Ooh China - A few odds and ends

Brandon and I met another foreign teacher who took us out to show us the town (thank god for her! She knows a place where you can easy bake your own cake!!). Here are a few Ooh China moments I ran into while gallivanting around town.

Our first stop was good old Dunkin Donuts to grab a nice iced coffee (ice is a rare commodity here: it’s either unavailable or it could be full of bacteria and whatnot so you don’t want to use it). I was checking out some donuts and this is what I found:  Pork Floss.

 Ooh China! First off, why do you put pork on your donuts? And two, what the heck is pork floss?! Do I even want to know?

Our next stop was good old Carrefour, which is the French version of Walmart. It looked ultra promising and I think I’ll be able to find a few “luxuries” there when I’m in need of some good ol’ USA homey feelings. Anyways, I came upon this aisle:

Really China? You need a whole aisle for soy sauce?! I didn’t know you had 298,753 different choices. I guess when you use something a million times a day, you want to have “variety”. Whatever floats your boat! (It also kind of goes with the Chinese saying of 我是出来打酱油的, which literally means "just looking for soy sauce" aka" mind your own business")

A few aisles over, I discovered this:

All I have to say about that is that I’ve never seen so many random flavors of oreos ever in my life. Chinese like choices. Lots of them.

And last but not least, we took a stroll through the night market and I came upon this sight:

Nothing really shocking since the Chinese don’t have any rules of the road. But still. First off, this car appears to be facing the wrong way (as you can tell by the fact the sign is not facing the driver’s seat) on the street, and two it’s illegally parked (along with another 10 cars on the same road). Could someone tell me why bother with these signs if no one follows them and if the police don’t enforce them? 

Oooh China, not even during  a little stroll through our city do you cease to amaze me. Will I still be able to find as many Ooh China moments towards the end of the year as I do at the beginning? Challenge accepted!

Ooh China: I have to pay for what?

Upon entering a restaurant I see a plastic wrapped set of dishes: a small plate, a spoon, a small soup bowl, a tea cup and a small water glass. On the plastic is says 1¥. Ummm sooooo I have to pay for my dishes!? Ooh China!

Ooh China: a line is the quickest point from one place to another

Well not in China. There is no such concept of a line, which few exceptions, here. A bus shows up and people will rush and push on to it like the world will end if they don’t get on the bus now. Going through security at the train station putting items on the conveyor belt to be x-rayed, they will put their stuff on top or in front of yours even if you got there first. And they will be just as eager to grab their stuff before you as if you are going to steal it. Getting on the train is also a huge massive group of pushing and shoving people, even though we have assigned seats. My favorite was getting on the airplane after a shuttle bus dropped us off at the plane. There was only one ramp up to the plane so the attendant could check your tickets again, and everyone was running and pushing for their lives to get up into the plane. Once again, we had assigned seats.

One exception seems to be long lines. For some reason, people line up for that. I don’t really see any logic to why and when they will queue up. I will let you know when I figure it out. Ooh China.

How to procure a couch in China

As I sit on my lovely, albeit not as soft as desired, newly procured couch, I recall the occurrences of my last two days.

Said couch

One would normally think that buying a couch would be relatively simple. I mean if you wanted a lightly used cheap one, you could look on craigslist or drive around town in your car scavengering the alleys. Or if you wanted a new one you could choose one of the many furniture stores around such as Value Shitty Furniture, uummm I mean Value City Furniture (hehe) or go higher end with Luxury Furniture and Lighting (Really ppl? Selling luxury furniture and that's the best name you can come up with?!). You're couch shopping experience would consist of going to the store, telling the sales person what you want, giving your address and then coughing up an arm and a leg or just a few bucks, depends on which store you went to of course, and then sitting around Indian style on your floor waiting for the thing to be delivered. And that would be it. A child could do it!

Can you spot our couch?

However, my experience was slightly different. The day started with my mother and I heading out to the whole sale fabric store. Seems like a logical start to my couch story, right? Well the fabric store did not have our desired fabric, lace, so we just for kicks walked up this escalator that hasn't been used for years to the second story, still holding on to our hopes for Chinese lace. Well, no dice on the lace, however, we did stumble upon a whole room full of furniture! Do the Chinese mean to hide such goods from us Laowais or is this really where a furniture store should be located according their ultra logical thinking?

Either way, after making a quick loop around, we found our victim; the loudest, smallest couch in the entire room that wasn't a ridiculous price. And now the fun begins. We got the price relatively easily but the delivery aspect was going to take a bit longer.

