess, it's right about the washer, where there's a drain, so some of it is going in there. Now, there were tiny drips every now and then when I moved in, so i had put a bowl under to catch that. It was now full and spilling onto the floor, thankfully tile. I clean up the water a best as I can and try to stop the leak. I twist things, tie plastic around the places where the pipes are leaking, hit the darn thing a few times, and nothing.

Have I mentioned that one of my biggest pet peeves is running water?

So great, it's 10PM and there's this big mess that I can't stop. I text Candy, but she can't do anything til Monday morning. I texted her and told her okay, I can't be at the house from around 10-11, other than that all day (luckily it's my day off). I don't tell her what I have during that time, just that I'm busy. (Really I just have Chinese class, but I was advised by my American friends to share a little info as possible with the school). So I close the doors to keep the sound down, and hope help comes in the morning.

Monday. At about 9:30, as I'm walking out the door to go to my lesson, Candy texts me, "I called the landlord and someone is coming over now, okay?" hmm, no Candy it's not okay. I get done with class, rush home, and finally about noon someone comes to check things out. He looked really familiar but I didn't realize who he was til after he left. Not my landlord, but someone who works for the real estate company, the same guy who knew someone at the police station and helped me/the school avoid the fine. He took a look at the tank, and twisted a couple of places I hadn't seen before to shut the water off. Then he looked around, twisted, pushed, and hit at things, just like I had done the night before. Hmm, he sure doesn't know what he's doing. From what he tells me though I'm pretty sure someone will come in the afternoon to fix it, or take it away. Well, no one could come til this morning. Luckily again I don't have class until tonight.

Tuesday. Maybe around 10:30 the same guy shows up with a guy and a new water heater, yay!!! it took around 45 minutes to take the old one down, put the new one up, and make sure it works, but it works! woohoo! so happy. And it doesn't leak, which is a super plus. While the repair guy was installing the new one my landlordish friend tried to make some small talk with me. It consisted of him saying something, me going "huh?" a few times, and even a little bit of actual conversation. nice guy.

My New Water Heater!

For what a problem it could have been, I think I lucked out.

Also, because I had been attempting to speak Chinese all morning I decided to go out for lunch to a restaurant with a pictureless menu. It was mostly successful. I have leftovers for 2 more meals. Had some yummy mapodofu. spicy tofu. I burnt my mouth pretty bad because I didn't wait for it to cool down, silly me! Also, this couple sat down at the table next to me and both stared at me for a solid 20 seconds. So I said "Ni Hao" Hello. The just stared. so i said "Ni hao ma?" How's it going? then the woman said something to the man i couldn't understand. hmm. how rude! The the woman stared at me the entire time I ate! I would look up at her every now and then and smile, then go back to eating. but Seriously? what am I a zoo attraction? She could have at least said Hello to me or something. sigh. all because I'm a waiguoren, foreigner.

Somewhat random, but here are some more pictures of my apartment! The sink area/rest of my kitchen, and my living/familyroom. Also pictured, my futon couch where you could have the pleasure of sleeping if you come visit!

A lesson in induction cooking

2009-11-20T12:49:00.005+08:00

As I've mentioned before, my stove does not work. Well, I'm pretty sure it was just out of gas. Eating out is cheap, so it's really not that big of a deal, except I enjoy cooking. So the last few weeks has been sad for me, only using the kitchen to wash my bowl after eating oatmeal in the morning. Yesterday I finally decided to take care of things. This meant calling Candy.

Now, I had been putting off calling Candy for her help because I was worried she might end the conversation by asking me to come in to the office. I'm not lazy I promise, but I have no desire to go into the office when there is absolutely no reason to be there. The last time I was asked to come in I sat in on their meeting, 45 minutes of Chinese I couldn't understand and had nothing to do with the foreign teachers. The I sat and watched the Chinese teachers plan their lessons. woohoo. I'd rather sit at home and study Chinese or something. So I don't like calling Candy unless I have to.

