Jonesing for a PB&J---Tracy

 Monday

Today’s goal was to find the fixins for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with chips!  With all the working out I have been doing I have really been craving a PB&J!   So today is the day and I will not return until I get it!

One hour and a half later….Success!   It normally would not take me that long, but it is really hard to tell the difference between a jar of jam and a jar of salsa. So, there is a bit of flying by the seat of our pants when shopping.  Thank goodness peanut butter looks the same in any country. The bread tasted a bit off (not sure why they have to put spices in everything) but the rest was great!  I was able to find a market that I did not need to take a taxi or the subway to and get what I needed.   And of course I grabbed a box of Tricks for Mike.

Longqing Gorge Ice and Snow Festival---Tracy

Saturday

Today we went on an outing with our church to the Longqing Gorge Ice and Snow Festival. The event is sometimes called the "Little Three Gorges” in reference to the three gorges of the Three Gorges Dam project.

--- Warning history lesson---

Longqing Gorge, located about 80 km (50 mi) northwest of Beijing, and is named after Emperor Longqing of the Ming (1368-1644) Dynasty, during whose reign (1567-1572), the Great Wall had been penetrated by a Mongol force under the command of the Altan Khan, reaching Beijing itself, though the emperor managed to repulse the khan's army. Later, the emperor, seeking to neutralize the Mongol threat by peaceful means, signed what one might today call a trade and security pact with Altan Khan whereby the khan purchased silk from China in exchange for horses. Peace ensued.

---Lesson over---

The Ice & Snow Festival, which, at night, is illuminated by a flood of colorful lights, is held each year from the 15th of January through the 29th of February. During the rest of the winter season, the area is closed to tourists, but opens for the summer-autumn season (April 10th to November 15th), where the gorge is known for, among other things, its bungee jumps. Yee Haw!!

It was very beautiful and very cold!  The only thing that kept me from hightailing it back to the bus was the numerous fires that they had scattered about the place, and Mike not letting go of me. He was mumbling something about me being a party pooper.  

This is part of the frozen damn.

Happy Chinese New Year---Tracy

Week of January 23-27

Happy Chinese New Year!

The Chinese New Year is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. In China, it is known as "Spring Festival," the literal translation of the Chinese name 春節. And without boring you with a long history lesson, it is essentially a week off of work (Mike too), spending time with family eating and shopping, much like our Christmas season. I have also provided a link for more explanation if you like.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

We spent the week getting some much needed R & R in Korea, more site seeing in Beijing and just learning to get round to get some of the necessities of life.  It seems that everything is a struggle here; where to find food, how to read what we are buying, even trying to get something for a headache is exhausting.  Taxis are even difficult to get.  There seems to be a competition between people standing on the sidewalks, in the street and even walking in the road, to get a taxi.  It wouldn’t be all the bad to wait for a taxi, but when it is 19 degrees out, you REALLY don’t want to stand around waiting!

I have a “taxi book”.  It is a small book that I keep in my purse that has about 100 of the most popular places to go in Beijing.   It is broken up in Grocery/Household stores, Apartments, (so we can find our friends), Embassy’s, Hospitals and just things like that for new comers.  Each page is in both English and Chinese, that way I can find where I want to go and then just show the taxi driver, and we’re off! 

I found that all my senses are being constantly bombarded and overloaded.   I am not yet able to filter out what is relevant and what to ignore.  I see, smell, and hear everything!   Being a person with ADD in a city of 20 million people is physically and mentally exhausting. 

The reason that we decided to head to Koreas was because our Chinese visas are still only the tourist type, so we have to leave the country every 30 days until our work visas are ready.  The duration of our stay doesn’t matter just as long as leave, we could even land have our passports stamped and turn right around and get on the next flight back to China.  But where is the fun in that?

So, we had to come up with where to go.  We had thought about Hong Kong.  But then I had an idea about Tokyo. It is not really that far and we could go to Disneyland, and get an American fix. Looking at the map I saw that Korea was even closer, only a two hour flight and we could stay at one of the American military bases and get a real American fix!    And that’s just what we ended up doing.   Once we settled on that, the ideas just started to flow of what we could do and get.  First and for most, I really needed a good Mexican meal!  Mike needed a good haircut and while we were at it why not get a pedicure, (for me).  Of course, we made a list of items to pick up at the PX, (Post Exchange, like a JC Penny’s) and a stopover at the base clinic for my persistent cough. 

