As you can see, WuMart is not just a supermarket, it is a "Hypermarket". I needed to buy some essentials like bedding, towels, TP, and a few food staples and WuMart has it all. Coco and her husband were there to help me with the transactions because when you show interest in something like sheets or comforters at the WuMart you are immediately surrounded by anywhere from two to five employees that want to ‘help’ you. I imagine they are pointing out the differences between the products and highlighting some features and perhaps if I spoke the language it would be helpful. But since I don’t, it’s just a lot jibberish that distracts me from looking at the options. Since I had help with me at this point, it went pretty smoothly.
After the WuMart we were off to meet the other teachers for dinner at a Hot Pot restaurant, which can most easily be described as Chinese fondue… a simmering metal pot of stock sits at the center of the dining table and you all order a variety of vegetables, meats, tofu, and noodles. Sometimes there is one big pot and at others the pot is split into a spicy side and a regular side.
I haven’t done a lot of fondue eating so am not sure if one uses the same utensils that they eat with to dunk their food into the community pot, but the practice of using your chopsticks to pick up some food then drop it in the hot pot along with everyone else and fish it out after a couple of minutes, put it in your mouth and then use those same chopsticks to do it all over again... grossed me out a bit. I wondered if I would feel the same if it were a bunch of friends or even just people I knew. I think it would be better, but it's still not very appealing to me. It seems to be pretty popular though, so perhaps I'll warm up to it. I've also heard that there are individual hot pot restaurants where you get your very own! That I would dig.
At the recommendation of one of the other teachers and in the spirit of keeping an open mind and wanting to try some ‘new things’ I tried blood tofu that night. I've learned many things already and I'm sure I'll learn many more. The big thing I learned that night was that I’m not into eating animal blood… even when it’s soaked into tofu. Nope, definitely not. Bleh.
I was very tired by this point and ready to hit the bed. Tired as I was though, I woke up about every hour during the (now) night. Beijing is fourteen hours ahead of Minneapolis, so pretty much the opposite side of the day.
I met the school manager (we'll call him Mike) the next morning so he could show me around my neighborhood a bit.
We went to the local grocery store and he pointed out some things that might be common but not easily recognizable due to very different packaging (and obviously the foreign characters). I'll get some photos up another time of these things. We walked down the row of shops and restaurants and at this time of day there are several restaurants that do some of their cooking outside... to lure you in. Some with dumplings, some with fresh roasted chestnuts. It worked. We stopped in one to have breakfast at a place that Mike commented, "had never made him sick." The meal consisted of steamed buns filled with some kind of savory meat (baozi)... an egg (jidan) that was hard boiled in tea, and tofu soup (not pictured).
Quite a hearty breakfast for about 6rmb (less than one US dollar). I still had a significant amount of anxiety filling my stomach at this point so I didn't eat half of that, but now knew of one place that was close where I could go for an inexpensive meal.
After breakfast, we got in a taxi to meet a Chinese friend of Mike's to assist me in buying a cell phone. Taxis here are of two kinds... legit and 'black'. The legit taxis LOOK like taxis and run a meter. The black taxis have no meters, they just give people rides for money. And if their howling and calling out to you isn't enough of an indication...they also have little red lights in their windshield to let you know. The black taxis are generally less expensive but if you're a foreigner they will definitely try to charge you more. The price for the trip is agreed upon before you even get in the taxi. You tell them where you want to go and they tell you what they want for the ride... you either agree and get in, try to haggle with them, or leave. So, we met Mike's friend and he helped me get a phone number and SIMS card (I was told I could use an old phone of his but wouldn't be able to get it until tomorrow) and then we walked around one of the shopping malls in Daxing. The "Fresh City" shopping mall.
It's a mall not TOO unlike something you'd see in the states, except that the folks tending the shops are a little more "forward" with their sales approach. KFC and McDonalds are quite popular but there are also several Chinese fast-food joints. (None of which I could go to on my own even if I wanted to because they don't have pictures!) But we were with Mike's friend Martin and his girlfriend Lily now... so we could go to a dumpling place where they could order for us. Apparently the eating of dumplings was required that day since it was the coldest day of the year... legend has it that if you DON'T eat dumplings on the coldest day... your ears will fall off. China is a quite a superstitious country by the way.
I was very tired by this point and ready to hit the bed. Tired as I was though, I woke up about every hour during the (now) night. Beijing is fourteen hours ahead of Minneapolis, so pretty much the opposite side of the day.
I met the school manager (we'll call him Mike) the next morning so he could show me around my neighborhood a bit.