Anyway, when I called her she asked me to look for a "book" that apparently was a record of gas deliveries. She said find the book and tell her the phone number from it. Sounds easy right? This the first page of the book:

Can't read it? neither can I. If you look in the upper right hand corner, it looks like it could be a phone number, except the last 4 digits, aren't really digits. they look like t's, I thought maybe it's a Chinese writing of 7: 七. So I gave Candy that phone number. She called me back, wrong number. not surprised.
Also note, the year on the first page is 1988, and the most recent date was in 2006. What a silly way of keeping track of something!

Candy offered to send someone from the school to "help me look for the right number." I declined. I can't read chinese but I know what a phone number looks like. So she suggested that I get an electric stove (hot plate) instead. She said the landlord told her it was safer and cheaper anyway. I figured, sure, good idea. This way I won't have to worry about gas ever. I had looked at them in the store and the prices were from like 120rmb and up, totally affordable. So I went to the store and picked one up, on sale! for 150rmb($22usd). I also got a decent quality 9 inch saucepan so I could make dinner when I got home.

After the walk home and haul up the stairs with groceries and appliances, I was all about a good meal. One of the teachers had an extra rice cooker that she gave me to use while I'm here (so nice of her!), so I started some rice cooking, figuring by the time it was done my curry would be ready.

So I've never used a hot plate before. And I can't read the instruction manual. but I figure, how hard can it be? there's only like 10 buttons on the whole thing: power, temperature, time, and different settings for stir fry, hotpot, soup, etc. (these characters I can read). My vegetables chopped and ready to cook, I plug in my new hotplate and turn it on. I set my new pan on the burner, but the hotplate just keeps beeping at me, then shuts off. uh Oh. I try again. and again. I try to read the manual, look up a few key words, try different outlets, but I just don't understand why it isn't working.

After a half hour of listening to this thing beep, I start yelling at it and realize it's time to call for help. I give Chris, the other foreign teacher, a call, and he tells me that the pan probably doesn't weigh enough, fill one with water and test it out that way.

Great. well there's food and oil in one pan, but thankfully the hot plate came with a pot and lid of it's own! so i fill it with water, turn it on and voila! hot water. But for some reason even when I apply pressure to my other pan it still just beeps and shuts off. 2 steps forward one step back.

Maybe I'll just cook in the pot the hot plate cam with. yeah it's a little big but let's try. Sure enough, I was finally able to cook dinner. My rice had finished cooking oh, 45 minutes beforehand, but yay for the warmer setting on a rice cooker, eh?

After I ate my yummy curry and put the leftovers away, I decided to try and figure out why my pan wouldn't work. It wasn't weight like Chris said, because later I tried filling my new pan with water and pressing it down and nothing.

Induction Cooking. duh. I wasn't expecting my hot plate to be so fancy. For those of you new to the idea, basically there is an electromagnet underneath the ceramic top of the hotplate. when a pot made of magnetic material is place on top of the hot plate, energy is transferred directly to the pot. Pretty neat, because the hot plate itself doesn't get hot (just a little from the residual heat), but the pot you cook with gets really hot really fast.

Well, I learned the characters for induction cooking unit:电磁炉(diàncílú)=hot plate. sigh. And I also learned that my nice new pan is useless. I don't know what it's made out of, probably aluminum, but it just won't work with my hotplate. grr. Also, maybe before my next purchase of things I know nothing about (first time ever using a hot plate), I might bring along a Chinese friend to help. Or do a little more research.

My stove area! On top of the 2 burners are tiles that I found randomly in a cupboard, and a shelf from who knows where on top of that, and there you have a new countertop for my hotplate! The hood was scary. There were globs of green grease dripping from the fans. Took them down and cleaned them some, enough so it's safe to cook without worrying about "additional flavor" being added. No oven as you can see, they pretty much don't exist, only in fancy/expensive homes.

