Empty abode

 So, later is much later!  I have been very tired every night and trying to blog when tired just isn't fun....this is our house in empty mode.....it is already full again but we are starting here and trying to keep things in order.  The room to the left is the living room, ta da!  The bookcase is their's (landlord/management company).  It was in the tiny Ayi room not really cutting it as storage for me.  The next room to that is the location of the litter box..dusty, yukky  all over.  The cabinet in the shot below, replaced it in the teensy, tiny Ayi room.  It doesn't look like much but it took four guys to bring it from the third floor to the ground floor....They build solid furniture here!!






This is the closet in the sewing room.  All the closets have these glass doors and some sort of built in shelves and drawers. some are bigger some smaller.
That little cabinet ended up in the closet where the door is ajar and another like it ended up in the other side of the closet on the shelf.....I needed floor space!  Again, very heavy, they are actually the bedside cabinets.   The ironing board (above left) shows the other side of the sewing room.  huge window, lots of light when I want it!






This is the dining room. left side, right side.....lots of windows.  Cabinets are theirs, they were in the bedrooms..not very functional there as they are just doors to a big open space.  I bought little metal shelves at Ikea and loaded them with dishes.....the kitchen is so useless.....hardly any cupboard space, I think even less than my mom has and she will agree she always wanted more!

 Miniature washer and dryer in a tiny room.  It works, not my first choice for a laundry set up!

Onyx enjoying the sunny window in what has become the office.

Some things in!  I knew as soon as the fuzzybutts saw their favorite chairs were here they would be on them so I put towels down for them.  Within half an hour they were chilling!!
Mike is allergic to cats so I keep towels or small blankets on favorite cat perches,  I just do a cat load once a week so cat yuck won't bother him:)

We are still hanging pictures and adding finishing touches so I can't show the finished product yet.

 Tomorrow..this is Monday afternoon for us...we are heading to Tianjin for three days.  Tianjin is the city Mike's new factory will be built in.  It is Mid-Autumn Festival this week.  A national holiday for all of China so Mike doesn't have to work.  We thought originally we were going to South Korea for the week but didn't get our act together for such a big trip.  Our driver is picking us up at 8:00 in the morning (yes he is working on his holiday) and taking us there.  It is probably about two hours by car from the house.  Mike found a bunch of things for us to do so we will be tourists for a few days....Then Wang Cheng will pick us up Thursday and bring us home.
Mike and I had an adventure on Saturday which I will try to post on later tonight....have to move the pictures over to the computer.

Love, fondly, sincerely,
zaijian,
Ramona

Happy Dance Here!!

I am doing the Happy Dance here!!

I do have a mop in my hands but that is OK.  It means I am cleaning up the floor where the management company furniture was sitting.  Four guys came at 8:00 am and took away the stuff we didn't want and moved the stuff we needed moved.  An hour and a half later they were gone.

 This is not a large truck, I do not know where they store the furniture but that is surely a crazy loading job!!!  That is a flat screen TV and a large mirror on the back seat...and 2 guys had to sit back there too!!  

I will take pics of the empty house and then pics with our stuff and post them.  Later or tomorrow:)

Riding Chinese style

Using the bicycles to the max!!
or We are Chinese!

As I mentioned before we bought a bicycle and a friend has graciously lent us one.  We have been using them to get all over the place.  It is nerve wracking sometimes.  When approaching a red light, a car turning right treats it like a yield sign, sometimes even like it is green.  It is human powered conveyances beware!  Also people pass on the right into the bike lane and beep at you as if you are in the wrong place, not them! On Saturday a friend called and said we should come over to the school to see the show.   There was going to be a jazz presentation and some dancing by the students. The weekend was a major sports competition weekend with teams coming from as far away as Manila to participate in several sports.  We are part of the APAC sports council among others, which means Asian Pacific....anywhere in the Pacific....In fact Olivia will be going to Hanoi, Vietnam in October for a swim meet and to Phuket, Thailand in the spring!  How's that for getting use out of your passport?  Anyway, back to the bikes.....3 people.....2 bikes....how do we all get to school?  Almost every bike here has a rack on the back for carrying things, quite often it is people.  (I want to do a post on modes of transportation, gotta carry the camera around so I can snap away)  So while I am getting ready to head out Mike and Olivia go out and practice riding together.  They decided they were able to carry it off.  The only issue was most of the Chinese actually strap a pad or pillow on the rack.....Olivia said it was a bit painful:)  As you can see the sidewalks are made of little blocks.  Usually you ride in the road inside that white line you can see, there are bike lanes on both sides of the road.  Of course you should ride with the traffic but sometimes crossing a road is more dangerous.

