Food for Thought

What is it that people always say about smiling being a universal language? I have definitely discovered that to be true here, but there is something else that is perhaps even more so: Food.

 

"Nice to meet you, have a meat roll."

"Good morning, have a cookie."

"You look sad, have some fried rice."

"You look bored, have some chestunts."

It's a wonder Chinese people are mostly all still so tiny and no wonder that most of my first Chinese words involved food!

 

 

There is a chef who does most nights at the Brickyard and I have started calling her mom, because she always wants to feed me :) She told me the other day that if your stomach is full, you will neverbe homesick. I have to admit that a warm meal can do wonders for your mood -- unless it's tofu that is!

The Bean Sprout Controversy

Apparently I am going to die tomorrow...or perhaps tonight. I'm not too clear yet. My crime, you ask? Eating bean sprouts. Perhaps I should start at the beginning.

I bought lots of veggies on my days off, planning to make 3 or 4 stir-frys but only ended up making 2 because Tana and I went out for hot pot in Huairou instead. So, naturally I had some left-overs. Tomatoes make for good breakfasts and cucumbers are fine on their own, but I pulled out a bowl of raw bean sprouts tonight and Tana and Zhan Li Jie just stared at me. Now I know that most people don't eat them raw, but I didn't think it was that odd. On the other hand, Chinese people cook their lettuce so who knows...

I convinced Tana to try some and she actually liked them...until Johnson and Simon -- two of our chefs-- came in, that is. "You can't eat those," they said (in Chinese). I just nodded and kept eating. Finally they got the message across (through Zhan LiJie and the translation software on her phone) that they believe raw bean sprouts to be poisonous.

Being me, I googled it and kept eating. Apparently there is an advisory against eating them raw, but they are said to be about as dangerous as any other raw veggies. I later learned that Tana and her family have gotten horribly sick from eating raw green beans in the past. That's basically the only way I eat green beans...

I hope it's Chinese people who have an odd reaction and not Chinese bean sprouts...

Why Crocs are a Better Choice Than Flip-Flops

We had our staff outing on Wednesday, when we closed the restaurant down at 3 pm and all of the staff (70 people or so) got on a rented bus and headed into Beijing to a restaurant of the boss’ choosing. There were massive amounts of food and it was all you could drink, so I got to watch a large portion of the staff get drunk -- which doesn’t take much for most Chinese people. Before dinner there were some team building games and speeches and after dinner the restaurant put on a whole bunch of dance performances and had some of the audience get up on the stage. They even got Jim (the big boss) up for a hilarious belly dancing routine. At the end, everyone was dancing on the tables. I sat with Jim, Tang Liang and Julie -- because Jim said he wanted to speak English -- which was quite awkward -- but got to mingle later in the evening. I am currently the only person who doesn’t speak Mandarin, so there was a lot I didn’t quite get, but it was fun all the same. We made it back around 11:30 pm and I was off yesterday and today.

Li Dan invited me to her house yesterday so I got up shortly before 10 and went to meet her at the bus stop. We took the bus into Huairou and her mom came to get us with an electric bicycle truck. We sat in the back and she drove us to Li Dan’s uncle’s house, where we had lunch and then went fishing. We started off with nets in a very shallow part of the lake, catching super tiny fish. I wasn’t actually half bad at it -- until I fell that is. Now here comes the key part: I had been wearing runners when I arrived, so I had changed into a pair of Li Dan’s flip-flops for going into the water. When I tripped, I didn’t actually fall over, but I rammed my foot into a rock while trying to catch my balance and got a small stone stuck under my big toenail. It bent my nail back and there was a fair amount of blood. As you can probably imagine, it hurt...a lot.

We got out straight away and I washed my foot off before Li Dan took the stone out with a toothpick. We cleaned it as best we could and Li Dan thought I should go to the hospital. I wasn’t too keen on this and her cousin said she thought it didn’t look too serious, so we decided to wait for night time and see whether it was going to swell much. It didn’t, so it will probably be okay, but I do think it’s a bit infected.