We decided on Yougson Garrison Army Station in Seoul.  It was the closest military outpost to the Incheon Airport, and the biggest one with all the amenities that we were looking for.  It even had a Baskin Robbins, a must for all traveling destinations!

                                  The housing on the base reminded us of Kadena in Japan.

.

I am really hoping you can read the fine print at the Elementary school parking lot.  You should be able to just click it to enlarge it.

 

View of the base from our hotel.

Once we landed in Seoul, with only 30 minutes to spare to catch our shuttle, we made a beeline to the USO. With us just about running through the airport, I looked back to see Mike slowing down as we neared a dough nut and ice cream shop.  From then on I had to keep a close eye on him.  WE WERE NOT GOING TO MISS THIS BUS FOR ICE CREAM!    Five minutes after we boarded the bus the driver shut the doors and off we went.  Yes, Mike got a stern look from me! 

It was about a 35 min ride through a very nice countryside.  There was way more water than I had expected, it was very must like the Northwest with the Puget Sound snaking its way here and there.  I knew Korea was on a peninsula but I did not know about all the little islands, it seemed like there was hundreds of them, they were everywhere!  There were a lot of bridges connecting the larger islands and there really was not that much traffic.  It was a nice reprieve from the traffic in Beijing.    

In the middle of this major city is a square piece of land that is Yougson Garrison.  It was kind of odd to see it right there in their city. A US military base taking up prime real-estate.  Hmmmm…?  We checked in at the Dragon Hill Lodge, dropped our bags off in the room and went to check things out.  It was really nice to see all the military men and women.  Most were Army, but there was a smattering of Marines and a dash of Air Force.   I felt like a kid in a candy store and did not know what to do first!  We found the barber shop and got Mike’s hair back in regulations, (it had been driving me NUTS!) and then off to the local Mexican restaurant for dinner.   We then stopped off at the front desk to get directions to the PX for some shopping.  It was then our best laid plans started to come unraveled.

 As it turns out, you need a ration card—sorry, old term.  It is really called a USFK (United States Forces Korea) Temporary Ration Control Plate.  It is to control the black market in Korea—they have a major problem with people buying things at the PX and then leaving the base and selling the stuff for a profit.  So, even if we have our Military ID cards and are authorized to shop at the PX or BX in the states, you still cannot shop at the PX or Commissary in any of the military bases in Korea without a rations card.  A rations card is only given to people living there, or that have official orders or if a sponsor is there with you. Well, to say that we were very disappointed would be an understatement.

Ok, no problem, plan B.   We asked her if we could rent a car and just head off base to do some shopping.  She said “yes, and if I could just see your international driver’s license we could get you going”. We said, “our what now?”   So much for plan B. 

At this point I am thinking, “I could be at Disneyland right now!” but keeping my cool, at least until I got back to my room was my priority. Once I was in the safe confines of our room did finally let out a  “IIIEEE AMMM SOO PISSSED OFF RIGHT NOW!”

Mike knew it was time to get out the lotion for a foot rub.  After that, and with me feeling better, we decided to head over to the hospital to have someone look at my throat.  I have always found it best to stop in the Emergency room about 7pm because most people are still having dinner and doing family stuff. We were the only ones there and it went very fast, once we got entered into the system (that part is important for later).  I got an x-ray and was given a clean bill of health, notwithstanding the three month old cough!   The Doctor, I will call him Doogie Howser, because of his very young age, gave me a nasty steroid drink, allergy medication, and some sort of antibiotics.  Dr. Howser did find us living in Beijing very interesting and shared his stories of living in Shanghai with us. 

Once back in our room, we decided that the next morning as soon as the office opens for the “Rations Card”, we would head over there and see if there was any way they could help us out.  

