So much stuff including trying new food and fostering a cat

It's been a week since I last posted....well, not quite a week, but close.  I didn't want to go this long between posts, but this week has been busy in so many ways.

First of all, I am now the proud foster mommy to an adorable little cat named Zongzi.  She's a cutie, and she has no teeth.  Apparently she has this disease that has been taken care of with her, but she can give it to other cats, so my boss runs an animal rescue and they will be getting kittens so she needed to be away from the other cats.  I don't know how long I will have her, but I'm excited.  Granted, she hasn't really come out of hiding...last night she wandered up to the door of my room and looked at me and cried, but she wouldn't come in.  Hopefully tonight or tomorrow I can get her to let me pet her.  Apparently she is really playful and lovable, so I hope I can coax her out.

Also, I found out that during October break I cannot leave Beijing, which sucks.  It has to do with the visas laws while they are switching my temporary visa to a permanent resident visa.  This means that my plans to go to Shanghai are off, but it also means I will be able to explore some more of Beijing, and Clark is also stuck here so we figured we might hit up a few things together.  It also means my first paycheck will allow me to save a bit more money than I had anticipated. <3  Which is good. xD

Work

Week 2 went okay.  I LOVE MY LIT CLASS.  These girls are amazing.  We read the first chapter of The Hobbit, and they talked and discussed and I even had them do a small creative writing assigning (we were focusing on setting and world building).  They are creative and talented and ~gushes profusely~

Also, in our meeting on Thursday, we celebrated mine and another teacher's birthdays...Cormac got a cake and everyone sang.  It was really  nice, actually. =]

Food

I've been cooking a little.  Last week I made curry and this week I made some meat sauce. This has saved me a little bit of money, which I'm happy about, but overall, it is nice to eat without having to go out.  Also, it makes sure I get enough protein.

I really wish I had a scale.  I can't tell what my weight is doing.  I'm not eating a lot, but it's still difficult to tell, and I get anxious about it.  I'm sure walmart sells scales but I don't know if I really want to spend the money.  However, I have not bought nutella again and I only had one soda with dinner tonight...I haven't actually bought any more soda.

I ate really interesting food the other day.  I was invited out to two with a fellow teacher and our boss, and the place we were going to go eat at was closed, so we tried the place next door.  Basically it is one of those places where you share a few dishes.  Cormac ordered and we ended up with a sweet and sour pork, a weird cabbage in soup broth  with  tiny shrimps and century egg dish, and this pork belly with carrot dish that tasted carmelized.  I didn't like the sweet and sour, but the other two dishes were amazing!  The cabbage had a nice flavor because of the broth.  Century egg is weird, but it wasn't bad at all.  A bit fishy tasting, but not bad. =]  And, the pork belly was amazing.  If you don't like fat (and generally I don't), you wouldn't like this dish, because it was absurdly fatty, but the flavor was magnificent.

I also found an amazing tea place at school.  I figured I will get one on Tuesdays and Fridays when I am teaching...it's a mango and orange green tea with QQ jellies. So tasty!

Money:

Money is a weird thing to balance here.  I withdrew just under 100 US dollars, and I still have some of that left.  I'm trying to make it last until I get paid...which should be next week?  I've had to purchase some more kitchen items, so some of my expenses were living expenses, so it's difficult to tell.

Dumplings:

I still need more of these. xD

Adventures in Laundry and Food stuffs.

Can you tell that I'm bad with titles? In fact, when I submitted my thesis to the grad schools several years ago, the only thing my committee asked me to change was the title...

Today was largely a bland day, which was  nice.  I'm still dealing with jet lag, though I can tell that it is getting  better.  I think I'm just getting old...I've never had jet lag this badly before! 

There is definitely some homesickness.  Not the crippling type of "I need to come home right now because I'm crying myself to sleep" but more of the "Wow, I'm here all alone without any of the comforts of home and I feel out of place".  It's a sort of dull homesickness like I haven't felt before, but I am enjoying myself, and I've met some nice coworkers, which is great.