                                     

Me riding behind them one handed while getting some shots!!  One problem you frequently run into is vehicles just stopped and parked in the bicycle/scooter lane.  This was a huge car carrier...it is not often such big things are even on the roads around here, they tend to use  smaller trucks.  The other day there was a person just pulled over sitting with his feet on the curb eating a meal!  Of course, blocking the lane.  You just accept it as standard practice and ride on.

Love, sincerely, fondly,
zaijian,
Ramona

Squirrels in the grocery store

You read that right.

The other day my friend asked me to show her the Chinese market I have talked about near here.  It is very convenient to ride to and has most of the things I need. Also there is the great veggie market across the street from it.  Going there is down a typical 'Chinese' street.  There are piles of trash along the way.  I cannot tell if the locals do not have or just do not use trash cans.....We have them here in the compound....It does seem that the piles do not grow exponentially so at some point there must be trash collection and they just shovel it into the trucks......haven't seen it, not sure I want to be around when they scoop...a bit ripe just sitting there, disturb the pile and all bets are off!!  We tried to find the meat market another friend told me about but it seems to have closed....people say little markets come and go rapidly.  Also restaurants suffer the same fate. I don't know how the Chinese restaurants even survive, prices are so low.  Last week I ran into some people I knew at school, they were heading out to lunch and invited me along.  We went to a very nice Chinese place.  There were five of us, we ordered six dishes, ate all we wanted/could, four of us took home leftovers and each of us only paid 48rmb.  Remember from my last post it is 6.3 rmb to 1 US dollar.   Back to the title of this post.....it is so easy to get distracted.....Squirrels, adorable little squirrels in a cage in the market we were in.  We thought they were so cute we took pictures.....I forgot all about it until last night when I was showing Olivia some other picture I took for her.  I keep commenting on the fact that they were right there in the meat area.  Why were live animals in the market??  They were so cute.....then Olivia says "They must eat them."  That is the only explanation!  I said..."oh gross, no they don't, who eats squirrels?"  Ha ha ha!  A realization comes into my brain.  My father eats squirrels, my friend in SC eats squirrels!  I used to  hunt with my dad for squirrels...(I do not think I ever ate one.)  It is just a different place to procure them.  The woods with a gun or the market where they probably kill and clean them for you.  Different world!!  (sorry the picture is not so great, used the phone and tried to zoom on the critter)  I did mention this to another friend and she didn't really think they were for eating....if not why were they in the meat section??

Another thing you do not see too often...or would that be not at all?...in American cities is public toilets.  On the street to the market there is a free  standing building with a sign, Public Toilet.  There are two women there all day long to keep it clean.  I have not had occasion to use this facility, however it is nice to know that I could?  Oh yeah, I would imagine it would be using a squat pot!!

Back to the nice restaurant we went to.  In the nicer restaurants they have large round tables with a lazy susan in the middle.  If you come in a group you will be seated at one of these.  Food is brought to the table on serving platters as it is expected that you all share, family style. It is brought out as it is cooked....not all dishes at one time as you expect in America.  You start eating as it is brought out, spinning the lazy susan to bring the dish in front of you.  You just reach for what you want with your chopsticks.  There are no serving utensils unless the dish is very juicy.  If you have an aversion to eating that way I guess you might be able to ask for your own dish of food to keep to yourself........I have not seen this done, everyone just shares:)  You have to pace yourself and not eat too much from the first dishes brought out because you always forget how many were ordered when you are in a group!

Love, sincerely, fondly,
zaijian,
Ramona

Having Fun

Nihao,

A good time was had by all.....
Our compound has a very active social life.  The residents have an association and the management has an association.  Both host/sponsor functions which everyone may attend.  Many of the resident functions cost a small amount of money to rent dishes and buy supplies.  The management ones tend to cost more as they have to have catering.  And then it seems individuals like to throw their own parties as well and you just bring a dish to share just like at home.
So far I have gone to a potluck lunch at someones home.....a RA function, we paid 20 rmb (think 6.3 to one US dollar) to provide dishes and supplies.  I met tons of new people from all over the world......Peru, US, France, Netherlands, England, New Zealand, Australia, and places I cannot remember.  A great picnic in someones yard.
Saturday the residents had a Progressive dinner.  This one is 100 rmb per couple to participate in the dinners.  One person hosts the appetizer course and that is where you pick up your "assignments" for the  rest of dinner.  After that you end up with 8 people at homes for starters, main and dessert.  We ended up roaming all over the compound to get to our houses.  After going from virtually opposite ends of the compound we had the main course up near the house so we stopped in to get bicycles.  It made it so much easier to get around.  Mike is 9 inches taller than me and I think most of that is in his legs.....really makes it hard for my short stumpy legs to keep pace!  We had fun, met lots more people and drank lots of wine!

