China Update Part 2

Back in March, before I went to interview at the international school, I looked up my teaching credentials.  I knew my California credential was current because I had renewed it when we were living in Sacramento.  I had assumed that my Nevada credential had expired so I was very surprised to find out that it was still current and was set to expire on my birthday in May.  I looked up what I needed to renew and I needed 6 units (which I could do online) and also I needed to be fingerprinted. Not so easily done in China.  I figured, "Oh well, I guess it's going to expire."

After a month of working in Xian,  I started thinking, "I'm pretty sure that I am not going to be able to make it through a full school year."  Some days were good and I would start thinking, "Maybe I can do this."  Then there would be a bad day and I would start thinking, "There is no effing way that I am going to be able to do this!"  On those days, Matt and I would usually go to the bar at the top of the hotel and eat hamburgers and drink wine (or beer) and say, "What the hell were we thinking?" (For the record, Matt wasn't exactly loving Xian either.)

By the time May rolled around, I had been in Xian 2 months.  The weather had changed from really cold to pretty warm.  I had about a month before my Nevada credential expired.  By this time I had looked into it and found that if I let it expire, I would have to start out all over again as a new teacher and it would take much longer than if I just renewed.  Because we were planning to go to Beijing on May 15th for the weekend anyway we decided that I should go home after the Great Wall Marathon and renew my credential and then come back,  just to keep my options open.  So I signed up for online courses to get my 6 units and then booked a one-way flight from Beijing to LAX on the 18th.  (I had to travel on the 18th because we would already be in Beijing.)  

It was very interesting timing because the day after I booked the flight, the principal called me into his office to discuss how things were going at the school.  He offered me a year one position for the following school year.  I had to turn it down because I just couldn't see myself making it through the full year.  (I came at the end of winter and I'm pretty sure that's a good thing as I am not a winter gal.) He said he had a feeling that was going to be the case, but he thought he would offer anyway.  So I told him about my plans to go home and renew my credential and I said I would need at least a week off and after that there would only be about a month left of school.  He said that was fine, and to do what I needed to do.  I told him I would let him know as soon as I booked my return flight.  

So after much discussion with Matt, we came to the conclusion that neither one of us felt all that great about Xian.  The difference was that he had signed a two year contract and I hadn't.  We finally decided that I would go home for a week, then come back, finish out the school year and then stay for the Summer. I would probably go home in the Fall when the new school year starts.  With this decided, I attempted to book my return flight but the internet wasn't working.  Next day, same thing.  It was super slow and all the return flights were around $1,800.  (Sadly, thats around what I would make working through the end of the school year so this wasn't making a lot of financial sense.)

The next day at work I received a text from Matt saying to call him ASAP, which I did.  Now, before we moved to Xian we did realize that it was a risk and we went over several possible scenarios of how bad stuff could happen.  Apparently we missed one.  The whole thing is very complicated involving 2 different owners and when I have tried to explain it in person, people still get confused.  Also, it is really not my tale to tell.  So let's just leave it at, a really crappy unstable situation arose.  Matt still had a job, just not the one he originally signed up for.   

So now everything was really weird and uncomfortable.  The man who owned the hotel building, also owned the apartment building that we lived in so therefore, if you lose your job, you also lose your apartment.  This was it for me.  UNCLE!  I simply can't live like that.  There is enough uncertainty just living in a foreign country, I don't need to add the uncertainty of not knowing if you will have a job and apartment as well.  So thank God I didn't book a return flight.  We decided that I would just go home on the 18th and Matt would stay and see how things panned out.  He still had a contract after all.  So I told my work that I would not be returning and my last day would be the 10th of May.  After the Great Wall Marathon in Beijing, Matt went back to Xian and I just went home. 

Matt had about a month of a really crappy situation.  (I would not have handled it at all well.) It did come to the point where he had 2 days to get out of the apartment but luckily he already had a new (temporary) apartment lined up and a new job situation as well.  The new apartment was much nicer and quieter so that was good for him.  It was about three miles farther away from my school though, so had I stayed it would have been a ridiculous commute for me where I could no longer walk home in the afternoon.  I probably would have had to quit anyway.  The situation seems to be working out well for Matt though, because he is getting a promotion and he will be opening a new hotel.  So sometime next month he will be moving AGAIN! Now he will be closer to Beijing in Jinan, so this move requires a flight.  It all worked out for the best I suppose.  Because I decided to leave, he was free to take the job in Jinan. 

