Our Move to Wangjing

After a couple days of apartment hunting...and several hours of walking.....we have found an apartment in Wangjing that has 2 bedrooms! It will be so nice to finally be in the same town as my work and not to have to commute for an hour plus one way everyday. The nice thing is....we are right next to the subway...there is a bus stop right outside our gate....and there is a Starbucks on the corner (for when Julie comes to visit***hint...hint***).
 

Jacob and Bob in front of the Line 15 Subway across the street from our apartment building in Wangjing



Patti and Jacob inside the Subway at Line 15 in Wangjing

The bus that I normally take to work is only up and over a block so it won't take long to get to work in the morning or afternoon depending on what shift I am working. Just past the subway exits on our side of the road is a park type area where people practice Tai Chi every morning.


Our apartment building in Wangjing. We are on the 15th floor.

 The views from are apartment are quite impressive and the skyline image...with all of the skyscapers rising in every direction...are actually beyond description!

The view from the drying room by the kitchen

The view from Jacob's room



Another view from Jacob's room


The apartment has 2 bedrooms, one bathroom, a living room, kitchen, and a drying room. It also came with a washer (no dryer...thus the need for a drying room), but no oven. Marc said that he and Amy have a toaster oven and that they even made a pumpking pie in it during Thanksgiving!


Our living room (viewed from the drying room)



Our kitchen



Jacob's bedroom



Our bedroom



1st part of our bathroom



Drying room going into the kitchen

I guess we just need to get settled in and explore our neighborhood and see what is out there around our apartment!



First Leap Employee Party January 2011

Work has been great about making us feel welcome. We had a lovely lunch out right after we arrived with the new foreign teachers and the 'old pros' who have been here for a while. The food in China is amazing but I have discovered that it tends to be different than "American" Chinese food.

After I started working full time at my school in Wangjing, we had an employee party for all of the employees at our school. They shut the school down for a couple of hours and everyone went across the street to a hot pot restaurant. At a hot pot restaurant they bring out to metal pans, one with mild liquid and one with spicy liquid and place it on the table in front of everyone. Then they bring out all kinds of different foods that you place into the pots and let cook. There was everything from sweet potatoes, to rice things that looked like fries (yummy!), to mutton, to steak, to vegetables, to intestines (very crunchy), to pig brains (kind taste like bland scrambled eggs), to duck blood (turns dark brown when you cook it)....FYI: I did NOT try the ducks blood. I may be adventuresome but I'm not that adventuresome....yet! My boss, Vivian, told me that the Chinese believe that whatever part of the animal you eat makes your same part stronger and healthier. 

Spicy is the right and mild is on the left

It was such an interesting experience. I promised myself that when I moved to China I would do my best to be open minded about experiencing as much of the culture as possible. Of course I am drawing the line at duck blood but.....my time here is just beginning...who knows what will happen in a couple of years. If I can talk River into trying pig brain (Stan still refuses to try it!)....which she never had (and she is from China!)....then duck blood cooked in the hot pot may be on my "To Do" list in a year or two or three or so!



River and Stan...what a cute couple!





Pig brains before they are cooked


I had lunch with a great group of people and the Chinese teachers have been amazing....so friendly!

I have met some wonderful people and I am looking forward to getting to know them better as time goes on. Especially Betsy....my "Stop eating Noodles!", "You need a cellphone!" "You better call me during break!", "Stop going in the closet and finding flash cards!!".....computer desk buddy! :-)

Me and "My" Betsy! :-)

We had so much fun at lunch...lots of laughing...and I think the Chinese teachers were pretty surprised how open Jacob and I were to trying new foods. For those of you that know "Chicken McNugget" Jacob...he tried the pig brains! 



 They provided everyone with aprons at the restaurant and they gave us the longest chop sticks I have ever seen! It probably had to do with the fact that you are sticking your chop sticks into scalding hot water to get your food out after it cooks! They also gave the women hair ties to pull their hair back and eyeglass cleaning rags to those of us that had eyeglasses.

Jacob showing off the fancy aprons!



A picture of the hair tie, eyeglass cleaner, REALLY long chop sticks and the hot towel to wash our hands off before lunch


Our boss....Vivian...made the rounds making sure everyone was enjoying themselves and were getting enough to eat. She has been so sweet to me since I moved here and it is going to be a pleasure working with her at First Leap!



Vivian and I...and yes...I am leaning down! LOL!

 



First Leap "Spring Festival" Fun!

Well....work has officially started and I am in training. I have met some really fun and amazing people at my work and it looks like this will be a great place to work. I am in training with 3 guys....Santino from New Orleans who moved here to be with his Chinese girlfriend....Noah from New Jersey who decided to take the plunge and see what China had to offer....and Nick from New Zealand who is here to prove that New Zealand is WAY better than Australia!! :-)

Marc (with his head down), Santino, and Nick

Nick and Noah

We are spending LOTS of hours at work watching videos of classes, learning how to use the whiteboard, watching actual classes, and finally....helping teach some classes...YAY! The kids are ADORABLE!!! I am commuting from Jinsong every day but we will be looking for an apartment soon.

