This Day is a Gift

I thought something was seriously wrong. I was in the shower on Friday morning and I could hear Mel speaking very expressively in the hall. Nobody calls on Friday mornings- what was up? Well, both her school and mine had no water so there was no school! Yay! But only for students... we still had to go. Noooooo!

We put on JEANS, and then took our time walking over there, discussing all along how we'd manage to go the day without using the bathroom since we had no water. On our way, we stopped in to McDonald's to check out their breakfast menu for the first time. Mel was elated- they had egg mcmuffins! I was pretty happy too, because they also serve sausage mcmuffins. They even had McHot Dogs! It was going to be a good morning.

When I got to my campus, I was surprised to find that, actually, we totally had water. They closed because they thought they might lose water since Mel's campus already had lost it on the top two floors. Whatever! So, our director gathered us and told us "This day is a gift, use it to work on whatever you need". I was pretty pleased. I got everything ready for the last 2 weeks of school, finished up my online emergency unit, and just took care of business. There is ALWAYS something to take care of, trust me! Poor Mel had her day filled with meetings, which is so, so typical of our school, so she hardly got anything done. She really needed the time!

It was an unusual start to the weekend, and a day I'm sure we'll all remember and wish we could have a day like this again in the near future. It's nice to know all my lessons are planned and printed for the rest of the year. And it's good to know that I can pick up a hot dog from McDicks on my way to school from now on if I want. 

The Rainy Season is Here!

We woke up Friday morning to our first really, really rainy day. This, as we remember all too well from Taiwan, is winter in southern Asia. I remember it rained for months and months straight in Taiwan, and the first time we saw a blue sky all winter was when our plane broke through the clouds as we left the place for good! The rain here really isn't like we get at home- it rains twice as hard as the hardest Canadian rain I've ever seen... and it tends to rain sideways too. With the rain has come a sharp drop in the temperature. Last week we had the AC on everyday and this week we're wearing head to toe sweat suits and have the electric heater on to stay comfy inside. Also, all of our clothes and towels feel damp because we don't have real heaters in our place. It's familiarly uncomfortable.

When we woke up Friday and heard the rain, we hoped it would pass before we had to go to school. But by the time I was in the shower it was pounding down even harder and I could see the lightning flashing through the frosted bathroom window. Chinese schools were closed, but not our school- lucky us! We ditched the bikes for the day and walked it, feeling pretty glad that we'd brought boots and K-way jackets from home. The food cart in the above picture usually does a good business with the migrant workers near our place in the mornings, but there weren't any customers lined up on Friday.

I've been told that China's not as bad as Taiwan was, but we'll see! It's rained pretty bad all day Friday, Sunday and today too. Anyway, see the above photo for the way I like to enjoy the rain: from inside! Sunday morning the weather didn't bother me at all. I just enjoyed watching the heavens pour down on us from the comfort of my balcony, poop-shaped coffee mug in hand.

Sungang Stationary Market

You know when you go to the dollar store and everything is labeled "Made in China"? Well, it's made here but you rarely see any of that stuff for sale here. When you're teaching, you rely on dollar store items- specifically from the craft and stationary sections- for activities with students, so we've really missed having access to a good selection of stationary. In Korea, stationary stores were everywhere and they sold the coolest things, but in China they just aren't common. Anyway, when we first moved here we were given a welcome basket with a city guide for Shenzhen, and one of the places highlighted under "shopping" was Sungang Stationary Market. We had no plans for the weekend (and we were spoiled with two full days off after last weekend's manditory Saturday-swallowing PD session at work), so we decided to check the market out.

 

We met our friends at the Sea World Starbucks, but the path we usually take there was flooded, so we walked through a little park next to it to avoid the puddles. We often do this when the path is flooded, but this time we were met with a little surprise- barbed wire was blocking the path! After slipping through the fence, we were on guard for land mines and trip wires for the rest of the walk. What the hell?

The market is about 5-10 minutes from Dongmen Market by taxi, so we went to the toilet restaurant for lunch, of course!