Since arriving in China, I have taken to carrying around a little red notebook in my purse to write down menu items that we like to eat in Hansi, pinyin and our own little description. So I take out my little book and start very kindergarden-ly drawing a picture of a couch and a house and then an arrow connecting the two with a question mark (can anyone guess what I'm asking with my drawing!!??). The Chinese lady who owned the couch was not having it or even attempting to understand me. Frustrated, we were about to walk away, when I remembered I have a very useful and awesome friend who speaks both English and Chinese, AND is only a phone call away (Alexix I love you!). Well I don't want to bore you but let me tell you what went down in these phone calls (there were three of them!). I would call Alexis and tell her my situation, she would them tell her coworker (who is a Chinese native), who would them talk to the shop lady. After that, the coworker would tell Alexis and Alexis would tell me. It's was a real life version of telephone! Well after three such phone calls we went from having to go down stairs and find our own guy to deliver the couch, to having the shop lady deliver the couch to us for free by the next day before10:30am. I was not part of the conversation so I have no idea how this change came to be, but I was too happy to care! I had just gotten a couch and somehow managed to get free delivery! This is what Charlie Sheen would call "winning". :)

Priceless

So the next day, at 10:30 on the button, my phone rings and I pick up my phone to hear the shop lady (I recognized her voice) screaming, well that's what it sounded like, at me in Chinese (doesn't she know by now I don't speak Chinese?). After saying yes and thank you over and over to her in Chinese, I just hung up the phone. I mean I obviously have no idea what she is saying! Brandon, Mom, and I ran down stairs and are looking around for a delivery truck to no avail. We're standing there looking and looking and then all of a sudden my Mom points to the left... And there is a little old lady with the biggest grin on her face on her adult tricycle pulling our couch. *Dramatic Pause* The Chinese deliver furniture on tricycles! Priceless moment. Oh, I also want to point out that the store was 10km away! That's not particularly a short distance via tricycle. Additionally, I am sad to report I did not have my camera on me since I had been distracted by the Chinese yelling on the phone, but I found this picture instead. It's pretty representative of what went on with our little old lady and her tricycle.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I got a couch in China.


Summary for those who don't want to read the whole post:
1. Go somewhere where no one in their right mind would expect to find a couch
2. Don't bother drawing pictures, they can't read those here
3. Always have a bilingual friend at your finger tips
4. If they say they don't deliver, just keep asking the same question in as many different ways as you can come up with until you get what you want (free delivery duh!)
5. Pay for your couch and go home to wait for it
6. Go pick up your couch from the old lady delivering your couch via tricycle.

Ooh China: Pants or chaps?

One of the first things you will notice is the excessive amount of babies’ bottoms you will see in China. Apparently, babies do not wear diapers her which is fine. However, all children are either completely bottomless (but wearing a shirt…) or they are wearing what can only be described as chaps. There are multiple versions of these chaps but it’s pretty much the same concept. The ones I find most funny are the baby jeans. They look like normal baby jeans meant for a kid who just recently got the hang of walking (so under/around 2 years old). Well imagine that the seam going from the crotch to the top of the butt was simply not sewn together. Instead there is a giant hole and the kid is not wearing anything underneath. I have not seen these in action yet, and I’m not sure if I want to, but I hear that the kids simply squat and go wherever they are. I have witnessed this exact scene with a five year old girl in Shanghai. We were getting bubble teas when I turn around, see this girl walk up to a tree, drop her pants, pee, pull up her pants and walk away. I was pretty much speechless.

At other times you will see a kid simply wearing an apron which covers the front, but leaves the back bare... Ooh China.

I obviously don't have the heart to take a picture of this, so I stole one from google so you get the idea.

Ooh China: Yea I can totally read that...

Yesterday we finally met a fellow foreign teacher who works at our school! It was a big day! He took us into town, which take a flipping hour and two bus transfers, since we were wanting western food and a trip to Walmart. On our way to Walmart, he pointed out one of the books stores that sells book in English. So glad he pointed it out to us since we could obviously tell ourselves...

Also, the English section was very well labeled (insert huge dose of sarcasm). Ooh China, thanks for your help with finding what I was looking for. :)

O and here are some of the book choices they offer. See one that seems out of place?

Answer: Lonely Planet Canada

Ooh China: the beginning

On an episode of How I Met Your Mother, Ted starts dating a girl (Katy Perry!) whose name no one can remember. Due to her silly, random, nonsensical stories that don’t really go anywhere and odd things she did, they decided to name her Honey which went perfectly with the well known phrase “ooooh honeeeey” that often followed every one of her many stories. As such, I am starting a group of posts called “Ooh China” in honor of Honey and in honor of the many different things the Chinese people like to do.