My boss...Helen...is hilarious and has talked Jake and I into participating in the Spring Festival held by the schools. We have been practicing at the theater where it will be held and if I do say so myself....we have just about mastered the Cha Cha Slide! Yay us!



Helen dressing up as one of the two First Leap frog costumes we have at work



James (the other frog), cory (in black coat) John (high fiving Helen the frog) and Zoe sitting down

Practice has been fun but I am already picturing the horror I will experience when a video of the dance turns up at my 75th birthday party! LOL!

All of the foreign teachers have been so friendly and we met the nicest couple,  Harriet and James, while training at Jinyuan. James is the other frog in the festival and from the looks of it...Harriet kissed her frog and turned him into her prince!

Harriet and her 'frog' prince...James

 

Harriet wanted in on the action....LOL!

The day has finally arrived for our 1st presentation of the Foreign Teachers Cha Cha slide and Hannah came to put makeup on us....what will we be??/


Hannah fixing john up like a Chinese Warrior



Harriet, Amy, Marc, and the back of James head

Kim asked for a flower and had to come back for a touchup because everyone thought it looked like a swastika



A very unique design on Harriets face



They said Jacob looked like Star Child from Kiss...lol!



I kept it simple!

It was a lot of fun performing for the families of our students and both shows went off without a hitch! Jacob managed to get a major round of applause when he showed "How low can you go?" and went all the way to the floor on his back and back up without using his hands!

Settled in and Looking Around Jinsong

Well, after a really good first nights sleep we decided to start taking a tour of our temporary neighborhood. Of course the first thing we realized was that it was Sunday and we had no Chinese money to buy any food so we headed out in search of a bank that was open....on Sunday! Our fingers were crossed that we would find something because the idea of waiting 24 hours to eat...did not appeal to any of us! At least we seemed to be adjusting to the huge time change because we actually felt pretty good. I had a really hard time adjusting to the time change in Costa Rica for some reason so I am happy that this seems to be going much smoother!

The first thing we noticed is how clean and open the sidewalks are and how there didn't seem to be an over bearing amount of people out and about and pressing against us like we experienced in San Jose. We saw all kinds of interesting things on our walk.... like this cool little motorcycle with a metal body that you can use to go places like a taxi. Some have rear seats that face forward/front and others, like this one, have a rear seat that faces out the back so you can see where you have just been....but not where you are going! LOL!

After walking around for a little while we found a woman who could speak a little bit of English and she told us that there was a bank right across the street and they were open....Yay we get to eat!! After a quick stop at the bank to exchange our money from dollars to yuans we headed for....McDonalds! Ten minutes later, and after much finger pointing at a picture menu, we sat down to eat our 3 meal deals that cost a whopping total of $5.65....I said total...not each! I'm really starting to like China! After filling our stomaches we decided to continue our tour of our new neighborhood....but not before a quick stop in the restroom before we head out to explore!

You can imagine my surprise when I went into the bathroom and waited in line for my turn and discovered ...this toilet waiting for me on the other side of the door. After living in Costa Rica for 6 months I was used to the toilet paper dispenser being outside of the bathroom so I had remembered to grab some before I went in, but nothing could have prepared me for what awaited me on the other side of the door. I thought I had gone into the mens room by mistake until I remembered that there had been two women in line in front of me! This is when I learned what the definition of a 'squatty potty' was. As you can see from this picture I ran back to our table and grabbed my bag with the camera so I would have proof that these things really existed!

Once the horror wore off and I figured out how it worked...we headed down the street to explore. Most of the buildings have their signs in Chinese symbols so we realized very quickly that this was not going to be as easy to get around as it had been in Costa Rica. There were all kinds of interesting things to see and we took lots of pictures as we explored our neighborhood. We found a really neat flea market type building that had 2 floors and lots of booths. You could find everything from towels to telephones to computers to shampoo. You name it and it was probably there! Outside was where you found the food vendors selling hot food, nuts, and strawberries on a stick.

It was pretty cold...actually it was freezing...so we headed back to the apartment with our towels so we could take a much needed warm shower. After another good nights sleep we decided to explore in the other direction from our house.  There are so many interesting, unique and unusaul things to see here that I feel as if I am not completely dressed unless I take our camera with me. You never know what you are going to see when you are out and about. There are a lot of bicycles here and that has lead them to be the subject of several of our pictures.