We decided to play it safe after that and fish with a rod from the shore. I didn’t catch any fish that way, but we had a nice relaxing time. Li Dan taught me some more Chinese words and I helped her with her English. In the evening, we headed to her mother’s home, where we had a huge meal full of wonderful food. An old colleague from university came as well and he practised his English on me. After dinner, we went to Li Dan’s house and reviewed my new words before going to bed. She is a very good teacher.

We got up around 9 this morning because Li Dan had to work. She only gets one day off a week because the glass shop has shorter hours. She made us noodles for breakfast and then we headed back towards Mutianyu. I had a quiet day today, cleaned my toe with Polysporin when I got back and made some pasta for dinner.

Back at Work

So I know I haven’t exactly been posting regularly, but can you blame me? I’ve been pretty busy. I had a very nice last few days with my mom and Marie-Eve. We did more shopping, visited the 798 art district and even went to a cooking class.

798 was interesting. It was full of wacky statues and some modern art galleries. It was free to enter the area, but they charged for all the galleries so we mostly stuck to the gift shops and saw the art on postcards. It was quite hot so we didn’t spend all day there, but we had a nice time and it wasn’t quite as complicated to get to as I thought it might be.

The cooking class was amazing. It was at a place called The Hutong and we learned to make baozi (stuffed buns). We made 3 kinds of fillings (lotus root and bok choy, pork and brown sugar), learned about all the ingredients and the history and even got to take home leftovers and a recipe. The only sad part was that we overdosed on buns and thus decided not to go to our favourite bun place for lunch the next day.

I eventually caught my mom’s cold and got quite sick with a fever yesterday so I wasn’t up to doing much. We packed and went for lunch before taking a taxi to the bus station. My mom accompanied me in and then she and Marie-Eve left for the airport.

They tried to catch a plane yesterday, but the odds were not with them (since they were flying stand-by), so they are trying again today. Keep your fingers crossed for them!

I was back at work today and put the finishing touches on my Excel booking calculator. It is now completely usable and easy to update and comes with simple instructions as well as a document detailing its inner workings so somebody else can update/modify it someday.

On a different note, anyone reading this should a) like the Schoolhouse at Mutianyu Great Wall on Facebook and b) Enter our caption contest.

Beijing Adventures

Pam and Marie-Eve arrived around 7:30 pm on Monday and I met them at the Brickyard where they had some soup before checking in. I knew that that evening was going to be my only time off while they were there so I rushed to show them around Beigou village. They got to see inside 3 of our homes (Mumanyu, Stone Forest and Big Rock House) as well as get an idea of the village. I let them go to bed and headed back to my room to pack before heading to sleep myself.

I got up early to have a proper breakfast (the best meal we serve) with them before work and saw them periodically throughout the day. As it was raining they decided to wait to go up the wall, but had a nice walk between Mutianyu and Beigou on the way home. I worked night duty and thus got to spend lots more time with them at night even though I was constrained to the Brickyard. Once most of the guests went to bed we curled up on the comfy chairs and did some travel planning.

On Wednesday Marie-Eve, my mom and I headed to the Schoolhouse after I finished the morning shift of night duty, where they stayed until the early afternoon as it was still raining. They did make it up to the wall -- but not the toboggan. I finish work at 6 so we aimed to take a bus to Huairou and then another to Beijing. However, guests were late checking in and it was about 6:30 by the time I was done. The last bus to leave Huairou was at 7 so we were in a crazy rush. Alice was amazing and organized a car to take us to the bus and we just made it there on time. Ma Hombin came with us and we got stuck with our backpacks and suitcases in the seats because the driver didn't want to open the bottom of the bus. It was quite squished, but we eventually made it there. We checked into our hostel, had a so-so dinner in a hole in the wall and went to bed.

We got up quite early on Thursday since my mom and Marie-Eve were still fairly jet lagged and had a lovely free breakfast at the hostel before heading out to Tian'men Square. We decided that Marie-Eve didn't really need to see the Forbidden City, so we just showed her the front gate before heading to a nearby park from where she got an aerial view of it. We walked all around and even took a paddleboat on the large lake in the middle.