However, there were two highlights of my day. Yay!

Laundry:

I figured out how to do  laundry! Yeah, I know that sounds silly.  But, seriously, it was an undertaking.  Doing laundry here involves moving the washer to right outside of the bathroom, plugging in the power, hooking up the water valve, and making sure the drainage hose is draining into the bathroom (in case you were wondering, the bathroom is essentially a shower with a toilet and sink in it).  On this note, I also managed to find laundry detergent, something I was nervous about because bottles of detergent look an awfully lot like other cleaners.

So, now I have some clean clothes drying in various places.  It's nice.  They smell good. xD

Food Stuffs:

I had a lovely chocolate and almond bread today, but it was dinner that was  OMFG to die for.

Clark and I decided we wanted to try one of  the BBQ places near us, and when we met up he told me about one he passed called MeowMeow. Needless to say, I  didn't  have to think twice.

So, MeowMeow was this amazingly cat and art themed place.  For instance, on the menu there was a cat face in a portrait of "The Girl With the  Pearl Earring" and "Starry Starry"night was painted on the wall.  And, there were these really pretty metal cats everywhere!

We had a bit of a kerfuffle when we first got there because neither of us speak the language so we weren't sure what the hostess was saying, but we eventually got seated.  

Something I've noticed about menus here, which I greatly appreciate, is that they have dishes in English as well as Mandarin.  This system was also set up in that we wrote down the numbers of what we wanted.  

We got:

*Chicken Wings

*Beef Skewers

*Pork Belly Skewers

*Lamb Skewers

*A Whole Fish

*Garlic Skewers

*Eggplant

And, we weren't able to finish it all.  And, it was amazing.  The seasoning was spot on; everything was absurdly flavorful.

And, here's the best part! It cost 138RMB.  What's that you say, Emily?  That sounds like a lot of money!  Hahah.  Doing the math it  came to $20 USD.  $20!!!  We had a ton of food. xD

Then we went to this Italian place  for dessert. We ordered two really lovely things to share and we each ordered a drink.  He  got  a fancy coffee and I got a fancy hot chocolate.  The desserts were lovely.  We got a fancy chocolate cake that was really dense with a ganache topping  and a fresh made apple pie slice.  And....it was 90RMB...which is $13.19! xD

Yes, I'm focusing on the money here (although the food is nothing at all to scoff at! Like seriously, that dinner was amazing!), but seriously this sort of meal would have cost probably $100 dollars or near about back home. xD

Dumpling Update:

Still no dumplings yet.=[

Arrival

I've arrived in China.

After a total of about 15 hours of flying, I made it here, arriving at 3:20 pm on Saturday (China time).  And, everything is new and different.

My apartment is nice.  There are two bedrooms, a cooking area, an eating area, and a small sunporch looking place.  I look out over a street (at some point I'll give you some photos), and right near my place is this grocery story and an amazing small bakery. Oh, yeah, and a KFC. ~shifty eyes~

Adjusting is going to be difficult, but I'm sure that I'll get used to it.  I mean, I'll be here for a year, so adjusting will happen.  And, I'm going to try to learn some of the language, but it won't be easy.

Odd things:

1) The bed is as hard as a rock.  Like, literally.  I'm used to sleeping on a memory foam mattress, and while a change isn't bad, my back is not agreeing.  Thank goodness for sleeping aides?!

2) The bathroom.  This is actually kind of cool. It works like a shower stall.  Quit literally.  Which means, everything gets wet when I want to take a shower. Hah.  It amuses me.

I went to the grocery store yesterday, walked around forever, and settled on sponges and bottles of water because I couldn't read anything else.  Granted, I did find some nutella, which I almost succumbed to, but it was super expensive, so I resisted.  Still though, I couldn't read the labels on anything, although it was easy to spot the packaged ramen.  One of my fellow teachers found a walmart, so I might end up there later for some lovely toilet paper....and maybe some food? Oh yeah, and hangers.

Dumpling Update:

I have not found any yet, but I will! =]