Thursday morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel, along with about 20 other army guys and then we headed over to take care of business.  We explained to the army Sergeant at the front counter that we were here about the ration control plates.  He asked to see our ID cards and after seeing that we were already in the system he said, “Ok, just look in this camera and we can set you up with a temporary one”.   We both looked at each other with the biggest grin ever!  We could not believe it!  Because we visited the hospital last might we now were part of the base and could get a rations card.  Woohoo!  Time to go shopping!

Mike did have to do a quick work conference call at 11AM, and I still needed to have my pedicure, have lunch, check out of our hotel, shop, and then catch the bus back to the airport by 3PM.  

I will not bore you with all that we got at the PX, but it mainly involved chocolate!   Chinese chocolate just is not the same. 

All in all it was nice to have a quick American fix and to recharge my batteries from the noise and chaos that is now my day to day life.

Back to China!

Worst. Boss. Ever.---Mike

Friday, January 20, 2012

Morning

I went to work a bit early for a morning conference call with some folks back at Corporate. The snow has really messed everyone up—I wish we were there to enjoy it! No snow here yet, except for that first Saturday, and it came and went pretty quickly. My boss called to let us know he wants the Beijing team back in Shanghai on February 6^th for the day, so we’ll be heading down for a day of meetings, but not staying the night. I faxed the paperwork to Sprint to begin canceling our phone service, but that turned out to be an adventure all in itself. I did everything okay, but the machine, after telling me that the fax had transmitted okay, kept trying to dial again, and when it did, it kept getting an error message from the Chinese phone line (in Chinese, of course, so I have no idea what curses it was slinging at me). Crazy. At one point, I managed to have all four of us huddled around the fax machine trying to solve it. We unplugged it, but it still kept going when we plugged it back in. We disconnected the phone line, and it STILL kept going. We finally pushed the right combination of buttons (all labeled in Chinese, of course—the big green button is the only one that makes any sense to me!) to get it to stop, but it was pretty comical for a bit. Worst. Boss. Ever.

I also have a really long story I can email anyone interested, but the moral of the story is that you cannot use a ball point pen to sign checks in China. You must use an ink pen. Get the difference? I’m not sure I do, but it was a hard lesson learned!

Afternoon

 They took me to lunch at The Little Great Wall Restaurant. It’s just around the corner from the office, and they described it as “home food,” or like the stuff their Mom’s used to make. I took a picture of a couple of menu items, so you can appreciate what choices we have—everything from “bird nest” to “bullfrog!” But fortunately for me, they stayed a bit more traditional—we had green beans with minced pork, meatball stew with winter melon (a very mild melon), some very finely julienned potatoes and green peppers, and some Kung Pao chicken (with, of course, the bowl of steamed rice that accompanies every meal). The four of us left some food behind for ¥95, or about $15, and it was really tasty!

Quiet afternoon after that.

Thank you Netflix!---Mike

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Morning

Flew back to Beijing—no delays. Got back to the office just after lunch, and then our driver took Tracy on to the hotel. My staff was hungry, so we ran down to the Japanese restaurant for a quick bite—again, nothing but good. I had the beef dish, but Angela had some teriyaki, so I’m going to have to try that next time.

Afternoon

I commandeered Angela to take me to the phone place. I asked her as we were leaving if it was the same place, and she said yes, so I got my camera ready . . . only to find out that it wasn’t the same place. Sorry! It was a completely normal office, and fortunately not as crowded, so it only took us an hour to get the paperwork done for two sim cards. Now, we just have to buy the phones, and we’re in business. When we were done, and since we had the driver, he took me home at the end of the day (at the normal time—the team was still working hard, so I now SUCK as a boss!). The traffic is a bit lighter than normal since we’re so close to the New Year holiday, and it still took me 45 minutes to get home, just like taking the subway. The subway is the way to go!

Tracy was watching a Jeff Dunham  special on Netflix when I got home. We had Cocoa Puffs for dinner, and watched an hour of White Collar on Hulu, and then another hour of Psych on Netflix. The internet signal in the hotel is strong enough to stream effectively, and the VPN we signed up for lets us take advantage of all of the online content we couldn’t get if they didn’t think we were in the states (LA, in this case). Still need to check out Amazon Prime one of these days.