Then we headed off to Nanloguxiang, a trinket shopping street where we bought lots of scarves and some other cool stuff. Instead of heading back near the hostel for dinner, we took a cab to the red lantern street (I don't know what it's actually called, but it has a gazillion red lanterns) to try to go to a restaurant where my mom and I had our best meal last year. However, there was a 40 minute wait so we went next door instead and had a fairly decent, though perhaps not particularily memorable, meal.

On Friday we went to a couple of markets for more shopping and some more good hole in the wall food. We ended up at Quianmen -- a restored famous old Hutong (Alley) street -- at night since the  markets all close early and got even more shopping in before what was perhaps the best Beijing duck I have ever had.

Yesterday we decided to be a bit more cultural and went to the Capital Museum. We all decided it was a very poorly arranged museum, but Marie-Eve and my mom enjoyed a number of pieces they saw. It was supposed to show the history of Beijing but was sadly lacking in text and cohesion. On the other hand, I'm really not a museum person so I may be too quick to judge. We were all very hungry by the time we finished so we decided to try the reasonably priced buffet at the museum. It was by far the worst meal we have had. We didn't realise it was closing soon and assumed they would be refilling the mostly empty trays. The pasta tasted like it had ketchup on it and the Chinese food was very North American. We headed back to the hostel for a nap and bought some buns and pastries on the way, which were much tastier.

After the nap we headed out for an acrobatics show. It was perhaps not as good as some of the ones I have seen here, but the highlight was a motorcycle act. There was a giant metal ball and a man on a motorcycle rode in and all around -- including upside down -- in it. That might have been very impressive for someone who knew little about physics, but when they added a second motorcycle, nobody could deny the skill and fearlessness they must have had. We hardly dared watch when they added a 3rd, 4th and 5th rider, all crisscrossing paths and going at crazy speeds.

Apparently we were also part of the show because we had half the audience trying to talk to us -- especially my mom -- before the show started. They fed us chips and dried meat, played peek-a-boo and exchanged e-mails with my mom. One of them even asked me if all Canadians talk as much as my mom does. That made Marie-Eve and I laugh for a good long time. We had dinner with a guy who had come with us from our hostel and he is studying Chinese so he was explaining some of the characters to me. It was quite fun!

Today was a bit more of a lazy day. We switched hostels this morning and then headed to Yashow market to buy some fake LeSportSacs -- of which my mom bought many. We had a wonderful lunch of dumplings and buns at a hole in the wall place my mom and I discovered last year and headed back to the red lantern street for an early dinner at the same place we tried to go to the other night. They told us again that it would be a 40 minute wait, but we decided to stay. They were used to the large crowds so they had had bowls of sunflower seeds, water and even popsicles they were giving out for free. 40 minutes turned into 2 hours, but eventually we got in. We were very disappointed to find out that they no longer makeour favourite dish from last year, but ordered a number of others that mostly turned out to be far too spicy. It wasn't exactly what we had hoped for given how long we had had to wait, but we got some kebabs on the way home so it was all good.

It has been crazy hot and humid here, but somehow my mom seems to have a cold. We're planning on visiting the 798 art district tomorrow and then going for a cooking class on Tuesday.

40 Hours in Inner Mongolia (Part San)

When we got up on Thursday morning we had our last wonderfully tasty breakfast before heading out to do some shopping. Tana got some dried meat and beautiful Mongolian earrings before we both found the candy aisle. I managed to control myself and only bought 2 bags -- I had to get more than one kind to try and share around!

We headed back to have an early lunch of fennel and spinach soup and then Tana had a nap while I read for a little while. After she got up, her mom decided that the dumplings we had had for lunch and dinner weren’t good enough so she had to make some of her own for us for dinner. They were amazing! Did I mention that I have never had better meat?

We ate quickly before heading off to the bus station. Then came my next big surprise: A bus with beds! I thought those only existed in Harry Potter! It was actually quite comfortable and practical. We chatted for a good part of the way back and I really felt like I got to know Tana better, which was very nice. About two hours before we arrived in Huairou, the bus stopped outside a restaurant so that everyone could get out and have dinner. We weren’t particularly hungry so we just sat outside on the curb. Some girls came over to ask if they could take a picture and they were quite surprised when they found out Tana spoke Chinese... On the other hand, a guest at the restaurant told me my English was quite good the other day :p

We made it back to Beigou at around 12 (about 7.5 hours after we left) and headed straight to bed.