I have since gone home.  Neekole Peekole got a summer internship doing computer coding so we got to go shopping for new work clothes. That was really nice and I'm glad I didn't miss that.  Yay Nicole! Also, because I went back early, I also got a job as an early hire for the school year! Yay me! Matt is still in Xian but he should be starting his new job in Jinan sometime in July.  Hopefully he can come for a visit this summer.  Also, my job is at a year round school so it should make it easier to visit while Matt is away.  Would I leave the country again in the future if the opportunity arises? Of course! Will I go back to China? I would not say never, but I would say that is highly unlikely.  I need a break for a couple of years at least.  

One last thing.  We had a huge problem trying to get Sammy from Riyadh to China.  The guy who was helping us was ridiculous and always finding some excuse why he couldn't send the dog.  It was was very frustrating for us and for our Riyadh neighbors who were taking care of him for so long! Thanks neighbors! Had he ended up in China, there is no way Matt would have been able to keep moving him around.  They have some pretty strict quarantine laws there and it doesn't sound like they take very good care of the dogs when they do quarantine them.  So Sammy is now back in Vegas.  This was probably his last trip as he is looking pretty old these days.  I really don't think he would have liked China all that much either! 

The situation isn't exactly ideal, but it is what it is.  We just do the best that we can with the situations that present themselves.  For now, if Matt can manage to tough it out in China, then the payoff is big for him and worth staying.  For me, I could tough it out but I am almost certain I would resent it.  I'm much better off in the states for now.  

As for China, I think I would have lasted a lot longer in Beijing or Shanghai but regardless, it is still China.  I prefer staying in a 5 star hotel than a typical Chinese apartment.  So the saying is true for me.  It's a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there!

China Update Part One

Well it's been just over a month since my last blog post and A LOT has happened since then.  Actually, a lot happened before the last blog post but I pretty much had to keep it to myself.

I think it's been clear from the blog that I don't exactly love China.  When Matt and I would discuss things here, my response to how I felt about China was pretty much the same every time.  "I don't hate it here, but I don't love it here either and truth be told, I wouldn't even say that I like it." For a while, I felt a little bad about that.  It helped a bit when I started working at the international school because I realized that I was not the only one who didn't exactly love Xian.  Most people didn't exactly love it.  Many said that they would go home (or go somewhere else) if given the opportunity.  This made me feel a bit better but it still didn't change my feelings regarding Xian.

I thought about this a lot.  I liked my job well enough.  I met some truly lovely people there.  I did not, however, like trying to get to my job.  It stressed me out every single morning.  And if I woke up and it was raining, it was truly depressing.  Going home was a bit easier because I could take a tuk tuk part of the way and then walk the rest.  (Again, depressing in the rain.)

One thing that I did not like about my job was the hours.  (8AM to 5PM)  Add in having to be on the street by 7:10 to make sure I got there on time and not getting home until 6:15 and that is pretty much and 11 hour day.  I realize that there are plenty of people who work 12-14 hour days and that's fine.  One of the perks of teaching (in America anyway) is that you don't have to practically live at work.  Also,  I was making about half of what I would in the states because I was considered a local hire.  Regardless, it was better than staying home because my apartment drove me nuts due to NOISE, lack of consistent  electricity, vile smells, dust, a really crappy washing machine (no dryer), a teeny tiny kitchen (so tiny that the teeny tiny refrigerator had to be kept in the dining room) with two oddly shaped burners that pretty much burned everything.

So after working all day, I would come home to horn honking and fire crackers as well as a really vile smell emanating from the drains in the bathrooms.  China doesn't use U pipes in their plumbing so in a high rise apartment, the smells travel up through the pipes.  It wasn't a constant smell, but you never knew when you walked into the bathroom whether or not you would be hit by an overwhelming wall of stench.  The point is, that after a long day of work, it was not at all relaxing to come home.

Several years ago, (I think it was 2007) I went to an "I Can Do It!" conference in Las Vegas.  It's put on by Hay House Publishing and it's basically a "new age" type conference.  It's a 2 or 3 day conference where they have different speakers.  You can pay for one day, two, or the whole weekend.  It's a rather expensive conference and I only really wanted to see 2 of speakers so I purchased a 1 day pass.  I went with my mom and my sister.  The day was broken into time slots.  There were several "talks" going on at the same time and you just go to the one that you want to see at the time it's presented. I wanted to see Denise Linn and Sonia Choquette, which left us with one empty time slot in between those two.  We decided to fill that slot with "The Hicks."

