Category: China

No joke people. How did we find this out? Mike was up at school the first week and Nancy said, “The plants in your apartment are rented. Could you please ask your wife to water them?” Mike said, “Oh, I watered them last night.” She looked surprised and said, “Oh, you did. Okay.” Ah the gender differences of China. So you know I was laughing when I found out they were rented. No towels, no toilet paper, but dang it people – we have plants!! So at least the apartment had some happy plants to make us feel welcome.

The picture above is from when the cute girl was having fun playing with Daddy tonight. She was playing what is the favorite game of all toddlers at some point…she hides behind you or some other object and you say, “Where’s Nadia?” and out she pops like it’s a big surprise where she was hiding.

While Mike was working this afternoon Nadia and I went to the grocery store. We dropped the stuff off at the apartment and headed back out to go exploring. I wanted to do a reconnaissance trip to the other bakery to see if they offered as good or better items than the place closer to us. Next door to the bakery is a little shopping area that is made up of a bunch of little stalls selling clothes, shoes and undergarments. Nadia and I strolled through the whole place causing a commotion. One woman came up and asked if she was Chinese and I was able to tell her IN MANDRIAN, “Yes, but now she is American.” The lady said, “Hen Hao, Hen Hao.” or That’s good. There was the cutest little jammie place in there, but the large looked like a petite small. I knew they wouldn’t fit when the guy didn’t even TRY to get me to come into his stall to convince me to buy some – even though I was looking at his wares very closely. I told Mike when we got back that going through that little place made me feel like I was the size of a whale. Which is insane because I am not overweight or something. It’s a good thing I don’t worry about stuff like that or living here would give me a complex. The funniest thing is that they had a place with fancy little Victoria Secret type bras in all colors, but they all looked the size of a middle school girls training bra!

Back to the bakery- it’s called Tous Les Jours and even though the name is French, I read yesterday it’s a Korean based company. The place was swank! Lots of sitting areas for coffee and snacks, flat panel TV’s playing music videos, and pastries galore. They also offer sandwiches, cappucinos, smoothies and get this – a Bacardi Breezer (like a wine cooler) for 138 yuan. That’s almost $20 US! I can’t believe they ever sell any at those prices. There were a lot of students and white people hanging out in there. I got us some lunch and headed back to the apartment.

On another woman’s blog I read that they had a thing called a Totoro bun. It was delicious! Cream filled yumminess! The main reason I had to buy one was that Mike and I adore the movie – My Neighbor Totoro. It is so, so, so cute!! So here’s a photo of the DVD cover and of the little guy I bought today. We have shown this movie to several people who have stayed with us in the last year and they loved it too. So I end today’s post recommending that you rent this movie. It’s Japanese and if you don’t go for sub-titles there is a version out now with Dakota Fanning and her sister doing the voices, but I haven’t seen that one, so I can’t comment.

P.S. They also had Corn-bread. Don’t cringe you Southerner’s, it was tasty too.

Today Kiki came to tutor and the best thing she said was, “Don’t be afraid of Chinese, you are doing well.” She also said that my pronunciation has come a long way since last week. I find that the hardest thing for me is the grammar. I can remember most of the words and what they mean, but putting them in the right order just throws me for a loop. And don’t get me started on the measure words. Apparently, pretty much every noun has a little “measure word” that has to go with it. I am not even sure I understand how to use them, much less all the different ones.

Tonight was the “social night” for the school. Our social evening was to go out and have the famous Beijing Roast Duck. None of the other students came, so it was just us and Nancy and Crystal who work at the school. We went to a place that is close to our apartment called Dong Lai Shun and it was very good. For starters we had sugar snap peas stir fried in garlic, kung pao chicken, tempura shrimp and fried corn (also in the tempura batter). We had that while the duck roasted since it takes about a half hour after you order. Then the guy came with the duck and carved it table side and we got some photos. The duck is served with these little pancakes (tortillas for you Texans), sliced cucumber, sliced scallions and a hoison sauce. So you roll them up and enjoy! I thought all of the food was wonderful and I was very happy to try the dish that the city is known for. And we brought the left overs home for our lunch tomorrow. YUM!

Nancy told us that the most famous restaurant in town for roast duck charges 3000 yuan for the duck!! That translates to $420 US….just for the duck!! She said that the only time she ever went there was during the SARS incident because they offered it for half price. And she said that the place was empty and in the end it tasted just like the ducks she had at other places. We were talking with her about how cheap it was to eat out and she said that prices have really gone up in the last year. Her example was that the kung pao chicken was 12 yuan last year when she brought some students. Tonight it was 18 yuan, so 50% mark up in less than a year. She told us that there was a very important meeting going on in Beijing this whole week that involved issues for the whole country and asked us if we were aware of it. She said that one of the things they were going to talk about was the rising food costs and how the government could control the costs to help the people. I told her that Kiki told me about it one day when she came to tutor.

And here is the traffic out our window before we left for dinner.