New recent words: North, South, East, West, keys, kitchen, fried bread, noodles

I have also started Teaching Tana French :)

40 Hours in Inner Mongolia (Part Èr)

Before I restart my tale, I just wanted to take a few minutes to explain how to comment on my blog, since many people seem to be having trouble and I love reading comments. Once you read a post you want to leave a message on, simply click on the number of comments at the bottom. It will say something like "1 comment." It will open up a box to leave your message. Type it in and then choose how you would like to sign it from the drop-down menu. The simplest is perhaps "Anonymous/Name" - just put your name - though you can also do it through a number of different accounts. Click "post" and you're done!

Now where was I? Oh ya, the midafternoon nap... When we got up we all piled into the car and headed out to a field, where we were to pick some famous Mongolian flowers. I got to see more of the grasslands and animals (horses, cows and sheep) as we drove. I mentioned to Tana that this reminded me much more of home than the rest of China -- sort of like Saskatchewan actually. About 30 seconds after we got out of the car we decided that our plan was not going to work because there were a gabazillion mosquitos (if you are not clear on the concept, this is a gazillion bazillion mosquitoes). We quickly ran back to the car, where I discovered that somehow I didn't have a single bite whereas everyone else had been eaten alive. Apparently this was not exactly true as some of mine appeared the next morning, but there were still only five or so even though I am usually the one whose blood they love!

 

 

 

 

We drove for a little while longer and ended up in a new field with a bit more wind and very few mosquitoes :) We got out to walk and climbed up a little hill. There was sand everywhere, so Tana and I both took off our shoes and ran as one might on a beach. Except it was better than a beach because there was a hill which lead to... you guessed it... running/sliding down it and getting covered in sand. Perhaps you had to be there but I think it might have been the highlight of my trip. I got lots of wonderful pictures which I will try to post tomorrow when my internet starts working better again, so do check back.

Tana's niece also had a great time and started crying when we had to leave. We drove back and had some leftover dumplings for dinner (as too many were bought for lunch). They were just as wonderful as before. Tana's husband is working on a paper he is trying to get published about plants, so he asked if I would be willing to proofread it for him. I happily did so and found it quite interesting. I sense my arts and science degree coming together -- Tana was surprised to hear I used to do this for friends and tutor English.

I'm going to leave my tale here for tonight -- at bedtime and pick it up again tomorrow (or whenever my internet lets me blog again).

On a more recent note, somebody please explain to me why tonight, in the middle of a thunderstorm, not one, not two, but three of our groups in our houses decided they wanted to have barbecues! Crazy people!

New recent words: Bus, Intern, pancake bread, hat, sofa, go home, house, mutton, toilet

40 Hours in Inner Mongolia (Part 1)

Inner Mongolia was so Amazing that I think I’m going to have to spread this out a bit over a few blog posts.

We finished work at 6 pm on Tuesday and headed back to the residence, where we met up with Tana’s husband, father and cousin, and then drove to Zheng Lan Qi, Tanna’s hometown in Inner Mongolia, with them. We had a nice time in the car but Tana got a bit car sick and you couldn’t see much of the beautiful scenery as it got dark fairly quickly. On the other hand, the parts that we did see as we were leaving Beijing were magnificent. There was some wild wall and beautiful mountains.

When we arrived, we were treated to a wonderful Mongolian meal of sweet breads, milk tea and mutton. The milk tea and mutton deserve a further explanation. Milk tea is a traditional Mongolian drink that is much like regular black tea with milk, but it also includes salt and sometimes butter. Families keep a large pot of it in a thermos and drink it throughout the day. It also becomes a kind of soup because you dunk all your food -- from mutton to dumplings to bread -- in it. As for the mutton, we had traditional meat that literally translates to “Hand grab meat.” Basically it’s a pile of bones with the best meat I have ever tasted on a plate in the middle of the table. Everyone takes a knife -- or teeth or hands -- and pulls it off to eat it. I have never eaten more or better meat in my life!