We set out for a walk around the neighborhood and 5 hours later we had discovered 8 bus stops....2 malls...the CCTV television station....and Walmart. It was actually quite a productive day! We walked up one side of the road...crossed over to the other side of the highway using a walking overpass and continued up that side: where we saw our 1st double decker bus...just like in Harry Potter! We saw the cutest dog sitting outside of a mall...tied to a pipe...waiting patiently for his (or her) owner to return. We also saw a very creepy looking Santa!



CCTV television station...the only English speaking channel we can find!




A pedestrian overpass




Our 1st double decker bus sighting



Isn't he/she a good doggie? Waiting so patiently for his owner to finish shopping!



Creepy Santa!



We have a month to explore Jinsong before our next rent payment would be due. Of course we won't be here for that. We are going to be out and about hunting an apartment as close to my work in Wangjing as possible. It will be so nice to have an apartment where we have an actual living room...bedrooms...kitchen we can actually use and a bathroom we don't have to share with the other people living in the hostel with us. Next post...how about some work related information? Until then.....miss you guys!

Our Looooong Flight to China!

Well the time has come for us to leave Costa Rica and head to China. After spending a fun 2 weeks with "The Days" we are now heading off to the airport for the next leg in this wonderful adventure called our life!

After leaving beautiful....and warm.....Costa Rica, we headed to Panama for a quick stop.........

...where we managed to pick up some more useless change to stick in the bottom of our dresser drawer with the rest of the change we will never be able to use again unless we go back to Costa Rica or Panama. After a brief layover...we boarded another plane and headed to Los Angeles to start our 31 hour layover. We had decided to ask for wheelchairs to get Bob through the airports quicker and we found out very quickly that it would be the best idea of our trip!

Once we left Panama, we had a very scenic flight to Los Angeles. We saw beautiful clouds, beautiful landscape, and amazing bits and pieces of moutains. Of course we arrived in Los Angeles at night so we didn't take any pictures. We decided to take pictures when we left.....in 31 hours....so you could see things better. We arrived in California and we were met by a very nice man who quickly loaded Bob up and carted him off to the bus for our journey from the plane to the other part of the airport terminal. We then walked outside, following Bob and his escort, and down to another terminal to wait for the airline to open at 5 am...hoping to catch an earlier flight. It was not to be...because we did not want to pay an additional 300.00 per person to get on that flight....so we went back to the main, and somewhat warmer, terminal to wait out the rest of our layover. We played MANY games of Rummy, walked around and around the terminal, napped in very uncomfortable chairs, dug out all of our American change to spend it since they don't exchange coins, and then finally settled in for another uncomfortable nights sleep back at the first terminal where the planewill take off from.

Jake cathcing some zzzzzz's which are few and far between when you are sleeping on a wooden bench in a cold terminal.

The time finally arrived for us to catch our flight to Canada in our next step of the journey. The flight there was not too long but we saw some beautiful landscape on that flight. We spent most of the time passing the camera back and forth so we could get shots from each of our windows.



Leaving Los Angeles, California



After we arrived in Canada, we went to wait at the next terminal for our flight to Beijing. The airport was really pretty! Jake and I both made a quick trip onto the computer. Jake so he could update everyone where we were since we had not been online since we left Costa Rica....and I got on to let my boss in China know where we were on our journey to meet them! Of course this is where I discovered that my computer battery is dying and my plug isn't working....please just let it be the plug!

The time finally arrived and we were off to Beijing! Jake got some good pictures of them de-icing our plane (and no, they weren't removing cake icing from a food fight...I wish!) and a few good pictures as we took off, leaving Vancouver behind!

Did I mention that this was a REALLY LONG flight?   I did?   Okay because if I didn't you should be able to see how tired we were in this picture!  LOL! 

Anyway, we had a wonderful flight attendant who gave us extra brownies....creamy, yummy chocolate brownies...we haven't had good chocolate since we left the States. All of the chocolate in Costa Rica.....brownies, cakes, cupcakes, and such, were very dry. She also gave us extra drinks to try to help keep us functioning.

We were totally exhausted by now but had reached the point where we were too tired to sleep. The flight to China was very interesting....we missed New Years Eve because of the International Date Line. One minute it was December 31st in the morning and the next....it was January 1st!! We also never saw the sun set that trip so we were definitely ready for bed once we arrived in China! The views were amazing and made the journey seem to not take so long.



The trip was finally over and we arrived in Beijing safe and sound. The airport was huge and beautiful and still decorated for Christmas.....who knew? We even took a few pictures inside the airport as we waited for our ride to arrive. It was very cold and we were all bundled up. First thing on our list is thermal underwear!

We were finally picked up by Sophia, and her friend, and whisked away to Jinsong: where we got 2 rooms in a hostile for the 1st month. The view from our rooms is amazing! They have a beautiful courtyard and every morning you will find people down in the courtyard at 7am practicing Tai Chi.

Now we just need to get some rest and we will be ready to explore our neighborhood and show you China.....through our eyes!