I noticed something new over the urinal at the toilet restaurant: a cartoon of a Chinese and Japanese soldier arguing while another soldier takes a big steamy poo in the foreground.

So, after eating out of toilets, we got separate taxis (no one would take 5 people) and traveled to the market. It. was. awesome!

We arrived to find ourselves in a winter wonderland! Wasn't expecting that! Recently, I mentioned that all of the Christmas ornaments I've seen for sale look really crappy and dated, but this is where to shop for your Christmas needs for sure. There was stall after stall stuffed to the max with beautiful Christmas ornaments, trees, snowflakes, lights, decorations, stockings, everything! The selection was overwhelming, and everything we asked about was so cheap. Kerry got a tree with decorations for $5 that would have easily been $25-$30 at home, and we got stockings for 70 cents a piece!

Entering a Christmas explosion.

There were blinding stalls just selling Christmas lights.

There were a lot of stores flipped to sell only holiday merchandise, but most of the shops were still selling stationary. It's also a wholesale market so things could be bought in small or very large quantities. There were three buildings with multiple floors, and each floor was stuffed full of small shops with very narrow aisles stocked full of every kind of pen, paper, or pencil sharpener you could ever imagine.

There was even poop shaped bottles of white out.

There was more than just stationary, too. There were sports stores, music stores, toys & games shops, and educational supplies stores. Everyone in our group was a teacher and we were so excited by all of this stuff! Alphabet dominos, number jenga... my teacher mind was racing. And it was all cheap, cheap, cheap! 50 cents for a cool pen, 75 cents for stickers, $5 for a board game... the prices were very fair, and you could bargain too.

Just a random shot of one corner of one of the floors. There was a lot to look through!

Of course, the reason a lot of the products were so cheap was because they were fakes. Here's a game of "Squares" aka Blockus. $10 versus $40 that we paid in Canada for the identical game.

After 4 hours, and only covering 1 and 1/2 of the 3 buildings, we hired a van to take us back home. Even that was cheap! The traffic was rotten, and we spent an hour driving, and it still only cost 100rmb split 5 ways. That's about $3.30 each! When we got back, we treated ourselves to Korean food and fruit sojus with Kathy before heading home to veg out and watch three Top Chefs in a row. Now we're all caught up!

So, here was our haul. Actually, looking at it now and thinking back to all the things that tempted me there, I feel like we showed some restraint in our purchases! We got 2 stockings, some writing paper, a set of markers, a pencil sharpener, craft feathers, a Domo pen, a game of alphabet soup (for my class), and two poop-shaped coffee mugs.

They came in boxes labeled "grotesqu cup". That's the cup for me!

Almost forgot to mention our most exciting finds- gigantic fleece blankets for $5!! I mentioned a few days ago that it's starting to get a little cooler here, and blankets are so expensive in China. I couldn't believe when Mel found these ones for $5 and they feel like a cloud. The softest blankets I've ever touched, for sure! So, here I am this morning, watching the rain from our balcony under the warmth of my tacky Angry Birds blanket, drinking from a poop mug. Take me seriously, world.

THIS Happens In Front of Our Apartment Complex

When I showed this video to my Chinese friend Yolanda she said that this is exercise and each lady pays around 10rmb ($1.60) a month to be taught the moves. Wow, what a workout! Groups of ladies of a certain age meet in open spaces like this all over the city and even the country. I've seen it in at least 3 different spots in Shekou, and Yolanda says her mom does this in Harbin in the North of China. And every single lady is so poker faced about what they're doing! Wouldn't you be cracking up if you were doing this in public? This is obviously very serious business.

Fakesgiving at the Hilton

When I was a kid, American Thanksgiving used to get on my nerves. As Canadians, we celebrate the holiday in October, but then come November we're forced into a week of TV repeats and football games for no good reason! We don't even have a turkey dinner to distract us from the lack of new Golden Girls episodes, we just have to wait for the Americans to finish up their holiday and allow us to resume our lives again. Well, this year it wasn't so bad.