I went to bed around 12:30 but apparently Tana stayed up talking to her family late into the night. They gave me a comfortable bed on the couch and I slept very well. In the morning, I discovered that what we ate for our midnight snack was typical breakfast food and got to enjoy lots more. I also met the cutest and happiest 2 year old I have ever met -- Tana’s niece.

Around 9 o’clock we headed off into the grasslands for the Mongolian cultural festival that was going on. We watched singing, dancing, horseback riding and even some poor monkey being trained. Tana’s very generous mother bought be a beautiful traditional Mongolian necklace when I wasn’t looking. They made me try on a beautiful traditional Mongolian dress, but I’m pretty sure it must look better on Tana because I looked very silly.

We made our way back to Tana’s parents’ place and had a large variety of tasty dumplings for lunch (all with mutton of course) and then an early afternoon nap.

I am going to try to get some pictures on Facebook soon and continue my tale tomorrow.

Preview: mosquitoes, sand dunes, shopping and bus ride

Chinese Math

Once again I found myself with no idea what to blog about today, so I will follow my dad’s suggestion and write about math.

His first question: "If you took the entire population of China and divided it by the prime number that corresponds most closely to the population of Shanghai and then multiplied it by the log of the current Yuan/dollar exchange rate, what would the answer be?”

The answer:
C= Population of China=1.35 billion
P= closest prime to the population of Shanghai= 14,009,999
R= Current exchange rate= 6.28073
L=log of current exchange rate=1.83749

Answer=C*L/P=1,770,060.07 (Thanks to wolfram alpha for the data)

This lead to me having to explain what a log is, but anyways...

Other numbers of interest:

Hours I typically work in a week: 54
Price of my favourite stuffed buns in Beijing: Rmb 0.8
Number of new Chinese words I learned today: 3 (wind, door and tree)
Days I have been in China: 85
Pageviews on my blog so far (including the old blog): 619+475=1094
Days until I go to Inner Mongolia: 1
Number of e-mails I wrote today: 16
Current number of interns: 2 (William arrived today)
Number of digits in a Chinese phone number without area code: 8
Temperature today: 35 degrees with 51% humidity
Number of times I said “Sorry, do you speak English?” today: Too many to count...

Chinese numbers: I have never found a language with easier numbers than Chinese. As soon as you can count to 10, you can count to 100. 21 is literally 2*10, 1 (er shi yi) and all the numbers work like that.

yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi, ba, jiu, shi

Now you can do it too!

Chinese also has a hand gesture for every number...unfortunately they are not the same as the ASL ones (which I know).

As for the characters, I know the first 3...1 horizontal line, 2 horizontal lines and 3 horizontal lines. I guess it would be a little tedious to continue like that. Oh, and 10 is a cross...

4th Annual Community Service Day

It was community service day today which involved all the Schoolhouse staff spending 2 hours cleaning up garbage from the streets of Mutianyu as well as the restaurant’s profits going to local charities. I was a little worried we would find some snakes, but I guess we were lucky!

 

 

We actually had quite a fun time this morning and collected a huge amount of garbage. It’s nice to feel like we’re really making a difference! One of the families staying with us even came out to help and everyone got a free lunch at the end. Yes, I know, our lunch always free, but this one included 4 dishes and juice (sour plum and green bean -- which tastes oddly like the water one might have boiled beans in...)

I hosted with one of the new guys at lunch today. I have unfortunately yet to learn his name. It’s crazy how hard Chinese names are to remember! He was helping me with my Chinese and my new words of the day are: “French” (language), “French” (people), “France,” “hard” (as in hard to learn) and ‘thirsty.”

I had built up quite a long list of e-mails to answer over my days off so I spent most of the afternoon doing that and had a lovely nap when I got home.

Great News and a Resolution

I caught a ride into Beijing with Mona this morning and had to say goodbye, which was very sad. Once Wang Jing (the driver) let me off, I walked to the visa renewal office, which was a lot easier than last time since I actually knew where I was going. Here comes the great news: They told me it was impossible to get a 4 month visa, but they gave me a 6 month one! This not only saves time and possibly having to leave the country to renew it again but about $100!