I had heard of the Hicks before but I can't say that I was all that interested in them.  They were a husband and wife team.  Basically, she goes into a meditation and channels "Abraham."  Then, her husband  asks Abraham questions while she is channeling him and records the answers.  They have bunches of books out called "The Teachings of Abraham."  We needed to fill a time slot and we had heard of them, so we went.  The room was pretty full but we found three seats towards the back.  Eventually the Hicks came out and started talking.  They started off talking about how Esther came to channel Abraham.  I remember being rather bored until they said, "Let's see if Abraham is willing to talk to us right now."  So Esther started to meditate and eventually her husband asked, "Abraham, are you here with us?"  Then Esther/Abraham started speaking in a much lower voice saying that, "Yes, he was here."  (I may have been rolling my eyes at this point.)  Regardless, the only thing at all that I remember from the whole spiel with "Abraham" went something like this:

Jerry Hicks: Abraham, sometimes I have people coming to me with problems like, "I bought this house, and I thought it was my dream house, but it doesn't have enough closets. Why did I make a wrong choice?"

Abraham/Esther: You didn't make a mistake. Sometimes you need to live in a house with not enough closets to know that you want to live in a house with plentiful closets.  Until you have the experience of living without enough closets, you can't necessarily know that you want a lot of closets.

I'm sure there were a lot more questions but the whole channeling thing seemed really weird so after about 5 to 10 minutes of that we decided to duck out and go have an early and extra long lunch.  Still, I have always remembered that reply.  It fits in nicely with my philosophy that a mistake is only a mistake if you don't learn from it.

Which brings me back to Xian.  I felt like the reason I was in Xian was to "live in a house without enough closets."  So I thought about that a lot.  I came to the conclusion that it is extremely important to me that I live in a place that is quiet and calming.  Xian is neither quiet nor calming.

Now we could have moved.  I talked to several people and it was very clear that there are definitely quieter places with nicer bathrooms and kitchens.  It's kind of hard to get all three but it can be done.  Still, I wasn't quite ready to start my new apartment search, so I had to ask myself why that was.  It came down to this.  I really don't like living in China all that much.  And how long does one need to live in a house without enough closets once they realize that they want more closets???

The apartment, while annoying, was really convenient for Matt.  While my commute involved taxis, tuk tuks, and a lot of walking, Matt's commute took about one minute and involved 2 elevators.  He never even had to go outside.  So why would I insist on moving when I wasn't even certain that I wanted to stay?

When it came right down to it, the simple things in life that make me happy were becoming more and more difficult to do.  Take running for instance.  I usually tried to run on Tuesdays and Thursdays because on those 2 days we were allowed to take the school bus most of the way home.  I usually got home around 5:15 so if went straight home and changed and went out the door I was able to run while it was still light out.  However, often times I was exhausted.  If I so much as sat down first, chances were that I wouldn't be getting back up again.  Also, being sick so much when I first started working didn't help much either.  Add to that the AQI (Air Quality Index) score and running just became a bit difficult.  The AQI was constantly changing.  Basically 50 or below is considered Excellent.  Under 100 is Good.  Under 150 is Lightly Polluted.  Under 200 Moderately Polluted.  Over 200 was Heavily Polluted.  The index went up to 500 and after that it was considered off the charts.  There were a few times when the index was over 500.  It didn't necessarily last all day but you could definitely feel a burning in the throat and lungs.  It was often over 200 and when it was, running outdoors was not exactly a good idea.  It would probably have effects similar to smoking.  Not the healthiest way to live.

Another thing I like to do is cook and bake.  (More the latter.)  We even bought an oven because Chinese kitchens don't  have ovens.  Just cook tops.  But I had a really difficult time finding basic things.  Just a few examples, my two closest grocery stores (both 1 mile away) had no butter.  I also never found flour and I had a really difficult time finding peanut butter.  I think I found it, but I am not completely certain that it was made from peanuts and it certainly wasn't like any peanut butter we have in the states.  Also, there really wasn't any cheese.  There may have been some nasty "singles" type cheese but I have no idea what was in it.  It tasted yucky.  There were some specialty markets, but going to one of those involved getting a driver and having him wait while we shopped.  The last time we did this we went to Ole Market.  It's freaking fabulous.  They have everything.  When we left however, we had two large bags of groceries that cost us 1600 RMB or $257.00 US.  (If you ask me it was totally worth it! I got brie dammit!  BRIE!)

Anyway, one day my bananas over ripened. This rarely happens because we eat bananas all the time, but there is nothing I love more than an overripe banana because there are so many things that you can make with them.  Frosted banana cake is my favorite, but at the time, having no flour or butter, that clearly wasn't going to happen. (Not to mention that because China has no ovens, there is no reason for bakeware, so even if I had the ingredients, I have no baking pans of any sort.)  So I turned to Pinterest.  And I came up with 2 ingredient cookies. (The oven we bought came with a baking tray.) The two ingredients are bananas and oats. (For some reason oats are everywhere, even in the little convenience stores.)  So having the 2 ingredients, I made my attempt.

