From the Archives // September Superlatives

We are well into week three living in WS, Yunnan, and I believe this feeling is called mildly adjusted. Beautiful, new friendships here, letters from home, the occasional iMessage texting marathon, and good food have made our adjustment so much easier. (James and I both love Chinese food, but the slow discovery of PB&J and small snacks has made home, well, homier.)

Tonight, I finally started a workout regimen that was both breathtaking (scenery here, no pun) and butt-kicking, but more on that later. I have been finding joy in new relationships, specifically with a gorgeous, straight talking young momma that has naturally become my sister here in China. Today, I taught 2nd grade English & Grammar for the first time and loved every minute of it; which confirmed a recently resurfaced notion to get a linguistics minor. Watch out people, nerdy English lover here! And each day, I am moving away from my self-imposed, “You should be doing more!” pep talk in my head, to a slightly slower pace where I am finding relationships overflowing with encouragement and common interests.

Cab drivers suck. Eating is harder. Your body is in shock over altitude, severe diet change, and all around new lifestyles. Your mind makes you feel like every day is a week long and just when you think there is no end to the culture shock, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You find a new friend to love or – even better – a Chinese baby or two.

So here’s a highlight reel of my favorite things about China this September:

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#7  Best Weather for Bundling Up!

High altitudes bring severe temperature drops when the rain brings cloud cover for more than a day. Chilly weather is my favorite so digging out my boots & a jacket for a couple of days was a treat!

#6  Best Smelling…

I am not talking about the air here… harsh smells of China are hard to keep out. 

Until you finally find a few yummy scented candles. This particular little betty smells like my Mom’s Chanel No. 5 perfume that filled the house with a classy, sweet scent throughout my childhood.

#5  Most Likely to Make Me Recite You’ve Got Mail:

“Harmless, harmless, meaningless… bouquets of sharpened pencils.”  Enough Said.

#4  Most Nostalgic Nail Color.

My favorite nail color – Absolutely Shore, by Essie – that was given to me (& instantly stashed in my suitcase) the night before we left for China. It may be the only color I have, but I will wear it obsessively and it will not get old.

#3  Most Colorful City at Night.

Vegas aint got nothin’ on China. 

Every building in the city lit with beautiful, changing and cascading colors.

#2  Best Treat, Near or Far

Every night after sunset, shao kao vendors hit the streets to start serving the BEST meal in China, period. End of Story. There is no arguing the glory and simplicity of every meat you can think of, an endless array of veggies, and open air grilling. And did I mention spices that will make you cry for your mommy? OH BABY! It’s good!

And topping this superlative list at No. 1

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#1  Best Person to Travel the World With

Trusty leader and gentle husband. After putting up with my “adjusting” and constant culture shock for the past couple of weeks, he deserves a serious shout out.

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There you have it… My favorite things about China this month. If my stories of adjustment had you thinking, “why would I ever try that?” Think again. It’s rewarding and trying in the same moment. Its a beautiful collision of shock and emotional highs.

But it wouldn’t be love without its ups and downs, now would it?

From the Archives // Ice Cream: an ideal Culture Shock Remedy

After a milestone weekend (first week = over), filled with moments of culture shock and triumphant adjusting (we found peanut butter, people), it was Monday morning. Start fresh right?

Wrong. Monday morning was one of those rare but incredibly frustrating, “Hey! I’m new here, please take advantage of me…” moments that are just part of the experience of moving to new place. My inability to speak Chinese has kept me a little timid over the past week, rarely venturing out without James. However, this day was going to be an easy cab ride across town to spend the day with an American friend. Wrong again.

James waited for a cab with me, confirmed the location twice with the driver and rushed off to catch his bus to class. As soon as he was gone, the cab driver does a u-turn across the oncoming 4 lanes of traffic and heads off in the wrong direction… New route, I’m thinking. He drives around the city square we live near and stops on a street off of the back side of the square and asks for his fare. At this point, I am a little panicked – no phone and no way to tell him he is way wrong. After a few minutes of awkward gesturing, I get him to use his phone to make a call knowing that James will not answer as he is on a noisy city bus and does not have caller ID.  By this point, he knows he is wrong but what’s a girl to do?

I fumed and cried the entire walk home, after being ripped off for a cab fare that was not earned and convinced that the driver knew exactly what he was doing but knew that I could not correct him. Two and half hours and a rain storm later, I am sitting on a bench under a huge tree to stay clear of the rain waiting for James to get home from school. The end. That day, I hated China.