I walked around the area for a little while searching for a post office -- which I found -- so I can now send my postcards! I then had lunch at Subway, which was weird because my chicken was cold. Otherwise, it was pretty much the same as in Canada

I made my way to the bus station and travelled back to Huairou without spending very long in Beijing because I wanted to catch one of the mini-buses to Beigou and they stop at 6. Once I got to Huairou I did some grocery shopping and then made my way to the mini-buses where they tried to charge me Rmb 80 instead of Rmb 5 ($15 vs. $1). I knew what the price should be so I didn’t go for that, but it’s still annoying.

I made eggplant, onion and zucchini for dinner, but it wasn’t as good as yesterday’s food.

I have decided that I need to work on my Chinese more so I am going to learn 2 new words/phrases every day. I doesn’t sound like much, but had I been doing that from the start, I would have 180 words already! Today’s are “I don’t understand,” “what are you saying?” and “work” -- yes I realize that’s 3 but I had to make up for only having one yesterday (“How much does it cost”).

Yummy Food

Green Pepper and Eggplant
1. Chop half an onion, a small green pepper and half a round eggplant into large pieces
2. Put it all in a wok with a small amount of oil
3. Heat for a couple of minutes and add salt
4. Add 1 cup of filtered water
5. Add a handful of raw peanuts
6. When water is mostly gone, add soy sauce
7. Enjoy!

Chinese Pasta Sauce
1. Chop a tomato and quarter of an onion into large pieces
2. Heat a with a small amount of oil in a wok
3. Add vegetables and heat
4. Add 1 cup of water and some soup noodles
5. When noodles are soft (1-2 minutes) add soya sauce and remove from heat
6. Add a handful of raw peanuts
7. Enjoy!

Giulia left early this morning so I got up early to say goodbye to her. I miss her already and keep wondering when she is coming back into the room. It’s going to be really weird after Mona leaves tomorrow as well.

I went back to bed and got up around 11, at which point I spent most of my day fighting to get my VPN connected. In the meantime I read some of a book and cooked lunch (see green pepper and eggplant above). It was awesomely tasty! I went to the local vegetable store to buy supplies and apparently I’m still not trusting enough. You have to go into a cellar behind the store to get your vegetables and when I came back with an eggplant, a green pepper, an onion and a tomato the owner started weighing them to calculate the price. I kept seeing numbers like 30 and 40 on the scale-cash register thing and her calculator and I was thinking “oh boy, they’re going to cheat me now that I’m not here with Tana.” And then she turned to me and said “5 quai” which is approximately $1. My faith in nice locals has been restored!
On the other hand, when I got home I discovered that the peanuts I bought weren’t the tasty ones Mona got last time, but raw ones (hence the use of them in my recipes).

I made the second above dish for dinner and it was one of the best things I have ever tasted! Perhaps it was a tribute to Giulia’s Italianness. We were going to go to Begalar (the local restaurant) for dinner, but we decided to just hang out here instead.

I’m going to pick up my new visa tomorrow (yay!) and am catching a ride into the city with Mona.

On an even more awesome note, I’m going to Inner Mongolia with Tana next week!!!!!

48 E-mails in 48 Hours

Today was pretty crazy. We had a lot more people than usual on the Schoolbus -- which I have to confirm on Friday mornings -- and nobody seemed sure of what they were doing. I finally figured it all out, but now I have to hope nobody cancels at the last minute. I don’t think I stopped running around all day and I had night duty for a large dinner party tonight. On the plus side, they had a BBQ, which meant nice leftovers. I wrote 48 e-mails in the last 2 days. Being the only intern on duty sucks!

I got 2 awesome pieces of mail that totally made my day (Thanks Lee-Ann and Grandma)! I really need to find myself a post office soon so I can return the favour!

My new Chinese words of the day are rain and tired. Hopefully tomorrow I will have to use neither.

Pasta Sauce

The office was pretty empty today since Mona and Giula both had their days off. I got to host and do phone duty, though I escaped night duty by switching for Sunday with Gina. It was less hot than it normally is because it was raining (again), but it was just as humid as ever.

