How's it going lately? It's been up and down. I'll take you on an episodic breakdown of our lives in the past week or so:
Up: Last week marked our second week of class. We were pleased to have a light schedule and things starting to settle down in the apartment. We realized that the cupboard was full of cookies, crackers and noodles and if we didn't figure out the vegetable shopping situation we'd be suffering carbohydrate overload. The supermarkets here are convenient, but the produce is a little frightening and often features cockroaches scattering when you move the fruit around. I set out to brave one of the crowded fruit and vegetable stands down a nearby alleyway. The produce is tantalizingly fresh and well cared for, but also surrounded by a harried mob of Chinese shoppers. I pushed my way in, observing the pandemonium from above (I'm tall in China!) and found that people were grabbing large plastic baskets from a pile and filling them with vegetables. I grabbed a basket and started poking around the offerings. I realized that the section of the crowd nearest the scale was actually some kind of line. So after I filled my basket with somewhat familiar vegetable items: carrots, green onions, bai cai (aka. bok choi), and eggplant. Then I pushed and shoved my way toward the scale. As I approached, I realized there was a technique to getting your stuff on the scale: hold your hand over the vegetables already on the scale, and when the other produce gets shoved into the bag, plop down your stuff before anyone else can! Which is what I did after a couple tries. I only had to ask the vendor to repeat the price once! I felt quite proud of myself as we settled down to our first real home cooked dinner of stir fried veggies and rice.
Down: Wednesday was a bit stressful as Richy learned via email that morning that a new three hour listening and speaking class had been added to his schedule - to be taught that very afternoon! So much for having a day off together in the middle of the week. After we called some folks in our department to figure out exactly what was going on (the original email didn't even include a room number), we found out that a Chinese English teacher had resigned the previous week and that Richy had been assigned his class. Richy was able to scrape enough material together to keep the class occupied for three hours. Way to keep us on our toes China!
Up: The weekend gave us an opportunity to get together with other PCV pals in the Jie Fang Bei area for an evening of beers, snacks and chats. But not before we got to take a four and a half hour self-guided walking tour of the city! We walked all the way from our house in Da Ping, along the Yangtze River (where we saw the brown-water-braving members of the Yangtze River Winter Swimming Club out for a little afternoon dip) and up the countless flights of stairs to Jie Fang Bei and the oddly pirate-themed "historic" area of Hong Ya Dong. We also entertained our first overnight visitor in our apartment, which forced me to actually straighten up the apartment as a whole, which made me realize how much progress we've made in making it livable.
Down: Third week of class begins while the two of us are still yet to receive school bus cards (or keys to the foreign teacher's office, but that got straightened out later in the day). For our 50+ minute commute to school on the school-owned bus, it costs 5 kuai each way, which means we have to make sure we have correct change everyday, which also means we spend 10 kuai every day we teach. 10 kuai doesn't sound like much - only $1.48 - but when you're living on 45 kuai a day, it adds up. Apparently it takes the school a long time to process these cards. In the meantime, we seem to be the only teachers paying cash for the bus. We also got to go for our second visa interview, which involved much running around town, waiting for the Korean international students, staring awkwardly into cameras and nodding affirmatively at appropriate times.
Up: Richy and I marked our 11 year relationship at the fanciest non-Chinese restaurant in town: Pizza Hut. Beer and pizza just really hits the spot sometimes, even if it involves "cheddar sauce" (tastes like boxed macaroni sauce) and warm Tsingtao over ice. We splurged and took a cab, then went out and bought peanut butter at Wal-mart and had ice cream at KFC. Oh the romance of it all...
Down: We had been planning an attempt at a culinary feat for days - butternut squash ravioli. After several trips to nearby supermarkets, we discovered that Parmesan cheese is easier to come by in Chengdu than in Chongqing. So we decided we could settle for mozzarella. After several evening attempts at buying won-ton wrappers for the ravioli, we discovered it is something that must be purchased in the morning. Finally, after deciding we would go for browned butter and garlic sauce instead of alfredo, steaming and mashing our butternut squash, and procuring some early morning fresh Chinese pasta product, we discovered our building's gas had been temporarily shut off. No boiling water for us! We dined on peanut butter and jelly instead.
I wonder what twists and turns tomorrow will bring!
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