But things get better. You see a friend, remember a face, or explain to a new friend why you made the trip across the world. Things always get better.

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Yesterday, I spent the day getting to know a new friend. Laughter and vulnerability that encouraged my heart like only friendship can. We spent the day watching her kids and adding another two babies to the mix. I forgot how exhausting babysitting can be…

After a long, successful day (“I made it in a cab on my own” is the current definition of success), we met up with James for shao kao. Shao kao is quite possibly our favorite food here; meats and veggies that covered in spice and cooked over extremely hot coals & only available late in the evening on streets all over the city. I didn’t stop eating long enough to take a picture of the food so…

Here’s what shao kao looks like after we destroyed everything.

My new little best friend, Annie, who I convinced that green beans were here favorite because they are mine.

Our spot of choice. Behind the grill, baskets and trays of meats, veggies, potatoes, and tofu are kept. You pick what you want, sit down, and its brought out little by little as everything cooks over the coals.

After dinner, we brought the Robbins to our neighborhood for Baroque ice cream & gelato, a serious treat.

It’s a good day when ice cream is in the mix.

From the Archives // Disconnected & Other Doses of Crazy

Still little to no connection to the outside world. We tried the local coffee shop in hopes that the open wifi connection would be enough to send a few emails, read the new ones, and maybe update a quick post or two. But after about 3 minutes of connection, it tanked and never came back.

To stay cheerful, we pulled out a deck of cards. After a game and a half, the waitress came over and asked us to move up to the next story if we wanted to play… Interesting, I thought; a three story ”Western” coffee shop where relaxing and games are not preferred. Granted, the restaurant had a certain clientele, so we decided to just pack up and head home.

I realize that lack of internet is nothing to complain about, but the lack of solutions is starting to make us a little crazy. It makes the communication barrier that much more difficult to bear. First world problems, I know.

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Tuesday, we had to get medical exams at the local hospital. They require drawing blood so James was a goner right off the bat. The nurse who performed the task was great – very fast and very gentle. I went first while James waited patiently in the hallway. We took James into the sonogram room for his turn so he could lay down. He made a joke about being pregnant and settled into the waves of nerves. I talked to him about Liverpool and kept his mind off of the needles and vials of blood sitting nest to him. The blood had rushed out of his face, but he remained cheerful while relaying his favorite soccer team’s trades and upcoming games.

Everything was fine until a couple of minutes after the procedure wrapped up. He started to get weak and all the blood drained from his limbs and face. He sat through waves of feeling like he would pass out to feeling like throwing up. He hadn’t had anything to eat all morning, so our beautiful friend Abigail ran to grab him a Sprite.

The rest was fairly humiliating, including the heart rate portion where an old male doctor had you lay down on your back while he lifted up your shirt (and bra!) to take your heart rate… really uncomfortable for me while James was still dying down the hallway. I got over it quickly and guided James through his exams.

For me, the horror didn’t stop there. Having to pee in a cup over a disgusting squatty potty in the disgusting hospital tops my chart. Enter: peeing in a cup scenario without tissues on hand. The whole thing was messy and horrible. Trying aiming at a cup while squatting over a disgusting hole… only women will understand this one. I peed everywhere except the cup, go figure. The icing on the pee-cake was having to walk down a hallway, open cup in hand and deliver to a window down the long hall, after passing a crowd of onlooking Chinese. I compulsively wiped my hands with the remaining 15 wipes in my little pack and threw the packaging away – any reminder had to go.

On the taxi ride home and subsequent walk to and from lunch, I wouldn’t utter a word… except when I sternly turned to a honking car that was crossing our path as we made way through the crosswalk and kindly asked it to, “shut the *%#$ up.” Persistent honking happens every ten seconds on a normal walk, but in that moment, it was a blatant intrusion into my personal thoughts and sulking.

The view out of our back window… a tiny farm oasis in the middle of a large city.

Things get better from here… 

From the Archives // To Swiffer or Not?

Our first day in Wenshan felt as if it lasted forever. By the end of the night, it was hard to tell what had taken place just that morning. Everything felt stretched out – as if a week had already gone by.

Keeping floors clean here is probably a joke God is playing on me. Especially in this warm season when it is necessary to open all the windows throughout the apartment every morning to cool the rooms and keep them open as much of the day as possible, with hopes for a breeze. Dust, smoke and the city’s pollution float right into the apartment. Yesterday two women began fueling a fire with dried brush to burn a huge mound of plastic – right across the street from our kitchen. A joke, indeed.