A Canadian teaching family invited all the Canadian teachers to their home for a big turkey potluck back in October and it was awesome. Some of their American friends were there too, and invited us to the American Thanksgiving dinner at... the Ritz. Now, Melodie and I don't get to the Ritz very often. We have much more experience with Ritz crackers than with the fine dining and luxury hotel chain, but we were really excited to be fancy for a night in probably the only country in the world where we could afford to.

On Thursday night we met at the subway stop near our school and took the subway to the Convention Center Station where the Ritz is located. Over 50 teachers and their kids went to this dinner. Basically we took up two thirds of the restaurant!

It was niiiiiice inside the hotel and restaurant. We'd been seated for about 30 seconds before we headed directly to the carvery station. There was lamb (the sign was labeled "lamp"), ham, prime rib, and turkey. Dude thought he could get away with only giving me one slice of turkey. Don't trip, Ritz!

Fancy ketchup.

My first course: one of each meat, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, and french bread. Obviously, I'm watching my weight. In addition to this traditional holiday food, there was a crapload of lobster, sushi and seafood available that everyone seemed to really like. There was a noodle station, and lots of other chinesey dishes, too.

While we were getting our first plate of food, flutes of champagne appeared at our table!

 

The wait staff was very attentive. Everytime I stood up to get more food (which was often), I came back to my cloth napkin being perfectly re-folded. I tried to crumple it up and even hide it, but it always looked like it had been pressed and ironed by the time I got back.

This is only one fourth of the desert table. They were torching fresh creme brules!

I took one of almost everything. The plate's only so big, right?

After having the traditional turkey dinner and gorging on dessert, I decided to have another savory course. They were BBQing meat to-order, so I got a grilled steak, mashed potatoes and some salad. Yes, I'd been so indulgent that I ate a guilt salad.

Located directly behind us was this, a chocolate fountain. We could smell it the whole time we were eating, and I'll have you know that it smelled amazing!

Cookie skewers + chocolate= a fine ending to a meal.

And here was our group at the table. It was a great night with great company.

With Kerry and Kathy in front of the Ritz Christmas tree.

Canadian Thanksgiving was in October, America's was this month, I'll have Christmas dinner in December... now, which country celebrates something in January that I can pretend to celebrate too for turkey-related purposes?

It's Beginning To Look (and Feel) A Little Like Christmas

Christmas is still more than a month away, but our little part of China is already starting to look pretty Christmassy. Wal-Mart has started selling some straight-outta-the-70s Christmas decorations and stockings, Starbucks has introduced their holiday drinks, and everything is just starting to feel a little more festive than usual. Pretty cool, considering almost none of the Chinese celebrate Christmas. Thanks for thinking of us, locals!

Yesterday this giant Christmas tree appeared in Sea World square near where we live. We stopped for a photo shoot tonight after Kathy's birthday dinner at McCawley's.

 

Of course, we don't get snow in southern China, but the season is definitely changing. I would say this week is the first time it started to occasionally feel cool here. We've had a few days where the temperatures was in the mid-to-low 20s- and I promise I'm not being a wuss- that temperature feels colder than the mid-20s at home due to the humidity in this region. The leaves and flowers are starting to fall from some of the trees, but most of the plants here are the kind not to lose their leaves- I haven't seen any frond-less palm trees yet.

 

On Sunday, it started to feel a little bit cool in our apartment. We tinkered with all of our air conditioning units (we have 4!) to see if any of them had a heat setting, but only our bedroom unit does. We expected none of them would, so at least the bedroom will be warm this winter! Since we know exactly how crisp an unheated apartment in this part of the world feels in the winter from our time in Taiwan (it feels like you're camping on a dewy day for months), we knew there was no way we'd go the winter without a heater for at least our living room area, so we went out and bought a mid-range oscillating one for about $50 at RenRenLe. I don't know how much of a difference it will make, because our apartment is so open, but it feels nice when it's blowing right next to us. We'll see if we need to pick up another one as the season progresses. Anyway, by the next day, we had our air conditioning on again, but we know that won't last much longer this year.

