Friday Night Dinner: Chinese Takeout

Bethany was out with the girls for Friday night, so I decided to have a quiet evening to myself. Oh, but what to do for dinner? I decided to go with Chinese takeout. Which means I walk down the stairs, out the front gate of our complex, and then stop in at one of the restaurants that is attached to our complex exterior. So convenient.

So I brought home 羊肉饺子 (lamb dumplings) and 凉皮 ("liang pi" is a spicy noodle dish served at room temperature - refreshing on a hot summer day!).

No wife at home to cook for me, but for the equivalent of $1.50 USD, I think I did alright. :)

Biking

I have been biking for exactly three weeks, and I wanted to let you know about my experiences and feelings about biking.

At first, I was really nervous about biking. In the last 15 years, I have only biked on very opened streets or on stationary bikes (not helpful to train to bike on these streets). So when purchasing a bike, the salesperson highly recommended me to buy a better bike than Alvin's. After purchasing the bikes, I immediately understood why my bike suited me better. It rides at a slower pace (which has nothing to do with my pedaling), and the brake response time is super fast. That means I can see that I'm crashing into something 5 seconds before I crash, and then I can brake up to the last second, and avoid the crash. I have had many close calls, but no crashes, yet. Actually, today, I by accident ran into the back of Alvin's bike wheel.

Over the last three weeks, I have started to become more comfortable with the bike. I realize that instead of cars avoiding bikes, over where I live now, bikes avoid cars. I really do feel like Frogger.

The nemesis to my biking is the west gate out of my apartment complex. The gate is quite small, and I have difficulty getting out without putting my leg down or once, putting my hand on the wall to brace myself from crashing. The forth time I went through it, I succeeded. So I thought, I am getting better at biking. But then, I had difficulty for the next twenty times. Every time I had to put my leg down, Alvin would say to me "没有成功 (mei you cheng gong）,“ or in English, "fail." I started to feel like a failure at biking. Yet, the last three days, I have succeeded 4/5 times. Yes, I go at a snail's pace when going through, and my foot has come off the pedal, but I didn't put my foot down.

Here is a picture of the gate. Looking at the white wall, I know I am not the only one that has not "cheng gonged."

Just-In-Time Language Learning

Whenever I have a specific task to complete (e.g. go and buy something), I usually need to have do a little bit of language research (Google Translate or dict.cn) at home on the computer first. This is so that I have the basic vocabulary for some key terms that I'm sure to use during my upcoming business transaction. This has led to language learning on a just-in-time need-to-know basis.

Here are few terms that I have come to learn, out of necessity, in the last two weeks...

无限路由器 = wú xiàn lù yóu qì = Wireless Router

宽带 = kuān dài = Broadband (literally "Wide Belt")

蓝牙 = lán yá = Bluetooth (literally "Blue Tooth")

存款 = cún kuǎn = Deposit (at a bank)

提款 = tí kuǎn = Withdrawal (at a bank)

电钻 = diàn zuàn = Electric Drill

螺丝 = luó sī = Screw

送货 = sòng huò = Delivery

Language learning is fun! Another language learning highlight for today was... I was flipping through various online-streaming Chinese tv stations... and I came across one that was showing A Few Good Men translated into Chinese. Having seen the movie a few times already (in English), knowing the context of conversations helped me to track with the Chinese translation. But I missed the famous courtroom scene - "I want the truth!" "You can't handle the truth!" - I wonder how that would have translated...

For The Love of Cheeses

Guess what? I found cheese! As some of you may know, I really like eating cheese. I have found five different kinds of cheese here: grated parmesan, gouda, American slices, mozzarella, and cheddar. So I have bought everything except for the gouda. The gouda was very expensive. I took most of the cheese and froze half of them so I can use it later.



So because I have found so much cheese, I will commemorate this moment with the cheesiest poem ever.

How do I love cheese? Let me count the wheys,
I don't care if you are mozzarella or brie,
You are so very goud-a to me,
You may be yellow, blue, or gray,
But I love you most if you are sliced and put on a tray.
I am so fond-ue of you, you see,
Oh how I love, how I love my cheese.
I thank the one that fed the cows the hay,
Because cheese, when shredded, you are so very grate,
When I see you, my stomach must obey,
I am blessed to not be in a lactose intolerant state,
Cheese is great in every culture and prepared in any way,
Even with age, you look sharp at any rate,
I know I am milking it, but I love you cheese, and that is all I wanted to say.