Shanghai...Again

Wednesday, January 19, 2010

Morning

Flew to Shanghai for the annual staff dinner. This happens once a year, and it’s kind of a cool tradition. Anyway, Tracy was having a bad morning. A really bad morning. One of those mornings where nothing goes right, and no matter what she did, it just kept getting worse. It was all little things—the trip to the airport took longer than it should have because of traffic, we thought we were flying first class, but weren’t, the flight got delayed, we walked to the wrong gate—but they all added up on top of the stress of being in a foreign country away from (almost!) everything and everyone she loves. But, she soldiered on in the end, just like she always does, and the plane finally took off at 11:00 am.

Afternoon

We dropped Tracy off at the hotel, and went to the office for meetings with the Shanghai staff. Lots of good discussions—it’s always amazing to me that even though there are several phone calls every day between our two offices, we always get soooooo much more done in person. Expensive to get together, but seemingly worth it. Afterward, we went out for dinner to Pudong Shanghai, which at first, seemed like yet another restaurant in the first floor of a hotel. But, oh boy, was it so much more. It was a buffet style restaurant, with dishes from every part of the world there. Middle East, Central America, Asia, North America, Europe (sorry, Benn—I’m not familiar enough with South American food to know it if I saw it)—it was all there, and all yummy. Most of the staff had three or four plates, before dessert (which was usually two rounds). We finally had to cut everyone off, because while the four folks from North America had been done for over an hour, several of the Shanghai Staff were still going strong! It was incredible how much food they put away, but it was delicious enough to understand why.

Dumplings....mmmmm!

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Morning

Had a morning meeting with a potential customer this morning. He arrived for the meeting about 45 minutes late because of the traffic—which, I’m learning, is pretty normal. Everyone we’ve made an appointment with at our office has been at LEAST 20 minutes late, and usually more. You’d think that they would figure out how to get somewhere on time, but a strong part of their culture seems to be that the meeting starts when it starts. <sigh> Anyway, afterward we went to lunch with him to the local Shanghai Restaurant. I love the Shanghai style of food—it’s much sweeter than the typical Beijing food (which I think is yummy, if you haven’t picked up on that by now!).

Afternoon

Well, I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that I remembered my camera, so I could take pictures of the mall from yesterday! The bad news is that we didn’t get a chance to go back today—we had an audit scheduled for 4:00 pm to review our petty cash balance, and Angela needed to get ready for it. So, we’ll try again after our Shanghai trip. When I got home, Tracy had a small pizza waiting for me—it was pretty good. But she decided that she wanted some fried dumplings from Gourmet Street, so off I went. It’s only a five minute walk/elevator ride to the mall, but when I got there, they had just started a new batch, so I had to wait about seven or eight minutes for them to come out piping hot. But that wait will give me time to tell you about the different dumplings. J  There are boiled, steamed, and fried—fried seem to be the best. They are filled with everything you can think of, but there’s this one specific kind of meat that seems to be the best (and most common, fortunately!). Beijing is known primarily for its steamed dumplings, and their not bad at all—when you come out, we’ll take you to Din Tai Fong, and you’ll see what I mean. But the fried part adds to the taste, just like fried chicken tastes better than broiled. Broiled is good—fried is better (just not better for you!). So, two orders of fried dumplings and a side of fried rice tasted really good beside the pizza. How can we not love this country?

China Mobile---Mike

Monday, January 16, 2012

Quiet morning—routine is really settling in. Workout, cleanup, breakfast, scripture study, and off to work. We did Skype with Tina this morning briefly, though she is always doing weird things in front of the camera, so it’s hard to take her seriously. J The Monday Morning Staff Meeting, where we call the Shanghai office to compare notes on the week’s plan. After, I got to hand out the annual bonuses to everyone as part of the Chinese New Year’s celebration. It’s customary for employers and family to hand out money at the start of their new year in bright red envelopes called “hong bao.”   It’s just the right size for money, normally, but I was handing out a letter explaining what would be in their paycheck at the end of the week, so the ones I picked up were larger. The folks in the office were surprised that I knew about the culture so much that I knew about hong bao, and they were happy with the bonus (equal to one month of their salary), of course, so if I committed any faux pas, they didn’t share it with me. Mission accomplished!