Starting with the first: Rules of the Road. Or lack thereof I should say. After three weeks of observing the multitudes of buses, motos, bikes, and other motor vehicles, I have decided that the rules of the road are actually more suggestions than anything else. For example, while driving home in a taxi late one night, we were driving next to a giant cement truck. At every red light, our taxi driver would dutifully stop and wait for the green (he was probably the best taxi driver we’ve had here) light. This cement truck, however, would just blast through the red light without even tapping the breaks. I saw this happen at three stop lights in a row since we kept passing it in between lights. Additionally, apparently, there is no need to stop and look while trying to make a right hand turn onto a street. Even though the pedestrians have the right of way, buses, cars, motos will just power through and it’s up to you, the pedestrian, to look out for them and not get hit. I must say a bus came pretty close to plowing me into a paper doll at one point. Staying in your lanes is also more of an option than a requirement. Many a times I have seen a car attempt to switch lanes and then get bored or something and just stop mid switch and drive down the highway in the middle of two lanes as if it’s no big deal. O and the shoulder on the highway is also a legit lane if you want it to be. And if you feel the need to have a party while on the highway, it’s not unusual to just pull over and have a pow-wow with you and thirty closest friends right there on the highway with all the speeding cars passing you by.

O and I’ve seen a driver here drive their automatic in 2^nd gear (instead of D for drive) for the entire ride. Ooh China.

Ode to Peanut Butter

I was sitting on my five hours high speed train listening to some Elton John, when a lovely thought floated into my head: peanut butter.  I don’t know where it came from or who (what country) can take credit for inventing it, but I know that the US has it and that we’re not particularly secretive about it. So as I sat on my train that was flying at about 197km/hr, I came to wonder how such a large portion of the world, including China, has not yet discovered its amazingness. If you think about it, our dear good old peanutbutter is good on veggies and fruits; it’s good on bread and on fingers (don’t deny it, you’ve done it); it’s good off a spoon; it’s good for breakfast and lunch (who didn’t eat a pb&j sandwich 4/5 days a week in junior high?) and of course dinner: who doesn’t spoil themselves with a peanut butter brownie sundae or peanut butter m&ms every once in a while?

Now I’m not calling the US superior to any country out there, but seriously?! How is everyone else on the planet so not into peanut butter? I honestly don’t think I’ll ever grasp that concept.

Anyways, for all of you in the US: enjoy your peanut butter lest it be taken away from you some day. And as for us in the land of no peanut butter, aka China; I hope we have friends who love us enough to perhaps share a bit via snail mail :D

Note: as of writing this post, I have since discovered peanut butter at Walmart! Talk about a twofer!

Melting in Hangzhou

 Tons and tons of islands!

Ummmm.... there's a fish in the bathroom sink..... awkward.

There are some more scenic pictures of Hangzhou on my photoblog if you want to see them. My photoblog

Our modest accommodations - Hangzhou

Thank you so much, Jim for getting us this fabulous room! We really appreciate it! :)

It's also the last soft bed I've slept in since.

Rated R - for nudity

Sorry for the delay in this post, as I was traveling before and then when I got home to ZZ, I didn’t have internet. I know I’ve kept you in suspense long enough! Hahah.

Anyways, while in Shanghai with Mom, Jim, Brandon and I decided to go to a Chinese Spa. Sounds fabulous, doesn’t it! Well it was great, but it was different. Here’s how our experience went down. We arrived and they took our shoes and gave us rubber sandals. This shoe swap was for many reasons, but I think the main one being so you can’t leave without paying. We were also given wrist bands with a number on it. At that point, we were split up and went into our designated locker rooms (if you want Brandon’s version of what happened and how he liked hanging out with Jim, just ask him) In the locker rooms you basically lock up all of your things and strip. Haha no shyness here. Then you walk into the shower area where you rinse off. Then you proceed to the scrub area. Here you have a few choices of treatments, but I went and stuck with the most basic one: a body scrub with a milk bath and a cucumber mask. I was told to lay down on my back on one of maybe six tables in the room (still very much naked at this point) and the lady attendant haphazardly threw a towel on me in the general direction of what I would have wanted covered. She then covered my face in cucumber mush (it felt nice). Then came the best part. She basically started scrubbing my entire body with this mitt that felt kind of like a soft velcro material. She scrubbed every inch of my body and then I flipped over and she did the same to my back. Side bar, you know when you get sunburnt and peel. The skin comes off in flakes or if you rub it, it comes off in kind of a dark skin roll? Well, as I was getting off the table after being scrubbed, the entire table I was laying on was covered in that type of skin roll. Hahah noooo I’m not dirty but she basically scrubbed tons of layers off of my skin! I have to say my skin was baby smooth for days! It felt amazing!