 Rotten bananas, Check!

 This is Chinese peanut butter.  (I think) I enlarged the pic and those don't

look like peanuts.  It kinda tastes like peanut butter though and I have no idea

what to do with it so I decided to add it in.

 Also, I'm pretty sure peanut butter isn't supposed to just pour out like that. 

I bought two different brands and they both poured out like that.  I guess the Chinese 

like their peanut butter kind of soupy.  

 There are my oats and I also added some sugar because Chinese bananas just aren't very good.

 So here is my mixture with two kinds of sugar added.

 Ready to bake.

And done.  Did I mention that I forgot to grease the pan?

That's what happens when there isn't any butter!

I think this is what they call a Pinterest Fail. 

Anyway, they were not very good.  They were edible, but that is not saying much because in China, I often find myself eating things that I wouldn't otherwise eat.  Not because the food is bad, but because I get tired of having to walk a freaking kilometer to the nearest restaurant or convenience store.  And its a mile if you want to go somewhere good.  And if you walk the mile + there, well you have to walk it back so sometimes I find myself eating crappy things because I just don't want to have to go anywhere.  After shopping at Ole Market, we knew we wouldn't feel like cooking or going anywhere, so we got something called a toasted cheese and pork floss sandwich.  It was not good.  It was basically a toasted cheese sandwich with added pork flavored cotton candy.  I kept seeing "meat floss" in all kinds of buns and I wondered what it was.  It's meat colored and has the texture of cotton candy.  It tastes like sugared meat and it kinda dissolves in your mouth. It wasn't good, but it was edible.  I kind of just ate the middle part and then I had basically a thick crust with some cheese and meat floss on it leftover.  And even though I really didn't like it,  I wrapped it back up and put it into the fridge and believe it or not, the very next day I did eat that because I just didn't feel like going anywhere.  

So basically, the point of this is that the simple things that make me happy at home (and in Riyadh for that matter) just aren't so simple in China.  I think you can probably see where I am going with this, but it's getting a bit long so I think I will finish this tomorrow.  (And I will try not to go off on so many tangents.)

The Great Wall Marathon!

Hands down, the best race that I have ever done.  Also, the most difficult and the most complicated to get to. Totally worth it, but I would probably never try and do it again. I'm sure that it is much easier to manage if you go with a tour company but you also pay quite a bit for this service.  Because we live in China, we were able to just book the race through the Great Wall Marathon company.  The  problem with doing it this way is that you have to figure out how you are going to get to where you need to go, and where you are going to stay.

We decided to fly rather than take a train.  (Either way we end up in Beijing. )  We flew out Thursday night and arrived around 11:00 PM.  From the Beijing Airport we took a cab to our hotel in Beijing.  Now the race is not actually in Beijing.  It is about two and a half hours away by car or bus.  The tour company gives you a choice of leaving from Beijing for the race (bus leaves at 3:30 AM) or leaving from Jixian which is closer to the race start and the bus leaves at 5:00 AM) on race day morning.  We decided that we would would rather stay in Jixian because a two and a half hour bus ride on race day morning does not appeal to me.  After many emails back and forth with GWM we decided to book the Jixian Marriott through GWM because that was the only hotel still available where the bus picked up on race morning.

The problem was getting from Beijing to Jixian the day before the race.  There are no trains or buses that go there, and to book a private car would cost about of $250 US one way.  Since each of our plane tickets to Beijing cost that much, it sounded really expensive.  (Hindsight being 20/20, we definitely should have booked the private car.) Now if you went with the tour company there was a bus that takes you to Jixian 2 days before the race.  Since we only arrived 1 day before the race we couldn't take that bus.  But apparently there were other locals who also needed transport to Jixian so they offered us a minibus to Jixian the day before the race. Originally they said it would be a bus leaving at 1:00PM for 180 RMB per person and then later they changed it to a minibus leaving at 4:00 PM for 100 RMB per person.  They email instructions listed this vague location in Beijing where we were supposed to meet this van.  We managed to find it as did the  2 other "locals." Around 4:20 PM on Friday afternoon we left for Jixian. (Not the best time to travel.) Now I could do an entire blog post on this ride and nightmare driver but I am trying to forget it.  Long story short(ish) our driver was effing crazy.  What should have been a 2 hour drive turned into a 3 hour drive.  He spoke no English and we are pretty sure that he took us way out of the way in order to avoid paying the tolls on the road.  The drive involved ridiculously high speeds and at one point he was driving on the wrong side of the road for an extended period of time.  Despite us telling him to slow down, he didn't.  Then, when we finally arrived in Jixian, he had no freaking idea where the hotel was! So we drove around some more while he kept getting out and asking directions!! When we finally arrived at the Marriott we were all ready to kiss the ground!