Afternoon

Our office manager, Angela, is back today from her tour across the states, so we decided to have her help us get cell phones. She warned us, however, that it would take at least 90 minutes there in line at China Mobile, so Tracy opted to spend the afternoon poolside instead. So, Angela had an errand or two to run, and I had to get Tracy’s passport from the hotel, so we agreed to meet at the China Mobile store. After getting to the correct subway stop, and coming to the surface, I quickly found the correct shopping center sign . . . on a small, shabby building literally in the middle of the road. I’m not kidding—it looked like a small storage shed. I crossed half the street, and went through the door (that looked like they were still working on it, BTW. At this point, I was REALLY glad that Tracy wasn’t with me!). As I descended, I went into a dimly lit hallway that had small shops set up on either side. I really gotta start carrying my camera with me—this stuff is too priceless to not show everyone. So, I finally found the store, and went in to try to get a number for the waiting line, like Angela had asked me. She hadn’t finished her other things to do yet, so she was going to be a bit longer. However, they wouldn’t give me a number without interviewing me, so fifteen minutes later, and a painful conversation in broken English (and not even broken Chinese effort on my part, so their effort was way better than mine!), I still didn’t have a number. Grrr. But then I found out that the computer that programs the sim cards (you have to buy a sim card and phone separately here) was down, so I’d need to come back tomorrow anyway. The good news is that I went home a bit early, and I’ll try to remember the camera tomorrow!

When I got back to the room, Tracy had ordered room service—spaghetti for dinner tonight!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

We went to church in the morning, and heard from a Hawaiian, a Korean, and a Kenyan (the latter two are married). As I look around the congregation, it doesn’t seem as diverse as our speakers have been the past two weeks, but there are still other nationalities that haven’t spoken yet. Still, as the branch is smaller than the Belfair Ward, I suspect we’ll be asked to speak soon.

We spent the afternoon lounging by the pool, and watching movies—a welcome break from our busy, first full week.

Wangfujing Street Trip---Mike

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Morning

Big plans today, just like last Saturday—going shopping to pick up a few things to make life better. We were starting to run out of money, so I also need to figure out the ATM situation. After discussing it, we decided it would be better to leave Tracy home, as she is getting increasingly frustrated at the transportation situation (subway is reliable but WAY to crowded for her, and taxis are hard to find at times, and it’s hard to be sure if we are going the most reasonable route or not). So, off I set. First stop, to find an ATM. Didn’t turn out to be too hard, though. After a quick internet search, I learned that there are four banks that allow international transactions. I found one of their ATMs at the west end of the mall that is below the hotel. Mission accomplished! Next, I set out to find a specific store in a mall about 30 minutes away, because it had been recommended to me as having the VGA cable I needed to hook the computer to the TV. Found the mall and the store, and got the cable. Sweet! Next, I headed about halfway back home, and walked two blocks to a Wal-Mart (turns out they have about five here) that seemed to be convenient to the subway, but in reality was about a half a mile. Anyway, I bought a humidifier and some speakers for the computer—now we’re in business! We can hook up the computer to the TV and watch DVDs or Netflix, something that we could only do in the bedroom with our headphones to this point. Life is good!

Afternoon

After lunch, Tracy and I walked down to Wangfujing Street on the west side of our hotel. This has many shops, and we stopped at a bookstore to get some hong bao. These are red envelopes that the Chinese hand out at the New Year to give money to family or people that work for them. I needed them to hand out to my folks on Monday, since they’re getting their annual bonuses. We came back to the apartment to chill for a bit, and then got ready to go to dinner with the Relief Society president and her husband. And that’s when the fun began.

Our taxi driver took us to the wrong location—not his fault, since the address we showed him in our little taxi book is out of date, but we arrived on time to a location about ten minutes from our hotel, and about an hour from where we were supposed to meet our hosts. By the time we finally realized where we were, the taxi driver was long gone, and we had no phone to call and tell them we’d be late. So, after snipping at each other a bit, we decided to get on the subway and head toward them. Well, one look at the line going toward the host, and Tracy knew she wasn’t getting on there—too many sardines in that can already! But, the line going back to the hotel was not nearly as crowded, so we went back home. We called them twenty minutes after we were supposed to meet them to extend our apologies, and they volunteered to meet us! Great people! We felt badly that they had to travel an hour, but it was a great meal at a Sichuan restaurant downstairs, and we had a wonderful conversation about a lot of different things. We picked up the tab, since they came all that way for us.