So please join with me to celebrate cheese. Do you have any cheesy jokes? What's your favorite cheese?

Happy Father's Day!

In the last 10 days, I have... diverted a water pipe to install a washing machine, installed two new faucets, changed out some light switches, and installed three ceiling lighting fixtures. And I wouldn't have been able to do any of this... without my dad.

Although I may not have always enjoyed it at the time, I'm thankful now for the many times that my dad took me aside to fix things around the house or at someone else's house. I remember working with him to change out a leaky faucet, replace a toilet, replace a screen door or a window, and do random electrical work here and there too. Use the right tool for the right job... that's one of the dad's maxims that has stuck in my mind for decades now.

How else would I have known to wrap the plumbing tape in the direction of the threads? Or to twist connecting wires in the direction of the tightening wire splice caps (though they rarely use caps here... they just tape it up with electrical tape and say that's good enough)?

So, fittingly, Father's Day is here. Thanks, dad, for helping me to learn the ropes so that, now that I'm out here overseas, I can do some of those things that help to make our home a little bit more like home. Happy Father's Day!

[Ok, so this is how disoriented we still are with regards to timezones and dates. We just found out, after I wrote this post, that Father's Day is... NEXT week! Oh well. Early Happy Father's Day nonetheless!]

Do Not Fear, The John Is Here

Thanks for patiently waiting. Here are our pictures for our bathroom:

The shower is sectioned off by the curtain along with the toilet. The toilet gets wet, but if you shower in the evening, the toilet area is dry by morning.



The Sink


The washing machine has to be in the bathroom because of the drain. That means, in our shower, you can wash clothes, go to the bathroom, and shower all at the same time.


And here is my favorite part. Because the toilet area gets wet, we needed a toilet paper container. So I stumbled upon this mushroom. I think it is very cute. I also like how every guy our age that we show the mushroom to makes a comment on Super Mario Bros. and how touching it will make us bigger.

Friday is Day of Relax

For now, we're trying to make Fridays a day of not running errands. Instead, just a day to rest, perhaps adventure around the city aimlessly a bit, and enjoy time together. So, on Friday, after a morning of catching up with some friends and family on Skype, and then a quick lunch of yummy, spicy cold noodles from a nearby restaurant, we ventured out on our bikes to find a place to sit and pass the time for a bit.

About 20 minutes away on bike, we came to a small lake with an interesting bridge and platform built into it.





It turned out to be a little fishing/restaurant/bar business. There are tables lined up all around the side, and people sit at the tables with fishing poles over the edge. Meanwhile, they can order cold beers or grilled meats from the lao-ban (老板 = boss/owner) in the middle of the platform who runs the place. We asked if we could just sit for awhile and relax
(not ordering any beer or food), and they said that'd be fine. So, that's what we did.



We sat for maybe about an hour and a half. Bethany was drawing, while I was taking some pictures. We were both just relaxing under the shade and waiting to see if any fish would be caught.



All in all, we saw 2 fish get hooked, and one of them got away. But, when you catch a fish, the 老板 comes by, takes it, and goes and cleans it for you. They may even grill it right then and there for you to eat, but we left before we saw that part.

After stopping at the market, we biked home and got ready for date night. Date night, we've decided, consists of finding a restaurant with doors (thanks, es, for the great idea!). That means not going to a restaurant whose opening is made of a rubberized plastic curtain meant to keep bugs out. So, for Friday night... we decided to go... to KFC. It was delicious. Someday in the future, we'll probably shoot some pictures of KFC food and write another blog entry on it.

Then (and here's my favorite part), we walked through the night market, where the street is lined with people selling various things, including clothes. For awhile now, I've been wanting to get some shirts that would help me to blend in a bit more. We've noticed that all the shirts here have English on them. Well, kinda.

I bought these two shirts for the equivalent of $6 USD. Don't they rock?



I love how this shirt says "Engineered" and has a not-quite-the-peace-sign and not-quite-the-mercedes-emblem for a logo.