We had potatoes and meat for lunch, but once I got my food I looked beside me and noticed the cashier (Zhang Xian Lin) wasn’t eating. I asked her why not and she said she couldn’t eat it without rice...I guess the stereotype is true...Maybe it would be a bit like us eating meat sauce without pasta--just food for thought (no pun intended :p)

I haven’t walked home from work in a while so I did that today and it felt great! I was walking along singing to my ipod when I ran into a boy with a broom sweeping the path. He walked in front of me for a good 5 minutes, looking back ever 30 seconds as though he had never seen anyone Caucasian before. I guess I’m still not quite used to it.

Kayaking to China

All my cooking was great yesterday but I decided to go to the fruit stand instead of the vegetable store today so my options were a bit more limited for lunch. I ended up with a tomato, garlic and noodle soup and some plums. Although Dragon, one of the chefs, looked at it with displeasure, it tasted pretty good.

Lee-Ann and I were talking tonight about her coming to visit. We decided that if she would walk/run to Vancouver, I would buy her a Kayak to come here. Googlemaps says it should take a little over 5 months -- if she doesn't get lost -- so I may have to extend my trip, but it would totally be worth it. I wonder if she would need a visa...Anyone else want to join? I’ll even take you out for dinner when you get here!

Day off

I decided not to go into Beijing on my days off this week (today and tomorrow) because it is way too hot here and thus would be even hotter in Beijing. I slept in this morning and headed to the local store to buy some vegetables with Tana when I got up. We cooked lunch together (a pepper and onion dish made by me and eggs and tomatoes made by Tana) and ate that and some flatbread we ordered from the local restaurant.

After lunch I enjoyed relaxing, working on my Chinese and watching ted talks in my wonderfully air conditioned room. Eventually it was time for dinner and Tana and I cooked together again (cauliflower and pork made by her and eggplant and zucchini by me). She’s a much better cook. After dinner we played a couple of games of chess and both lost in about 5 minutes each to Simon.

I’m looking forward to relaxing again tomorrow and hopefully the internet will continue to work.

On a different note, Tana and I are talking about maybe going to Inner Mongolia -- where she is from -- together at some point which would be seriously awesome!

Gortex Sneakers

I felt like I was back at camp today. It rained...all day...I don’t think I have ever been so happy to have Gortex sneakers as when Mona complained that it felt like she was walking on watermelon--her flats weren’t really meant for wading through puddles. I actually told some people about the fireplace in their house and had them nod approvingly instead of looking at me like I am crazy as they typically do. Apparently it’s the rainy season :(

Needless to say, today wasn’t particularly busy at the Schoolhouse. On the other hand, some VIP group came by for lunch and complained that there was a large puddle outside the doorway. So, Mona and I spent quite a while trying to sweep it away (which didn’t work since the sidewalk is slanted and it was still pouring) and eventually filling dustpans with the water and pouring it elsewhere. We must have looked pretty funny!

I ordered today’s special (as described in yesterday’s post) for lunch and the chicken was even better with the plum sauce! However, this meant that I got caught without dinner tonight because I was checking people in during the staff meal. By the time I got back there was no food left anywhere. So, I cooked some more eggplant, mushrooms and noodles. Tana, who didn’t have dinner either, came and joined me and we shared my food and a patty melt that she ordered from the Brickyard as well as some amazing grapefruit tea. Some of the kitchen staff asked to borrow my chess set so Tana and I watched them play five games or so. They are so fast! Maybe someday I can play against one of them...

On a different note, the one-sided conversation I got to listen to Mona having on the phone had me in stitches today, so I thought I might share it:
- Schoolhouse, hello
- You’d like to confirm your reservation for 8 people?
- Hum...I don’t see you on our calendar. What was your name again?
- Oh well...we aren’t too busy tomorrow, I can put you down. What time would you like it for?
- You’d like the table near what?
- The bedroom?
- Oh, you wanted a house!

Apparently it’s a bit confusing that our phone number for the restaurant and lodging is the same...

Happy Dragon Boat Festival!