Now Jixian is not a very big city so we were shocked at the size of the Marriott.  It was brand new and had only been open about 2 weeks.  It was a gorgeous hotel and the staff were all very nice and accommodating.  It almost made us forget the ride over.

Marriott Lobby

The rooms were gorgeous and the entire hotel was really elegant and the staff all spoke English.  They only had a mini menu in the restaurants because they had just opened but the food was all very good.  Also, the next morning they opened breakfast at 4 AM to accommodate the runners.  There were 2 busloads of us staying there. At 5:30 AM the buses left for the race.  The bus ride took a little over an hour and it involved windy roads in the hills.  We had a much better driver this time!

At about 6:45 we pulled into the race start and there were lots of people already there.  We got off the bus and it was freaking freezing! Luckily, we had our luggage with us so I quickly took out a long sleeve shirt and a sweater.  Then we went to check in.

 We took a quick selfie before we entered the square. 

Once inside, we checked our bags and then went to line up for the toilets.  They were basically squatter port-a-potties.  Now, the one that I went into was fine.  They had foam that is squirted over the bowl so that you can't really see or smell what is going on down there.  There were some people who came out looking a little shell shocked, or who opened the door and then refused to go in, but mine was fine.  Didn't even smell bad. (A fan came on when you locked the door.) What I found odd was the little sign up top.  I tried to take a picture of it but you can't really see it.  The top flashes vacant or occupied in both English and Chinese.  It also flashes a time once you lock the door.  Not the time of day but the time you have spent in the bathroom so that everyone can see how long you have been in there.  My line seemed to be going very quickly but the line on the end had someone inside who must have been having a bit of trouble because everyone kept commenting on the time.  When he got up to 8 minutes, everyone was talking and joking about it.  Poor guy, he had to have heard because it's not like those things are soundproof.  When he finally came out it had been 9 minutes plus.  Everyone looked to see who took 9 minutes.  Myself included.  He looked a bit sheepish.

Bathroom needs taken care of we stopped to take a picture. This was the wave corral at the start. There was so much excitement at the start of the race.  We were in wave 2.  After our start, we basically ran about 2.5 miles uphill on the roads.  This was the point where I could see the wall.

You can barely see it in the picture but it's there! 

This was when I got to the entrance.  There was a bathroom there so I stopped to use it.  By this time I was no longer cold and the temperature had increased quite a bit.

 On the wall!

Since I was not exactly speeding along at this point I stopped to take a selfie.  Notice the vein bulging out of my forehead.

Now two days before the race there was a race site tour that you could take.  All around you could hear people who had taken the tour talking. Every time we came to another hill of stairs, they kept saying "I'm pretty sure this is the last climb." But then every time we got to the top there seemed to be another one looming in the distance.  Not that it was a big deal because the downhill was actually harder to maneuver.  There were parts that had no stairs at all that were really quite steep.  I didn't take pictures of these parts because they were also where the traffic backed up and you had to hold the handrail and very carefully watch your step and foot placement.

This was the point where we were coming down off the wall and you can see where we started from in the distance.  We eventually went past it and then came off the wall.  That was about 5 and a half miles.  You would think that the downhill would be faster than the uphill but between trying not to fall and the back up in spots, miles 4 and 5 alone took me almost an hour! (Mile 4- 28 minutes and mile 5- 23 minutes.)  I had originally had a "goal time" of 3 hours which is quite generous but at mile 5 I realized that I was probably not going to make that, since it took me almost an hour and a half to go just 5 miles! I was pretty tired at that point and yet I still had 8 miles to go.  The rest of the race went through the town.  There were spectators everywhere! Tons of little kids holding their hands up for high fives! I must have slapped a hundred hands. (I could never leave a little kid hanging!)

All in all, just freaking amazing!  I only did the half and it took me about 3 hours and 8 minutes.  I can not even begin to imagine the full! I was not in the best shape for this run at all since I had gotten sick and therefore didn't train much.  But I must say that all the stair training that I did worked because while I was still extremely fatigued the next day, I was not at all sore! Yay!  Matt did really well.  His time was 2 hours and 40 minutes I think.