We went to the local grocery store and he pointed out some things that might be common but not easily recognizable due to very different packaging (and obviously the foreign characters). I'll get some photos up another time of these things. We walked down the row of shops and restaurants and at this time of day there are several restaurants that do some of their cooking outside... to lure you in. Some with dumplings, some with fresh roasted chestnuts. It worked. We stopped in one to have breakfast at a place that Mike commented, "had never made him sick." The meal consisted of steamed buns filled with some kind of savory meat (baozi)... an egg (jidan) that was hard boiled in tea, and tofu soup (not pictured).
Quite a hearty breakfast for about 6rmb (less than one US dollar). I still had a significant amount of anxiety filling my stomach at this point so I didn't eat half of that, but now knew of one place that was close where I could go for an inexpensive meal.
After breakfast, we got in a taxi to meet a Chinese friend of Mike's to assist me in buying a cell phone. Taxis here are of two kinds... legit and 'black'. The legit taxis LOOK like taxis and run a meter. The black taxis have no meters, they just give people rides for money. And if their howling and calling out to you isn't enough of an indication...they also have little red lights in their windshield to let you know. The black taxis are generally less expensive but if you're a foreigner they will definitely try to charge you more. The price for the trip is agreed upon before you even get in the taxi. You tell them where you want to go and they tell you what they want for the ride... you either agree and get in, try to haggle with them, or leave. So, we met Mike's friend and he helped me get a phone number and SIMS card (I was told I could use an old phone of his but wouldn't be able to get it until tomorrow) and then we walked around one of the shopping malls in Daxing. The "Fresh City" shopping mall.
After dumplings, we went into a different marketplace area that reminded me of a good old-fashioned Minnesota flea market! Pretty much anything you could want or need and a lot of things you don't. BUT there are no price tags so in order to shop in places like these you need to have a pretty good command of the language in order to haggle and not be ripped off. Unfortunately, I will be shopping at places like WuMart for awhile. That's just fine actually, even though it's not very exotic, I'm really grateful for WuMart at this point.
I was ready to lie down by now... as the jet lag and lack of sleep was catching up with me. We walked back to my apartment community at which point I realized I wasn't sure which of the 30 some buildings was mine. I thought I knew and sent Mike on his way. I had asked my roommate before leaving which was our building, but I didn't write it down (big mistake) and was sort of half paying attention in the exhaustion and disorientation to the many things that were being thrown my way...I knew the general direction and the apartment number which is four flights up, but not which building. (and of course they all look the same!)
I believe I mentioned that it was the coldest day of the year here and I started to panic just a little bit. I walked in the direction I thought it was and started running in buildings and up to the fourth floor... with no luck. Though I didn't have my phone yet, I still had my US phone, however, I still wasn't sure if it worked here because when I had tried to call Coco during the whole lost luggage ordeal I couldn't get a hold of her. It was worth a try... and it worked... whew! She had the building number, entrance number and apartment number. It still took me another 10-15 minutes in the cold to find the building, but I found it!
I ran up the stairs, recognized the door, went to put the key in... and it didn't work. Keys are a little bit different here and this door had a trick to it that we discovered the night before. You have to push in on the door while turning the key which I was doing and doing and doing and doing! The problem was that the key was NOT budging. There were two keys on the ring... one for the main lock and one for the secondary lock, which was not locked. I tried both keys... couldn't get either of them to work. I tried for at least a half hour (felt like two)... I really, really just wanted to lie down and be warm and did I mention that I really had to pee by this point?! I had a mini-meltdown in the stairwell. "What the hell am I doing here? What was I thinking?? Why did I leave everything that was comfortable and familiar so that I could be lost and confused and still friggin cold?!" I had fantasies about jumping on the next flight to Minnesota... and then took a deep breath and humbled myself enough to call Coco again. She and the owner of the school showed up in about 20min to help me. I showed her what I was doing with the key so I could figure out what I was doing wrong. She took the OTHER key (the one that I tried before) and put it in, pushed in on the door and voila! "Wrong key." she said. I didn't even care that I probably looked like a dope. I just really wanted some sleep... and I got about two hours, cuz then it was time to go to the school to practice Jingle Bells with the kidlets for the big Xmas program! I was asked/told the night before at the hotpot, that the school had borrowed a keyboard so that I could play Jingle Bells with them for their big program... isn't that lovely?
Mind if I have a few minutes with that keyboard before the practice so I can "refresh" myself? Suuuuper, thanks.
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