So, after we got home this evening, the weather and the decorations in the area had inspired us to bring out the little Charlie Brown tree we bought at the Daiso dollar store in Hong Kong a few weeks ago. We decorated it (that took a long time lol) and I made a little star out of tin foil. This year is going by so fast, it's hard to believe Christmas is only 1 month and 5 days away. And we'll be celebrating it on a beach in Thailand. Can't wait!

Left Behind

Moving sucks, but when moving to a new apartment or home in Canada we have always been very careful to take all our belongings with us and to leave the place spotlessly clean. Why? We want our security deposit back. It's a good incentive to make people accountable for their own mess when your landlord or the homeowner can charge you for leaving your crap behind. This doesn't seem to be a concern in China.

When we moved into our apartment, we were very greatful for the things that had been left for us. New to the country, and certainly not having the intention to be lifelong residents, we had no interest in spending money on sofas, beds, tables, TVs or anything like that. Our apartment came with most of the furnishings we needed to be comfortable, but we also inherited a number of things that weren't so useful. I'm not sure if these things were left to help us get setup or just simply left behind unwanted by the previous tenant. We've stuffed most of these things in a back room off our kitchen, so if you see anything you like, let us know and it's yours!

Headless Mickey and Minnie coffee mugs with coral stuck on top. There was a piece of coral on Minnie too, but I kind of liked it so I put it out on display in our hallway. These mugs are $10 a piece at HK Disney, by the way. How could someone leave such valuable items behind?

Porcelain snowmen from yesteryear. For some reason it pleased me to know that Christmas had at least once been celebrated in our apartment.

Creepy art time! We were left three pieces of art, proudly displayed in our dining room when we arrived, including the two haunted-looking kittens above. It wasn't long before I took them down and tossed them in the back room. 

Another current resident of the back room, a strangey 60's looking portrait of a cottage in, I'm guessing, not-China.

I left this painting of the three tigers up, on our balcony above the washing machine. They're kind of cool, but maybe screaming for a more modern frame.

This fancy basin is currently being used as a rag water bucket by our maid :)

We also inherited these three cool-looking plants. We really like having plants in our place for us to slowly kill, so we moved them into our living room and bedroom when we first started living here. Too bad a colony of teeny tiny bugs lives in the pots too, so we had to move them back out to the balcony.

A piano is something else that was left behind in our place! Who leaves a piano behind? Anyway, I really like nesting dolls, so I was pretty happy to find a set in the back room. I've put it out in the living room as decoration on top of our piano.

The dolls get kind of creepy the smaller they get.

The aforementioned piano also came with a piano bench which is stuffed full of old music, bills, receipts, and even some ID cards. If anyone wants to slip into a bar underage posing as Wei Wei He, have I got the card for you!

We are fortunate to have bright rooms with big beautiful picture windows in both the living room and master bedroom, which look out onto the water. Not so charming, however, are the 70s khaki pom pom horror curtains that came with. I'd love to replace them, but have no idea where to buy custom curtains in a place like this!

I like this left behind set of two children playing an Othello-looking game. The girl's hand is broken off, but I still sat them out as decoration in our hallway.

Under the children playing Othello is this piece of coral, stolen from the Minnie Mouse mug.

70s clock like something straight from my parents basement! Actually, the taste level in Chinese furniture, clothes, art... almost everything is so dated that I've seen almost identical clocks for sale at the department store near our place.

Two random foam camels found in the back room and currently on display on a shelf in our bedroom.

It took a long time for us to figure out what this is. Taking up an entire cabinet in our kitchen, where we have very little usable cabinet space is this rice dispenser. You fill the top with rice, then press the button for either a 100 gram portion or a 300 gram portion. It dispenses into the tray at the bottom. Chinese do love rice (I don't know if you've heard?) so I can see how this could be useful.

 

My very favorite left behind item is this pair of sandals, which we use for walking on our balcony. They read: "Fighter *Heather Graham*".

So there you have it, the most random of our random left behind items. We're still finding new stuff, too. A few days ago, Mel opened a cabinet in our office and there were 4 shelves full of old books and magazines (in Chinese, of course). If I had a yard, I could have a killer yard sale, don't you think?