Friday, January 13, 2012

We seem to have settled into a routine—workout, shower, breakfast, scripture study, and head to work. I decided to take the afternoon off today to head to IKEA to see what kind of furniture they have. Tracy came to work after an adventuresome cab ride that took over an hour, so fortunately, the cab ride to IKEA was short. Unfortunately, it was in the opposite direction from the hotel, so after our window shopping (we did see some things that we may get, but we want to keep looking), our cab ride back took over an hour in rush hour traffic, and cost $12—easily the most expensive cab ride we’ve had here.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

Normal day—nothing out of the ordinary to report for me, but Tracy went to lunch with some church ladies to a coffee house. Apparently, they have the best waffles in town. Tracy had a sandwich, but saw one lady order a large order of Belgian Waffles, with syrup, whipped cream, and chocolate ice cream! This place isn’t too far from my work, so I may need to try this myself!

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Morning

Nothing unusual to report—another quiet morning.

Afternoon

The only unusual thing was that as I was coming home, I was standing in line for the subway. I was a bit farther back in line than I wanted to be, but thought I might squeeze in. As the line started to move forward, I quickly realized that I wasn’t going to make it, so I stepped out of line to allow anyone else who wanted to try to squeeze on to go for it. Picture about a dozen people trying to squeeze through a set of double doors at the same time, and somehow, they were doing it. But the weirdest thing was that the subway attendant was pushing the entire mob from behind to help them all squeeze in. What the heck? And, they all made it—I was the only one standing on the dock as the subway pulled away. Even more incredible!

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Morning

Similar to yesterday in almost every respect. I’m getting better at knowing where to be for the subway fun, but it is truly amazing how many people pass through the Guomao transfer station for Lines 1 and 10. Their setup is pretty good to move a lot of people. Good workout and breakfast, and quiet morning at the office. Extremely quite in fact—Li Xiang ended up traveling to Shanghai to help out on some customs issues for some trucks we’re importing, so there wasn’t the normal chatter between Zhang Li and him that I heard on Monday. Qui-et!

Afternoon

I headed back to the hotel to meet Tracy and our agents for another look at the apartment we’re thinking about getting. We wanted to look again to make sure that it’s what we wanted, and to figure out what we need to get before we move in. That took most of the afternoon with traffic, so we came back and ate dinner down at Gourmet Street, and went to bed.

Starting a Routine---MIke

Monday, January 9^th, 2012

Morning

We awoke at 4:00—our new normal. That’s okay, because it’s easier to find something to do, than it is to wrestle with an alarm clock. We went down to the gym for a workout, and then to breakfast after cleaning up. Since it was my first full day in the office, it would be my first rush hour commute, so I would find out how crowded it could be. Jumping on at the Wangfujing station, I thought, “This isn’t so bad.” Plenty of room (relatively speaking—nothing that would fly in America, but lots of room over here). Four stops later, I transferred to Line 10. Several people got off, and I stepped on after the four people in front of me—everything normal to this point. What I failed to realize, however, was exactly the size of the throng behind me. All of the people who were not yet on the train literally (tip of the hat to Chris Traeger!) pushed their way on, causing all of the people on the train to be squished against each other. I couldn’t move AT ALL! The worst part was, I ended up on the opposite side of the train from the door. This is bad, because I needed to work my way back to the door when it came time to get off, but I simply couldn’t move! So, fortunately, I had four stops of people getting off and getting on to wriggle my way to the doors. Unfortunately, I had only moved a few inches as we were slowing to stop at the Agriculture Center where I get off. Now, I don’t want to say that panic was setting in, but my concern level was definitely on the higher side of normal at this point. As the train finally stopped, I started pushing—hard. I’d have been punched several times over if I were anywhere in America or Europe, but the reaction from the Chinese? They just did their best, without losing their place, to make room for me to make my way out. Finally, as the bell sounded to signal the doors starting to close, I was at my last layer of folks. With a desperate final push, I flung myself out as the doors started to close. My long overcoat barely cleared the doors as they slid closed, but I was free! Whew!