Anyways, that’s the most exciting part of the shower room part. After that you just go hang out in the steam room or sauna or one of the six hot pools. Then you shower and go back to the locker room to change and dry your hair etc. Well, upon entering the locker room again, we went into the towel room where they dried us off as we just stand there. Hahah it was interesting. I kinda felt like a baby.  And of course we were handed disposable panties and a Hawaiian, floral, bright and obnoxious miu miu (aka pajamas) and slippers. After getting dressed (I have to mention that while I was blow drying my hair, I saw a Chinese lady blow dry… ummm her downstairs if you will :o), we went upstairs to meet the boys who had just gone through a similar experience and were dressed in equally attractive Hawaiian getups. We had dinner and then proceeded upstairs again for the spa portion of the experience. Upstairs there was a whole room full of loungey spa chairs where we sat down and ordered spa treatments off a menu. Mine was a full body Chinese massage so I got led into a private room. The guy I got was definitely rough and he had me doing yoga and all sorts of funny things I can’t really describe in a post. But it was still a very typical massage. My mom got a food massage and a manicure. The two boys just took a nap.

One thing I want to point out about this place is that it is open approximately 21 or 22 hours a day. They close at some random hour (lunch time I think) for a few hours and that’s it. So basically if you ever have a long layover and don’t want to get a hotel, you can just show up at a spa and get spa treatments for hours on end. They do not push you out or yell at you for sleeping (as the boys did). You can order dinner there and just hang out and relax. They have pool table and arcade games and every spa chair has a tv. It’s literally heaven! I think we stayed about 3 or 4 hours. I don’t remember since it’s really easy to lose track of time. And you also don’t need money on you at all (the beautiful miu mius don’t really have pockets anyways) since they charge everything to the number on your wrist. You just pay as you leave and pick up your shoes. How’s that for a spa experience!

Fancy fruit

Girl Talk

I experienced today what can only be described as a girl’s heaven and I can already tell you that I will not be able to explain the awesomeness that went down. We went to this no name mall somewhere in Beijing (don’t worry, I have a business card so I can return again!). Apparently, JinLan told me it has the best prices in all of China! It’s an unimpressive building that’s about five stories high and nothing special marking it. Inside, it’s not like a mall in the US where there is tons of open space for strolling and people watching. Instead, each floor is categorized according to item (jewelry, purses, clothes, etc) and it’s one seller after another packed right on top of each other. It’s kinda like souk in Morocco but cleaner and more organized and much much better quality things!

I wish I would have taken more pictures but it was such a chaotic mess inside that I totally forgot. In this building they have everything you could possibly imagine! They have shoes (I saw Uggs that I will be buying next time I go here!), and purses like you wouldn’t imagine (got me a real nice (fake) leather Chloe bag), clothes (beautifully loooong flowy colorful maxis and so much other stuff that my eyes couldn’t absorb it all), perfumes, electronics, watches, luggage, jewelry (I got a beautiful crystal ring!) and much much more. Yes, I realize that is a list of everything a normal mall sells, but it was in such a compact space, and the prices were so obscenely low. It was such a chaotic mess with all the sales people talking to you and pressuring you, all at the same time. Everywhere I looked there was more to see and more people asking you to buy their stuff (they really push their Louis Vuitton) . It felt like Andi always says: a birthday party where 100 of your friends show up so that you’re floating around trying to say hi to everyone and spend time with everyone but there are so many of them and only one of you and the moment you say hi to one person, another one shows up. My senses were on over load and I can’t believe I only bought as much as I did. That place is dangerous but so omg amazing! Shopping heaven! And for the record, everyone that said I won’t find clothes and shoes, was totally wrong. I found more than enough of anything and everything I would ever need! I know I did a bad job of explaining the mall but it was just wow! I wish everyone could experience it! Such a rush really!

That is all I have to say about that. I promise I will take more pictures of the mall next time I go, but I still don’t even think that would do it justice. It’s more of an experience than anything else. I’m still 
riding the high of the chaos!


Here is a pic of some other market but its very similar!

Prepare for some ramblings

We've been in China for about 4 days now and it's just been go go go the whole time. After arriving in Zhengzhou (to be referred to as ZZ from now on) late night and getting made fun of for having so much luggage, we were showed to our new home for the next year. It is an apartment complex across the street from our school. Between jet lag, tireness, shock of a new place, and a bunch of other things working against me, the apartment wasn't exactly what I was expecting. First impression was not good, but I think that we will make it work and make it much homier later. It just needs a few basics. I will go into more detail and provide pics about the apartment later.