I didn't take any video because it totally drains my battery on my iPod but I did find this on YouTube and it is much better than anything I would have shot.  The race was exactly like this.  So freaking amazing that it makes me want to cry when I watch it.

That was from the Great Wall Marathon 2013.  We actually had much clearer weather.  Beautiful day.

Afterwards we all piled back onto the buses for a 2.5 hour bus ride back to Beijing.  Not exactly ideal but much better (and shorter) than our original minibus ride to Jixian.  Much nicer driver that time too! AMAZING!

Food

Oh China, why do you frustrate me so?  This morning I am sitting in the Cosy Day coffee shop because once again they have turned off the power in my building.  At 4:30 AM, while people are sleeping, they cut the power to the building and it doesn't come back on until after 10:00PM at night when you are getting ready to go to bed.  They did this on Tuesday.  Then we had a break yesterday (Wednesday) and this morning, (Thursday) they once again shut off the power at 4:30 AM.  We have been told that it will come back on after 10:00 PM tonight.  I have no idea why they do this.  I can only assume that it is to save power.

I've given up on the refrigerator.  I took out all the stuff from the freezer that has been melted, and refrozen.  All that is left is ice. (Soon to be water and then ice again.) We are leaving tonight for Beijing so I should be packing right now but I didn't sleep well last night.  If there is no power, there is also no internet and I am currently doing a time sensitive internet course online so I stayed up late last night trying to finish it.  Then at 4:30 AM when the power goes out, my electric fan also goes out.  I use this to drown out the street noise.  I definitely notice when the power goes out. Also, when the power goes out there is no hot water but for some reason that doesn't come back on until around noon the next day so for the past 3 days we have had hot water for about ten hours total.  Good times.

I decided this morning that coffee was more important than packing especially since I was ready to start slapping the cars that seem to be trying to run me down in the crosswalks and yell, "Really?!! Are you trying to kill me??!" Yes, coffee is probably best.

Our day today seems to be revolving around food, wifi, and electrical outlets.  We went home after Cosy Day and I managed to finish packing my stuff.  A car is coming to pick us up at 6.  We're leaving a bit early because I would rather sit at the airport than sit in my apartment in the dark.  Currently, we are sitting in a new restaurant that just opened up a couple of days ago.  We were a bit confused by the signage.

We weren't sure if it was "Big Ones" or perhaps a misspelling of "Bygones" or as Matt likes to keep calling it "Bigones," pronounced big-oh-knees. Today we went inside and the mystery is solved.  It is definitely "The Big Ones."  I ordered "The Big Ones Sandwich," mainly because I wanted to see what exactly "Reasonable Meat" was.

Lucky for me, it turns out to be Spam!  Matt ordered the Burger.  Both pretty good.  A tad on the expensive side but most western food is here.

Mmmm Spam.

In case you were wondering, I definitely eat other things besides spam.  In fact, I like most of the food here but there is one dish that I really don't like.  I was first introduced to it in Macau and I never liked it there either.  Over there it was called "chicken soft bone."  Here, we order by pictures and it actually looked good when we ordered it and when it arrived.

The problem with this dish is that when you bite into it you are expecting chicken but what you get is something like knuckles.  At the time that we ordered it I did actually eat quite a bit of it.  It's weird.  You bite into it and there are the bones, but there is also something in-between the bones.  I pondered as I chewed and my mind went back to a recent comment on a Facebook post.  Laurel had mentioned that she had torn her meniscus, and I thought, if I were ever planning on eating a meniscus, I bet that this is what it would taste like.  A couple of days later, we accidentally ordered it again.  That time we left it.  I can eat a lot of things, but I really don't need to choke down meniscus twice in one week.  

 One time we ate at Mc Donalds.  I ordered a beef and rice wrap.  It was not bad.

This was a pie.  I think it was taro.  Normally I hate taro.  It was actually really good.  I felt pretty sick afterwards but that is pretty much my reaction to any Mc Donalds.  

This is a German place over by Big Wild Goose Pagoda.  Matt likes this place but it requires a taxi ride and it's a bit far.  We would eat there more often if it were easier to get to.

Spaetzle

My favorite nearby place is "Inimitable." It is a Japanese sushi place.  Super yummy.

I also like this Macanese Restaurant called St. Louis. It's about a mile and a half away.  

Everything has been good there.  And no matter where you go, if you order a chicken, even if it comes all cut up, they always leave the head.

So, obviously I'm not starving here despite my empty fridge.  At least it's not raining.  

Worst Ice Cream Man Ever!