After a five minute walk to the office, I spent a quiet morning checking email, logging receipts (for reimbursement), and starting to get an idea of what the normal rhythm of the office is. It’s much quieter in this office with its four people (including me!) than Dynacraft with its 250 people in the building. To make it worse, Angela is traveling in the States this week, so there are only three.

Afternoon

Tracy met me for lunch, and we walked to a neighboring tower for a buffet lunch. They charged us ¥386, or about $60, for the two of us, which I thought was strange, because last month at the same place we were charged ¥287 for five people. Hmmm. Turns out if you show your business card to prove you work in the building that you get a discount. Who knew? After lunch, Tracy headed back for some workouts and to relax by the pool. More office stuff for me, trying to learn what goes on. The subway ride home was slightly better, because I knew what to expect. I figured out that I needed to be about eight people back in the line waiting for the subway to end up in the second or third layer from the door. That worked out to be close enough to the door, once we were all on, to still be able to get off four stops later without too much drama. Much better! Dinner was from the local grocery store—I had spaghetti (not quite perfect, but close), and Tracy had some rice and vegetables and some large grapefruit (that wasn’t half bad!). After a quick swim, we tottered off to bed.

• (Tracy) Ok, I really have to say that I do not spend my days lounging at the poolside.  I am working out and THEN heading over to the pool!

Relaxing day---MIke

Sunday, January 8, 2012

Morning

Tracy woke up not feeling well—the cough she’s had for the past couple of months was not treating her well in the “fog” (that’s the government’s term for the smog over here), so she didn’t sleep well. After another awesome breakfast (smoothies, doughnuts, dumplings, cocoa crisps, ham, omelets, chow mein, etc.), Tracy came back up to the room and went to bed while I got ready for church. Two stops west on Line 1, four stops north on line 2, and one stop north on line 13 brought me across the street from the Jin Tai building, the fourth floor of which is where we meet. During Sacrament meeting, our speakers were a Venezuelan (and his son!), who were followed by a Norwegian, who mentioned a Ugandan in his talk. I also heard a British accent and possibly an Australian accent as well. There was a gentleman from Ghana in the back. Now, we sit in our wards in the States, and hear about church members across the globe. But to see the diversity here in Beijing really brings it home. There are people who believe in Jesus Christ everywhere!

Afternoon

We went down to the poolside and did some reading, and unwinding. Then, we came back upstairs and watched the new Transformers movie (not anywhere close to as bad as I thought it would be—it was actually pretty good!). We have no speakers, so we had to wear our headphones, but it was okay. Dinner was back down at Gourmet Street, and more experiments—same type of meals, but different flavors. If we keep going, we’ll be able to dial in what we like and what we don’t.

Snow and 19 degrees---MIke

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Morning

So, we had big plans for this morning. We were gonna go see a bunch of sights, and buy a few things, and revisit one of the apartments to make sure it was what we thought it was. However, we found that snow was falling, and starting to stick. Now, normally, snow is no big deal to us. We’ve dealt with it before, and we usually handle it like old pros. But it turns out that when snow falls on marble (did I mention that they use marble for everything?), it turns slick. Really slick. Unsafe slick in the shoes we were in. But, we battled on, and got onto the subway for our big day. Now, it turns out that when you’re doing something for the first time, it takes a LOT longer to do it than you thought it would, and it’s frustrating to boot, because the little things just don’t go right (you don’t know exactly where to go, so you end up going in circles looking for something, for example). So, to cope, we decided to do one thing at a time, and then return to the hotel for a break, and then head out again for the next thing. This meant that we would only accomplish about a third of what we wanted to accomplish, but it also ensured that we didn’t kill each other by the end of the day. All good. J  So, after the apartment visit, our next trip was to lunch. We found in the basement of our hotel a large shopping mall, and it has a large eating alley called “Gourmet Street.” Now, the “Gourmet” is misleading, because it’s all fast food-ish, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t good. For about $3 each, we ended up with dishes that were larger than we could eat. They were bowls of rice with some meat-vegetable-sauce type stuff on top—nothing but good! And there are about fifty of these places down there, so we won’t run out of food to try any time soon.