Ghost Fesitval

2009-11-17T20:33:00.006+08:00

As I was walking home this evening it was hard to avoid walking through/by the flaming piles of paper and ash all over the street.

huh?

yeah, that's what I said too...

pardon the picture quality. A result of shaky hands, darkness, and trying to be sneaky about taking pictures of people.

Anyway, I asked my friend, "why are people burning paper in the streets?" Apparently it's Ghost Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Festival. The gates of hell are now open and the ghosts are free to roam the streets for something like 4 weeks. I read you're not supposed to "answer if someone calls to you on the street." here's the wikipedia page if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Festival

Basically a way to "commemorate ancestors" my friend told me. Also a really great way to release a lot of noxious fumes and create a lot of ash and trash in the streets. I made it home without being hit by any flying embers though, a plus for the evening.

Adventures in Chinese bureaucracy

2009-11-13T17:15:00.005+08:00

Today was my day off. I had plans to have a really productive day, and things started out alright, but soon went sour.

My plan for the day was to go to my Chinese lesson at 10, have lunch and this noodle place nearby, on my walk home go to the supermarket, come home do laundry, and maybe go out or so something fun tonight.

Chinese lesson. Check. Noodles. Yum, check. Supermarket. maybe Monday. Laundry, who knows.

I got a phonecall from one of the teachers at the school, the conversation went something like this:

Candy: Hi Kate, where are you?
Me: Walking home, about to go to the store, why?
Candy: Are you busy?
Me: Well, what's up?
Candy: You need to go to the [visa office] before one, and bring visa-size photos with you. Where are you?
(It's noon and I'm 15 minutes away from my house with no pictures)
Me: Near Friendship Square.
Candy: Oh... that is very far away, you will need to walk home and get photos. I will text you with the name of the building. Sunny will be there waiting for you.
Kate: Um, ok I guess I can.
Candy: K thank you bye bye.

At this point I'm still not really sure where I'm going, and assume it's another police-type station for more paperwork.

[The first time I went to a police station they said I should have been there 2 weeks earlier, and needed to pay a 6000RMB fine. We gave someone who knew someone a couple packs of cigarettes and they looked the other way on the fine]

Anyway, I go home, get the photo, check my wallet. I have around 440RMB, plenty for what I'm expecting to be a 15RMB cab ride. Turned out to be a 33RMB cab ride. I arrive around 12:50 and meet Sunny, who poor girl, has been there since 11. It was then she found out that I needed to be there to sign forms and that the office we needed didn't open til 1.

If you've heard anything about Chinese culture, standing in line is not part of it. At a lot of banks and offices though, they have you take a number. Sunny has already taken a number, we are like 10th in line or so.

At 1:15, over an hour later, she calls someone and says "Come on we will try going to room 209 and maybe it will go faster." Apparently she had the number of the guy we needed to get a signature from and decided to wait an hour before trying him? I still don't understand that. So we sit around while he does the paperwork, go to another window, wait for it to be entered into the computer. meanwhile, people are cutting in line, i.e. walking up to the window before their number is called and being helped (finally explaining the hour+ wait).

Now Sunny asks me "do you have 800RMB?" I wasn't told to bring any money, so I just had the now 407RMB on me. Luckily Sunny also had 400 on her, so we were able to pay the fee (I will be reimbursed by the school, soon I hope). So we pay that. She's totally out of money and I have 7RMB on me. We go to another window, "do you have 20RMB?" Uh oh. Miraculously some friendly New Zealanders and I had been chatting, and so I borrowed it from them, and they live near me. I guess making friends was one good thing out of this mess.

All this to extend my visa for a year. sigh. I finally got back to my house around 5, after paying for the bus ride back for both me and Sunny (Thankfully I have a metro card with lots of money on it!). And now I sit here drinking some french-pressed coffee from the states and eating a cake-like baked good from my local bakery (they have a limited selection, mostly rolls, cakes, and mini-muffin like things).

Another day in paradise. Remember, it's not what you know, it's who you know and how much you can pay them.

I have arrived!