Sunday we were invited to a Mexican dinner cooked by a German living in China.  Sounds pretty international to me......attended by families from the US, Australia, Germany, UK, Guyana, and NZ!!  Just boggles my mind sometimes.  Ernst even had a refrigerator full of Corona's.  Amazing pork slow cooked on the grill.

I cannot remember if I told you that we bought Olivia a bicycle last weekend.   We decided it was a better choice to use a $100 bike and not worry if it got stuck out in the rain than her $500 one that is coming. It has made such a world of difference in my life!  I can understand how exciting the creation of the wheel must have been.  I can now ride to school in 15 minutes instead of the 40 minute walk....which was causing my hip to hurt again....now it doesn't after a week and a half with the bike. We cannot say as much for a certain other part of my anatomy!!  Also the big basket it came with makes shopping a breeze.  No more wrenched out arms carrying home the bags of food.  Not to mention the shortened time involved.  Yesterday I went out 4 different times on the bike....I don't think I could have ever gotten home if I had to walk all those times!  I know I said it was for Olivia....She doesn't ride it to school.  We also had a friend lend us a bike they had never used....one of those fold up sorts....I had that a few days before we got Olivia's, it is good, but no basket....it does allow two of us to ride around which is so nice.  I can even get O to go to the store with me:)

Long enough for today,
Love, fondly, sincerely,
Zai jian,
Ramona

For my niece

Nihao,

This post is mostly for my niece.  We have noticed since we came here that shoes are a very important part of women's wardrobes.  Some are very interesting.  Some are what I like to call fashion suicide.  Some of the stores are pretty amazing in the sheer volume of styles available.  So the other day while roaming a store I decided to document some of them....in particular turquoise.....one of the colors my niece seems to like....a few pink ones thrown in for good measure!!  I know she likes pink:)  We didn't even document red, orange, green or of course good old brown and any other colors you can think of.

pink boots anyone??

This store is a clothing and shoe store. The shoes seem to go on as far as you can see.  There are almost as many shoes for men as women.  This is a small fraction of the racks in the store, multiply this area by maybe ten or fifteen....we didn't count.

That is it for the shoe show, hope you enjoyed it!!

Zaijian,

Ramona

Dishes, Cats and Quilts!

First off today I must apologize....It is not Ya Show Market in yesterdays post.....Mike and I cannot remember the name so when I find out I will correct it.  It isn't like they have a giant sign out front or anything!!

 For anyone in the family....you know what these are, just like home:)  For the uninitiated these are a family tradition for breadsticks at breakfast.

We were given a set of dishes by Mike's team at work.  It was a welcome to China, house warming gift.  A tradition here as well as in the US.  Blue is supposed to be an important color here and fish are also important, representing plenty, that you may always have plenty to eat.  I am not sure I have the exact meanings as there were 9 people gathered around as we opened the gift and they were all talking at once and very excited.  I don't think they knew just how much I like dishes so, for me anyway, it was the perfect gift.

Another pair from the bad day good day pictures out the second floor balcony.  This is not rain or fog, this is smog.

Just so you don't think it is all bad, below, the next day!

 And below that, sunset, out the same window.

Sparkles likes to get in things.  Her first day here she got into the sink in the tiny bathroom where the litter box is.  We don't actually use this as a bathroom because we have four other full baths in the house.

This looks like a black and white shot.....it's not, just look at her eyes!!

Here she is sitting in the basin I got for soaking laundry!

 This is one of the bihou we keep finding in the house.  I think we are up to six....the cats got to one of them before we did:(
They appear to be a type of gecko, I have tried looking them up but not  finding much information.  These guys are all babies.  they are so cute!!!

Random shot of the living room to show my quilt my Whoo friends made for me before we left.  It keeps them close as I see and use it everyday.  (Ayi folds them up neatly everyday..I prefer the draped look, oh well.) Also, the 2,000 piece puzzle we put together since we got here.  We brought a bunch of puzzles so we wouldn't get bored.....I don't have time to be bored!!  But, we had time to do the puzzle.  Our furniture is here in China but not here in our house:(




Just a regular house in a far away place full of leaky parts!!  Still working on getting Olivia's room done.  I hope they finish before our shipment makes it through customs.
Olivia got back last night from her trip to Harbin.  She seems to have had a good time.  We will post her pictures soon.

Love, fondly, sincerely,
Zaijian,
Ramona