My sister would be proud. She has a slight obsession (read: compulsion) to keep her floors clean. She walks around with a Swiffer in hand most of the day. This is no exaggeration. Anyone who knows her has experienced her clean-freak behaviors and has walked into her immaculate house at any time of the year – whether 12 people are taking up residence for the holidays or she is hosting a weekend get together with friends and neighbors. It’s almost unnatural to see her without the Swiffer in hand.

Yesterday we ventured to the market to grab an equivalent tool for our expansive tile floors. A microfiber dry mop and squeegee-like wet mop. I have since wet mopped twice and dry mopped just about every fifth time I walk across the apartment and notice the little green magician leaned conveniently at the sliding glass doors near our kitchen.

Grocery shopping has once again stumped me. I wander around DeeMart trying to figure out characters and somewhat misleading graphics on the labels. In the Kunming Walmart, it took James and I about 15 minutes to determine which bottles of Pantene were shampoo and which were conditioner. (Who cares if we got shampoo for dry/brittle/oily or purple hair at this point.) Yesterday, finding floor and surface cleaner was about as much as we could take. Street vendors and tiny roadside “restaurants” are our current kitchen.

The great internet adventure is still under way. After some help from a friend, a visit to the store across town, and an afternoon waiting in agony after misunderstood phone calls in million-word-a-minute Mandarin, we are still without a connection to the outside world. Every couple of minutes we would jump up to watch the window, hoping that the only word we understood, “after” meant he would come that night. So far… nothing.

James attempt at reheating & stir-frying a new meal. One small step for man…

From the Archives // Let the Games Begin

We arrived in Shanghai after a business class upgrade (yahoo!) from Tokyo. It was the best leg of our flights. We were greeted with cushy pillows, huge blankets, reclining seats, and champagne! All things that make this camper very happy. James slept the whole flight and I enjoyed the amenities before crashing for an hour as well. Unfortunately, the flight was only two and a half hours… we could have used a few more hours of rest. When we arrived in Shanghai, we grabbed luggage and headed to the subway. I lost my favorite Apple sweater lugging bags through the subway, but it served as a reminder that a new season has begun and the past is to be left behind. After an hour on the subway, a brief stop in front of the Shanghai Apple store to send a text or two back home, and a quick cab ride we had arrived at our hotel. We crashed  into bed and waited for the morning to go out and see the city.

Shanghai was hot and busy. We walked about an hour and a half through People’s Square and saw a few sites before I was done with the heat and jet lag started to set in. After a quick break at the hotel, we headed back to the subway, only a few blocks walk with luggage in tow. About fifteen minutes into our subway ride, James looked up, wide eyed with a worried look on his face. He began searching through his phone. When he finally looked back up, he noted that somehow we had ended up on the wrong train to the wrong airport. The flight he had booked was from the airport on the other end of town, so off we jumped and caught the opposite train.

After a very smoky 3 hour flight to Kunming (don’t kid yourself – no smoking signs mean nothing to Chinese business men) we spent two nights at the Sakura – two very quick and jet lagged nights. We walked the city throughout the morning when we couldn’t sleep and met Dan for dinner the second night. Early Thursday morning, we grabbed a bus to Wenshan… but when I say grabbed, it implies ease, which was really not the case. Brandt was probably the best face we have ever seen when he arrived to pick us up at the Wenshan bus station. After being stared at every time we stepped out of a hotel room, its nice to see another familiar American face. He greeted us with a huge hug and took us to our new home for the next three months. The apartment is minimal and spacious, once used by a family who had returned to the states to have there second baby.

Our first night was just that – a first night. After an awesome dinner with Brandt and Mel, we grabbed a taxi back across town to home sweet unsettled home. It was toasty from being closed up for a week or so with only one fan. We didn’t know how to work the water heater (or find towels), so cold showers were the choice as we had been traveling and sweating throughout the day. Cold is better than none. We walked to the nearby DeeMart for a tabletop fan for the bedroom and grabbed soap and laundry detergent, as we couldn’t find any food that looked remotely quick or easy except Oreo cookies. And thus, the night commenced, clunky and a little uncomfortable, but honestly better than we could have anticipated.

Today we are tackling cleaning floors, ordering water, unpacking, and hopefully internet. All of these are hopeful wishes for now.

 Fake Apple stores abound on almost every corner…