The next day we had three Chinese ladies drives us around town kind of unsuccessfully. Long story short, I think we drove around for a total of three hours and got one thing accomplished: going to the police station to register. Since that was something that had to be done within 24 hours of arrival, I guess it's a good thing we got that done at least. We'll have tons more administrative things to do when we get back.

In the am on the 4th we took the high speed 5 hour train to Beijing. It was actually a very good experience. We had leg room galor and it was a relatively painless ride. Next time we'll know to bring food. Also, the train is on time to the T. I think we even left a minute early. I know I'll be taking that train again many times in the future so I'm glad is a painless experience.

After getting off of the train we were finally in Beijing! I honestly cannot explain to you the sheer size of the buildings around you. If you think you've ever felt small, well try imagining feeling even smaller than that. The train station itself was massive. Even using the word massive doesn't seem to do it justice. I was simply HUGE!

Since my mom was already in Bejing, we went straight to the tea shop with all of our stuff. We show up in the middle of a puppet show and mid lunch. It was like hit the ground running here in Beijing. My traveling group for the next few days are going to be : Me (behind the camera), Brandon, Jim, Mom (Julie), JinLan, and Mr. Chen. Mr. Chen has been the best host ever! He orders every meal for us and hires cars for us and has planned our entire time in Beijing to the T!

So far I have eaten: dumplings, peking pork wrapped in a sort of pancake, peking duck, all sorts of duck parts (heart, liver, feet, soup), jelly fish salad and much more. I passed on the duck brain. It's all relatively good, but doesn't always hit the spot. At least I won't go hungry.

duck heart

The closest plate is duck liver, then the one to the left is a jelly fish salad, then the far back one is duck feet. The tall green one is a spinach christmass tree.

Right after lunch, we went to the Temple of Heaven. For after dinner drinks we went to this lake (Back Sea -  the emperor apparently named all bodies of water a sea) that was surrounded by bars. It was a total tourist trap like in Mexico where bars try to lure you in. But it was really pretty since there were boats on the lake with lit up lanterns. And since all the bars were covered in neon lights and stuff, it was very colorful and very pleasing to the eyes.

Today was the Great wall, and tomorrow we go shopping in the am and off to Shanghai we go! O yea we also saw the Bird's nest from the 2008 Olympics!

I have so much more to say, but I only have two hours to nap and shower before the Bejing Opera tonight, that my post is quick, snappy and lacking details. But we're alive and having fun!

Check out my wordpress blog for more artsy cool photos. todesmcgodes.wordpress.com

The Great Wall of China!

Here are a few pics of our trip to the Great Wall. We went to a part of it that was not crawling with tourist so at times, it felt like we were the only ones there. It was not particularly sunny so I couldn't capture that wall that well, but we had our own fun. Honestly, the Wall is amazing! It's just mind blowing and I can't believe I got to see it!

All my worldly possessions.

I think I did an amazing job personally. However, the people picking us up were mighty confused with why we needed to bring so much!

While traveling....

...always be aware of your surrounds. For example, let's say you are taking a long flight of let's say 13 hours, and you are on the plane crammed into the lowest of the low class seats. Obviously, you foresee the next 13 hours to be pure torture. However, being aware of your surrounding can be to your advantage. After boarding, I was obviously eagerly looking around scoping out empty seats, when, could it be?! Three people want to for some unknown reason not sit in their exit row seats. Totally indifferent to looking like an idiot, I half stand up and raise and wave my hand like a kid in junior high who knows the answer to the math problem and wants to be called on first. And score! My entire row gets to move up to exit row seats!!! Leg roooooom galore! I think I was on a pure happy high for the first hour of our flight. My torture chamber that would have been my old seats, magically turned itself into Goda's version of first class. To top it off, we made friends with our stewardess and go served wine from first class. Could things possibly go more our way!

I have officially arrived in China and am hanging out in Beijing waiting for our connecting flight. I cannot believer I'm here!!

Also, while I have this time to thank everyone who came out on Friday to celebrate our departure to the land of pandas. It was so great to see you all and to know I have your support. This next year is going to be filled with ups and downs (hopefully more ups than downs) and it's great to know I have so many friends to help me get through it all. Thanks again! O and sorry for the hot loud mess that was Duffys. I didn't expect that and it totally wasn't planned. But I hope you all had fun regardless!

Packing - Before

Luggage vomit