I've been meaning to post this for a while but I just haven't had the time.  Then, last week I overheard  a group of children coming into the school singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of their lungs.  It didn't even occur to me to ask them why they were singing "Jingle Bells" in May.  I knew why. It's probably the same reason that I often find myself singing "Jingle Bells." (Although I tend to sing it quietly in my head so that I don't appear crazy to those around me.)

When I first got to Xi'an and we were still staying in the hotel, I went out walking around the neighborhood and I heard what sounded like the ice cream man.  (If you're not from the states, it's basically a guy who drives around in a van blasting music to attract children to then sell them ice cream and popsicles.)

The first one I heard was playing the Happy Birthday song over and over.  It wasn't the ice cream man.  It was the street cleaner.  I thought it a bit odd but then just carried on with my day.  It was over the next few days that I realized that the street cleaners mostly played Christmas Carols.

Jingle bells is a very common one.  I hear it all the time. It tends to get into your head and stick there.

This one is not as common.  It's "Frosty the Snowman."  I cut it off a bit, sorry.  But you can still get the gist of it.

And even if I don't go outside, I can still get the merry holiday sounds delivered right outside my apartment.  I took this one from my living room window.

Not exactly a "Silent Night."  

I also hear "We Wish You a Merry Christmas"quite a bit, and lately, "It's a Small World."  I don't have it on tape but by now I'm sure you get the picture.  I'm assuming that the music is to alert you to get out of the way so that you aren't sprayed with water, I am just confused by their song choices.  I think that I will add "street cleaner in China" to the list of jobs I don't want.  

Mmmmm Spam!

The Great Wall Marathon (of which I am only doing half) is next weekend! Am I prepared? No. Do I care? Hmmm, truthfully, not really.  I was really only worried about the stairs and since Mt Huashan didn't kill me, I am pretty sure that I will survive "The Great Wall."  From what I hear, there are sections of the race where there are so many people on a narrow area that everyone has to walk anyway so I am just not going to worry about it.

April was my worst running month this year.  I barely got in 40 miles for the month.  I went two weeks where I did no running what so ever. I did manage to get in an 11 mile long run last weekend but I was so slow that it took forever! Then I was planning on doing a short run on Tuesday but I was just so tired that I skipped it.  Then today (Thursday) I wasn't tired but it was just too hot.  (I'm getting really good with the excuses.)  Perhaps I will try tomorrow if it has cooled off some.  Perhaps not.

At least the warmer weather has made it a bit easier to get a taxi in the morning! In fact the other day my taxi driver took me down what looked to be a new road that was barely occupied and got me to work in about 10 minutes.  I'm not sure if they just opened this road or if all the other taxi drivers have been taking me the long way.  Yesterday and today my taxi drivers both took me the same old way.  I'm hoping that they just don't know about the new road and there isn't some big taxi driver conspiracy where they are all trying to drive me crazy.  Or perhaps the road was only open for one day??? Maybe I imagined it.

The way home is much more relaxed because I am not pressured for time.  I take a tuk tuk half of the way and then I usually walk the rest of the way home.

It's not the most comfortable ride but it's cheap and better than walking.  There is also one that looks like an open air minibus.  It's much more comfortable.

Usually I am quite hungry by the end of the day because lunch is at noon and by 5 I'm starved.  I've been stopping at this grocery store on my way home to pick up staples like bread and eggs.

I don't know the name but I like it way better than Lotus. They have a little deli counter inside where they have things like potato and egg patties, and these huge eggy crepe type things.  They also usually have some pre made sandwiches. They have egg sandwiches and spam sandwiches.  I have been getting in the habit of getting a spam sandwich and eating it on the way home.

I stopped in on Monday because we really needed bread.  I went by the counter and they only had one egg sandwich left but they also had an interesting noodle dish as well.  I ordered some of the noodle dish to take home and the woman packaged it up.  Then I pointed to the last egg sandwich.  She picked it up and took it to the back and came back out with two pieces of spam.  Then she proceeded to get a roll and she sliced it up and made me a fresh, warm, spam sandwich.  I'm telling you, it was just the best sandwich ever.  Mental note * I may be eating too much spam.

This is Why I Don't Like Mondays.

Ok, today I have some news that may surprise anyone who knows me well.  I have gone and gotten a job.  (Pause for *gasps*) It's true! (That is how much the noise outside my apartment annoys me!) In case you don't know me all that well, or you didn't read my Riyadh blog, here is a link to a post where the only job I really wanted  had to do with coloring.  Unfortunately, I left before that particular job ever materialized.