Afternoon

We went  . . . to Wal-mart. That’s right. We flew halfway around the world, and went to Wal-mart. Now, the rest of the story is that we (read that as “I”) forgot the cord that goes from the computer to the TV, so we wanted to find one of those. We also realized that we could get some water for a cheap price, and perhaps a few other things. So, another four stops east on Line 1, and then two stops south on Line 2, brought us to our destination. It’s a multi-level store, very crowded, and is almost nothing like the Wal-marts in the States. I mean, you can get many, many of the same things as you can back home, but they are all different because they are all locally made. We struck out on the cord (lots of new gadgets, but very few accessories), but found the water and some milk for Tracy’s hot chocolate. We came back and decided to eat dinner at the Italian restaurant on the second floor of the hotel—pretty good, but not great (overpriced, really). After dinner, we went down to the pool, and went for a swim. If you haven’t already, google pictures of the pool—something to behold. Then, it was off to bed.

Apartment hunting

Friday, January 6, 2012

Morning

We got up at 6:00am, because we were so tired—normally we’re up by 4:00. After cleaning up, we went down to an amazing buffet breakfast (included in the price of the hotel, fortunately—it’s about $80 for the two of us) that has western and eastern foods, just like the last place. We got our plates and sat down, and as I took my first bite, my stomach turned completely over. I was sick! Well, I went straight back up to the hotel room to try to sleep it off, even though I was due at work in an hour, and Tracy did her best to finish two breakfasts. An hour later, I found the problem—the little breakfast wrap that they gave us on the plane had given me food poisoning, but I felt much better after parting ways with it. Then, I was off to the subway, feeling much better, and after riding four stops on Line 1, and then transferring to Line 10 for four more stops, I made it to work. I was really only there to check in with the team and pick up my laptop, but decided to check some emails, which meant I left at noon. Tracy, meanwhile, took a nap and then organized the room before lunch.

Afternoon

Thanks to a miscommunication, lunch was on the fly, as we were scheduled to meet our housing agents early that afternoon. We grabbed a small quiche for sale at the gourmet bakery near the lobby, and off we went. We looked at eight or nine apartments, and pretty much settled on three of them. We decided to go sleep on it overnight and send the priority list to the agents on Saturday morning. When we got back, we were so tired that we ordered room service—a chicken burger for Tracy, and a pasta bowl for me. By 7:00 pm, we were out!

(Tracy) Here are some pictures of our apartment before the old tenants have moved everything out and before it has been cleaned.  We will have a nice view of the park/court yard below us and get western exposure.  

Our Arrival here at last!

  Thursday, January 5, 2012

We landed at 10:00 pm, China Standard Time, or CST, after a 12 (!) hour flight. It wasn’t that bad of a flight, though, as Tracy had wheedled her way into getting us three seats all to ourselves so we could stretch out. And, of course, on the international flights you get the little screen in the seat back in front of you that has movies, TV shows, games, etc. to keep you from going completely crazy. Though we were tired since we’d been flying since 6:00 the previous night (Seattle Time), and we had only had about an hour nap each, we were still very awake for the customs adventure (which is always a bigger deal in your mind than it turns out to be in real life), and the drive to the hotel, which took about 45 minutes.

Now, a bit about the Grand Hyatt Beijing. We are just down the street from Tiananmen Square—in fact, the next subway stop from the one on the corner of our block is for Tiananmen. Presidents stay here. CEOs stay here. Dignitaries from everywhere stay here. So, if I added to that group that the Gaudios stay here, well, we could play that old Sesame Street game—you know it, sing it with me now, “Three of these things belong together . . .” This is an amazing hotel. The pool is one complete floor by itself. The room is the size of an apartment. Don’t believe me? Google it. Freakin’ amazing!

So, we got to the hotel, checked in, and crashed (in that order).

I (Tracy) did need to add a picture of the Hogwarts-esk pool. It has a ceiling that changes color and even has a night sky with constellations