It was insanely humid today and so even though it wasn’t that hot, it felt gross outside. It was the Dragon Boat Festival today (a big holiday in China apparently) and even though the restaurant itself didn’t do much for it, we spent an inordinate amount of time perfecting the signs we had up on blackboards to make sure they sounded patriotic enough.

It was a busy day for hosting and there were a great number of French groups that came by. I think that they, or Germans, must be the most highly represented nationality to visit us. I always get excited because I can speak French with them, but they rarely seem to appreciate it--must have something to do with being a Quebecer.

Sticky rice wrapped in bamboo leaves (Zongzi) is a Chinese tradition on the Dragon Boat Festival, so I had one of those along with dinner. The chefs also had Giulia and me testing out tomorrow’s special--really nice chicken with plum sauce. I’m not sure I have ever tasted better plums!

On the way back home, we stopped off for a few minutes to see the old Mayor in his home in order to prepare Sean for a home visit he will have to interpret soon and another (nearly empty) residence I never knew we had that is nowhere near as nice as the one I’m in.

Giulia invited me out to the local restaurant with Jake, Alex, Gina, Emily and a friend of Emily’s and although I had already eaten dinner, I went and drank tea with them. When I came back, I went to see Mona who was on night duty to ask her if she wanted to play chess. She declined so instead I taught Tana. She’s really good! It’s exciting to have a new playing partner!

Stranger Danger

Warning: If you are an overprotective parent or other responsible adult, you may not wish to read this post.

I need to renew my visa soon, so today’s plan involved getting a passport sized picture for the paperwork. This would have been a lot simpler had I gone into Beijing for my days off, but they involved more sleep than anything else, so that didn’t happen. Instead, I had to make my way into Huairou.

This is a lot easier said than done, so I went and bothered Tana (who is amazingly helpful and patient) last night and we came up with a plan for me that involved many phrases written down on a map and a great deal of hoping for helpful strangers. I set out around noon and walked to the nearest bus stop (about 20 minutes away) to catch the 916 to Huairou. A bus pulled up just as I was arriving. It had no number on it, but I said Huairou to the driver and he nodded so I got on. Most of the buses in China have the stop names on a scrolling screen at the top, but the screen on this bus was blank. Instead there was a woman announcing the stops in Chinese--people replacing machines seems to be oddly common here.

I managed to get off at the right stop, but had no idea where to find a store that would take ID photos. Everyone said there would be one around though, so I just started walking and showed my paper with what I wanted written in characters to anyone who would look. They pointed me around many corners and in lots of circles, but I eventually found a store in an alley with picture frames in the window. There was a girl sleeping inside so I woke her up and she nodded at my paper. After taking my picture, she photoshopped it for a few minutes -- only in China once again -- and then printed 4 copies out for me (so I won’t have to go back when I need to get the visa renewed again).

Tana had explained to me that getting the bus back would be a lot more complicated but that there were some minibuses near a mall that would take me to the bus stop. As I had no idea where this mall was, and she had told me it was about a 40 minute walk away, I showed the paper once again to the girl who shook her head and then motioned she would call someone. I assumed she was going to call and ask for directions, but 5 minutes or so later a friend of hers pulled up and offered to drive me there for Rmb 7. Normally I wouldn’t get into a car with a stranger but I have been getting into Black (unofficial) taxis from Huairou so I decided I might as well. He drove me to near the mall, but when I got off I still didn’t know how to get to these mini-buses.

I walked around looking for the landmark Tana had given me (a KFC across from a McDonalds) but couldn’t seem to find it. I did on the other hand find an awesome grocery store! Eventually after showing my paper to many more people I found the mini-buses -- more stranger’s cars to get into and took a seat. We waited for it to fill up and the driver drove me to the bus stop I originally took the bus from this morning. A guy from the Schoolhouse also got on so he was able to help me tell the driver where I wanted to get off :)

I made it home and then collapsed for a nap before making eggplant, mushrooms and udon noodles for dinner. It was my first time cooking eggplant and although I could have done it for a little bit longer, I think it was a successful experiment.

I spent my evening watching ted talks and talking to my friend Lee-Ann.

On another exciting note, for those of you who knew that one of my math profs and I had submitted a paper to a conference, it got accepted!!!!!