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!!!!!

I Don't Know

Okay, I give up, Chinese internet just sucks. I'll just read a book, or sleep more, or find a new chess partner... Except most of my workday is spent on the computer...so somehow that just doesn't work. Anyways, the reason my blog posts have become so infrequent is that I can rarely connect to VPN and thus rarely post. Tonight, for example, my mom has to log in and post for me.

Giulia had her last day at work today and Mona's is Thursday. I hope the new intern coming soon will be nice and will speak English, though it might be nice to practise some Spanish as well, since he is from Spain. On the other hand, I already seem to put a bunch of Spanish words in my Chinese -- I guess my brain doesn't like new languages.

"I don't know" seems to be one of the most common phrases here. Staff say it jokingly just to be annoying or in a shrug it off kind of way. I was thinking about how confusing a phrase it actually is when learning a new language -- bear with me here since I was thinking this around 7:30 during breakfast after night duty the other day. Anyways, one of the cooks came up to me and started trying to ask about a guest  and whether they had checked out. I told her I didn't know but couldn't get across the fact that I didn't know whether they had checked out, rather than that I didn't know what she was saying. A confused-looking face seems to get me to about the same place.

I tried to walk home from work today but it started raining as soon as I began my walk, so the car picked me up :( When we got back Mona was going to the gym as she often does. I don't usually join her because I hate gyms, but I decided to go and dance tonight. It was great! I miss dance class and I am going to miss Mona and Giulia!