2009-11-09T17:40:00.009+08:00

Alright, well, I've been in China for almost 2 weeks now, but who's counting. Welcome to my blog, called "Classic Life" after some really inspiring Chinglish (Chinese-English) on the cover of one of my notebooks. The rest of the Chinglish best describes what I hope for during my time here:

let no one corner of sunshine
let everyone have a happy second time

Deep, isn't it?

Okay, going back to the beginning. I arrived in Dalian on the 28th of October. My initial expectations of Dalian were few but I was confident in them.
1, Dalian was smaller than Beijing
2, Dalian was cleaner than Beijing
3, Getting around would be as easy as it was in Beijing.

Within the first 24 hours I was proved wrong on all 3 assumptions, and quickly learned to stop comparing Dalian to Beijing.

1. Downtown Dalian (where I live) is around 2 or 3 million, but the "greater Dalian area" is more like 20-30 million. Cities in China are more like counties, and the district is the city (it costs more money to mail something to another district, even if it's still technically in Dalian)
Also, if you're really interested where I live, the approximate coordinates for where I live are:
lat: 38°54'24.41"N
lon: 121°38'18.14"E
more on where I live later...

2. Dalian is pretty dirty. For example, upon exiting the airport I was welcomed by a warm, sunny, hazy smoggy day. I asked the teachers that came to meet me, "is this weather normal?" "Oh yes! today is sunny!" I sighed. truthfully though things are relatively clean, I think I've seen more blue-sky days in the last 2 weeks than my 4 months in Beijing (not that I'm comparing). I worry about some of the shoes I wear though. As I walk on the streets I tend to slip sometimes, even if it's not raining, because there is just that much filth covering the ground. ew.

3. Okay so this is really a personal thing. The truth is I was spoiled by how easy things were for me last time I was in China. I was in a college dorm, with other U.S. students all my age, and everything was run by my program. Everything I needed was either taken care of by them or I could take care of by myself/get at the store that was a 5 minute walk from my dorm. Thankfully the school I work now for is a great resource, and the teachers there are more than willing to help me out. Bonnie, a new teacher there, has kind of been assigned to me to help me take care of legal stuff and personal stuff. She helped me buy a blanket, electric kettle (aka my best friend), etc. The first week or so was pretty hard, but I'm finally getting used to things around here. I know what buses take me home, how to tell taxi drivers my address, my local grocery store, etc. so things are okay now.

I have decided to break things up into 3 categories: Work, Home, and Life.

Work.

So what exactly am I doing here in China? Why, learning Chinese of course! (more on that in the Life section) Officially I am a "teaching expert," or so my paperwork says anyway. Essentially I work in a private English language school. Chinese teachers teach students twice a week for 1.5-2 hours each class(depending on age). Students are anywhere from 3 to 13ish years old. I spend 30 or 40 minutes once a week with each class, reviewing material they've gone over, in some cases teaching students new words. Not too tough a job, it's kinda fun. I get to play games with the younger students, and I'm impressed with how much English some of the older students know. There are 3 schools owned by the company I work for in Dalian. Thankfully I only have a 20-30 minute commute to where I teach. The second school is about 45 minutes away by bus. This is the main school, where I did my training. My training consisted of watching the chinese teachers and the other foreign teacher (currently one of 3 friends I have here) teach. a lot. The third school I hear is over an hour away, and hopefully I'll never have to go there.

There are 4 teachers, 2 admin assistants, and one headmaster at the school where I teach(sanba, or 3 8 is the name we use for it). It's much smaller than the other one nearby, and so a little more relaxed. I go to lunch with the other teachers every day, and we all get along well. In my free time at work (which right now I have tons of) I study Chinese, and we have a nice balance of them helping me study Chinese and me helping them better their English.

Home.