All right, so... the new job.  I'm teaching, and I will have been there three weeks tomorrow.  Today is Labor Day in China so I am off today, which is why I am blogging.  (Working definitely limits my blogging time.)  Of course, having been out of the teaching game for several years now, I promptly got sick after about a week.  (I have definitely lost my "teacher immunity.")

Every morning, I need to catch a taxi into work which is about 8 kilometers from where I live.  This is my least favorite part of each day.  Some days, I get a taxi quickly.  Other days, I can be waiting on the street for twenty minutes or so before one finally stops.  Unfortunately, the later it gets, the worse the traffic gets, and the harder it becomes to get a taxi that will take me to school.

Now that it has been about three weeks, I am beginning to see a pattern.  On Mondays, I start early and hope that I get a taxi right away because the later it gets, the less likely it is that any taxi will take me at all. I'm learning that if it's raining, try and suck it up and hope for the best.  Also, bring a change of shoes.  If it's raining and Monday... Well, I am starting to think that the better option is to stay at home, curl up in the fetal position and just start rocking back and forth in frustration.

The day after we hiked Mt. Huashan, I awoke with a bit of a sore throat.  It was Sunday so I just rested and didn't do much other than drive back to Gao Xin.  On Monday, I woke up feeling about the same.  A bit of a sore throat but not too bad.  It was raining fairly hard.  It had rained on the previous Friday when I was going home (a whole other story which will probably be it's own blog post later) so I had an inkling of what to expect.  (Others had warned me about how difficult Fridays are, but no one had mentioned Mondays.)

At 7:15 I was on the street corner trying to catch a cab.  After 3 empty cabs purposely passed me by one finally stopped.  I told him where I wanted to go and showed him the Chinese address and he said something to me in Chinese and waved his arm at me in a way that pretty much said "No way!" And he drove off.  It is now about 7:25.  Around 7:30 another cab stops.  This time, I get in first and tell him where I want to go.  He starts to drive down the street.  Then he starts speaking to me in Chinese.  I have no clue what he is saying.  He starts speaking to me louder while still driving.  I still have no clue.  He pulls the car over and turns around and yells at me.  I get the picture that he has decided that he doesn't want to take me so I offer to pay 40. (Usually costs 15) He yells at me a bit more in Chinese and then he turns back around so all I can see is the back of his head.  He holds up his right hand and starts making a wrist flicking waving motion to basically tell me to get out.  Then he proceeded to sit there waving until I got out.  So now I am no longer on a busy street corner but a good ways down the street in the middle of a very long block.  I have basically cut the amount of cabs available to me now in half.  Around 7:45 a third cab finally stops and agrees to take me.  By this time, the traffic on the regular streets is horrendous.  The school, however, is located on a rather narrow street.  This, combined with the late hour and the rain apparently makes the narrow street virtually impossible for a taxi to maneuver.  (This was probably what the other taxi drivers were yelling at me about.)

So we turned down the narrow street, and got maybe 100 meters in and traffic came to a stand still.  After about 5 more minutes of sitting there, we had gone maybe 10 feet.  At this point, the taxi driver started speaking to me.  I was hoping that he was telling me to walk.  The previous Friday, my taxi driver got stuck and when I got out she was really yelling at me. She charged me extra and yelled a lot.  I was really hoping this guy wasn't going to yell at me. (I'm really getting tired of that.) Luckily, he didn't.  He was very good natured about it so I was grateful for that. I stepped out of the cab and started walking towards the school.  After about ten feet I could feel the water seeping into my shoes. After about 2 minutes, my shoes felt like sponges squishing water with every step.  I can not even begin to describe the walk in to work that day. Luckily, once I was past the worst of it, I took a bit of video so I won't have to try and describe it.  And yes, I am walking down the middle of the street because the sides are pretty much flooded.

It should be noted that after the second video ends, I had to walk through the "puddle" on the right at the end of the video because there was no other way to go.  I will admit that there were quite a few "swear words" going through my head at this point.  I felt quite depressed as I continued my trudge into work.  I arrived around 8:25 (25 minutes late) a bit "shell shocked." I had no other shoes to change into, so I shoved some paper towels in my shoes and frequently changed them throughout the day.  They started feeling a bit "drier" around 5:00 in the evening when it was time to go home. It was still raining when I started my trudge in the opposite direction this time, and within 5 minutes, my shoes were once again soaking wet for my walk home.

The next morning, I had a sore throat and a runny nose. The morning after that, I had developed a cough as well and basically I have been sick ever since.  I am on the mend and the weather seems to be improving, but I still never know what to expect when I leave for work in the morning.  I have learned to keep my expectations low.  Very, very low. Because, while this was my worst day thus far, I do fear that it could possibly get worse.