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.=[

Adventures in Food, Medical Exams, and Bank Accounts

I few things that I have learned: 

1) Jet lag kicked my ass.  I woke up on Sunday feeling fine.  In fact, I woke up at 8am after having gone to bed around ten.  Seems like a good start, no?  Well, I went down to the store, grabbed an egg tart (THOSE THINGS ARE AMAZING, and if you live in Atlanta, Sweet Hut has ones that taste EXACTLY THE SAME), bought some toilet paper and water, and came home.  I relaxed for a bit, talked with some people and then, at around 2ish, I passed out.  Woke up, decided to go for a walk, wandered around for awhile and then grabbed some dinner (again, an egg tart because I wasn't sure what to do).  Came back.

I had to get up super early this morning.  Today was a long day (it's only 2:43 :(  ), but anyway, I could not sleep last night.  At all.  I tried.  I went to bed at about 11 to get up at 5:20.  And I maybe slept all of 1 hour total?  ~headdesk~

2) The Chinese medical exam is terrifying.  Like, it shouldn't be, but man, my blood pressure and heart rate spiked something fierce.  I mean, it shouldn't have.  And, I only had to do three of the elements of the check because they accepted my blood work, EKG, and chest x-ray, but they cycle you through these small medical rooms where everything goes very quickly.  They stamp a form that I cannot read, and then they send you on your way.  I'm guessing I passed. xD

3) The metro system is really easy to use.  The signs for the trains are also in English, and it helped that our boss gave us (Clark and me) a schedule we had to follow as far as what trains to take.  I got my metro card as well.  It cost 20RMB and the extra 30 (from the 50 dollar note I had) goes towards my rides, which are, by the way, only like 2-3 RMB a ride.  Super cheap!

Metro Card! xD

4) Opening a bank account here is much easier than opening one in America.  Granted, the line was long, but holy cow, it took my passport, a couple of signatures, and viola! I am not the proud owner of a Bank of Beijing bank account and debit card. Yeah, I know, I know.  Very cool. xD

Bank Card!

5) My boss loves boardgames and invited Clark and I to a boardgames thing on Saturday.  We both seem keen on it, which is pretty cool.  It is just starting up, but Cormac is super nerdy and so it is awesome.

6) Food.  So, I've eating a lot of egg tarts, but today Clark, Cormac, and I went out for lunch after all of our errands this morning.  Clark and I wanted Chinese food, so we ended up at this little place called Face to Face. It's quite near where I live, and I got a beef noodle soup which was to die for.  TO DIE FOR.  Seriously, it was amazing.  And, it was super duper cheap! It cost 25RMB which equates to $3.67 in US dollars.  Cheapest lunch ever, and it was a ton of food.

An exciting story:

So, for me this is exciting, and for those who know I had the VSG surgery over a year and a half ago, you may or may not find this exciting.  We were waiting in line at the Medical Examination place, and apparently my doctor put my weight in pounds instead of kilograms.  No big deal, except Cormac pointed it out.  Apparently Jing, the lady in HR, asked him about it because if it were correct my weight would be over 400lbs.  

So why is this story exciting to me? Because when Jing asked, Cormac said I was normal sized. ~squee~ Normal sized. <3<3<3

That is all.