Pictures are to come when I get things all in order, but I feel my home is interesting (different) enough to deserve its own section. Where to begin. I live on the 5th floor of the building. At night I have to use a flashlight to find my way up the last 2 flights of stairs. One of these days I will remember to buy replacement light bulbs (easier than trying to bug my landlord about it). My apartment is pretty spacious, big bedroom, small living room, small kitchen with dining area (basically no counter space), and a bathroom. For just me, plenty of room. I have a gas stove that I have yet to figure out how to work. Either that or I need a new gas tank. Sometimes the water in my sinks work, sometimes not. I guess it depends on who is using water in the building, which is kind of annoying. My fridge was a nightmare but is all clean now. There were cockroaches living in it, and it smelled like bad fish, but a little bleach, and a good long scrubbing took care of it! My bathroom/laundryroom is quite... interesting, here are some photos:

One view of my bathroom. That is my washing machine. Above it, my hot water heater that I plug in when I wake up in the morning, wait 45 minutes, take a mostly hot shower with water pressure worse than a garden hose, then unplug the heater.

yes, my shower is right over my toilet. I have a squeegee to clean the floor after I shower, otherwise, everything is wet all the time.

This is my washing machine; not automatic unfortuantely. I spent a good 15 minutes trying to figure out where the water line entered the machine. I asked someone at school, and it took 3 of them to figure out I didn't know it wasn't automatic. we all had a good laugh. here's instructions on how to use a not-automatic washing machine.

1. on left side, use hose to fill with water. add detergent and clothes.
2. set wash cycle
3. 20 minutes later, manually turn to drain.
4. fill again with water, set timer for rinse.
5. repeat 3.
6. move clothes from left to right side, set spin cycle
7. hang clothes to dry
8. 3 days later, clothes are dry, fold, wear, and repeat!

yup. We are so spoiled in America with our automatic washers and dryers! Also, the light switch for the bathroom is located by my front door, not in the bathroom.

Ah what's left. the living room isn't much to speak about, just a couch and TV with no cable (and no Wii! it didn't make the luggage cut).

I have lots of closet space in my bedroom. Oh my bed, goodness. it's really just a piece of foam with a mattress pad on top filled with straw. yee haw. I'm still getting used to that. I finally got curtains the other day!! They are so pretty, green white and purple stiped. I could not have made the purchase without help from one of my teacher-friends Susan!

Life.

This should be short, still working on having a life, haha. Seriously though, it's hard to venture out into the city with the wind chill in the teens. :-( Sooooo windy on the ocean!

I have started taking Chinese lessons which I'm really excited about. I have private classes twice a week. Between that and daily practice I am hoping for fast-improvement of my Chinese!

Right now the other foreign teacher Chris, and the teacher I replaced at Sanba, Scott, are my two good American friends. The expat community is pretty close here, so I am hoping to meet more people, I need to figure out how to battle this weather though! On Halloween there was a buffet at one of the expat-owned restaurants. I met several other Americans there, mostly teachers. I am by far the youngest (well, Chris is only 26 but likes to rag on me anyway), and everyone let's me know, but I'm okay with that. They've all kind of taken me under their wing, which is really nice.

I had my first visit to IKEA last week, where you can get Swedish meatballs (I had spaghetti), and coffee with free refills!! yum!! I'm all about living the Chinese way, but it's soooo nice having access to foreign goods.

Speaking of the Chinese way of things, at dinner the other night I got to try 3 things I have never had before: cow tongue, silk worms, and chicken cartilage. I wouldn't recommend any of them, but the cow tongue was the most appetizing of the three. the silk worms were a little spice and a lot of mush, the chicken cartilage just fatty and bony, and the tongue just a little chewy, calamari-ish.

One of the teachers at Sanba likes to eat chicken necks (grilled) as a snack. I am not that brave yet, maybe one of these days.

And yes Dog is on the menu at some restaurants, I think I'll save that for a special occasion...

A little long-winded tonight, eh? My two-week cold is nearing its end, so I finally have energy again. If you've made it all the way through this post, thank you, and tune in soon for more updates, I will try to write often enough to spare you from long posts like this one. Welcome to Dalian!! 大连欢迎你!!