More Weekend/ Random Pictures

In addition to going to the park and going downtown this past weekend, Jane and I also went to a party at some co-workers' house. Three young guys, one from England, one from Australia, and one from Wisconsin, share a house. Stacey came over and babysat the kids. We ended up going out with Jenny, one of the main directors who lives next door to us. We stopped at a small restaurant along the way, sat outside and had a few beers before we headed to the party. Our beers were served with warm peanuts, which we ate with chopsticks. I am getting pretty good at using them. Also, because all of the bottles here require a bottle opener, a very old bottle opener was left on our table. I really thought the bottle opener was cool, and we did not have a good one in the apartment. (The bottle opener was the same as the one that Luke wears around his neck in "Cool Hand Luke", my favorite movie). I asked how much they wanted for it, and they said one quai, or about $.16. We bought it and have been using it ever since. Also, because the restaurant owner and staff (all the same family I assume) were so nice, we have eaten there twice in the past week.

We headed to the party, which brought me back about 10 years; it was like a true college party. The guys' house was in less than perfect shape, was definitely less than clean, and it reeked of cigarette and baijiu (which is a fragrant rice wine that costs less than beer, therefore being the choice of a drinker on a budget. They drink it with Pepsi, which smells to me like an amaretto sour. We stuck with beer, so I don't know what it tastes like). The party was fun, everyone was nice and it was interesting to hear people's stories about how they got here and what it has been like for them.

After the party started winding down a bit, people wanted to still go out. We decided to go to a club that the girls had gone to before, because they had a contact there who they thought was a manager. About 7 of us piled into a taxi, and we were greeted at the club door by our contact. We were rushed in, past the pay window, past the metal detector and past security (armed and uniformed guards). We were taken immediately upstairs to a VIP section. The girls wanted to dance, so they wanted to be closer to the dance floor. So we headed downstairs to the dance area, and a table next to the dance floor was cleared off (the people sitting there being cleared off as well). We were told to sit down, were given drinks, and were told to dance wherever, including up on the stage. I thought, "Wow, they must really want to show off that there are Westerners here." After about twenty minutes, a waiter-type came up to me with a piece of paper, speaking (of course) Chinese. I kept saying to him pigio, which means beer. He kept shaking his head and pointing to a number, which I thought was the price of a beer. Not understanding, I called Jane over (she had been on the stage dancing). It turns out that the guy was wanting payment for the VIP table, demanding that we pay him 1000 quai, or about $140. Our contact turned out to be a club promoter, and I assume he thought we were high rollers. He assumed wrong, and we left the club and headed across the street. The promoter, for the rest of the night, sent us text messages apologizing and hoping that we come back for just a drink.

The bar that we went to across the street was much more my style, as opposed to the loud dance music at the first place. It was an outside bar, with just a few tables set up alongside a garden, with beer being their only option. We had a beer there, wound down, and headed home.

When we got home, Stacey was asleep (she decided to spend the night). I went into our kitchen and found a can of beans with a bunch of puncture marks in the top. We realized that Stacey had never seen a can opener before. The next morning, I showed her how a can opener worked, and her response to seeing the can top pop off, word for word, was, "Who invented such a wonderful thing?!" Jane and I both started laughing, knowing that this was, in a small way, a miraculous thing that she had just witnessed.

Stacey headed off and we decided to go to the international hotel for their big Sunday brunch. As expected, it was very good. This time, they also had a clown and a babysitter, so for about 20 minutes, Jane and I had some time to ourselves. Here we are enjoying our champagne. Here is Evelyn enjoying some sushi. Also on her plate are shrimp. Evelyn's two favorite foods are shiguo (watermelon) and shrimp. The only problem is that shrimp here are served with head, skin and tail still on. It is messy to prepare them for her, and it takes a long time. You could easily spend 20 minutes peeling shrimp, with her waiting for every next one. I have just started eating the entire thing, head and all.

Here are some other random pictures, in no particular order. This is Etain having a bad hair day.

Here are Dan and Evelyn riding the merry-go-round at Pagoda Park.

Here are Evelyn and Etain atop the lookout at the park that is closer to our house. Right before this picture was taken, Etain was eating a bag of potato chips. She had chips all over her and all over her seat. A guy approached, commenting on the kids. He then noticed the mess that was Etain, and he began cleaning her up, throwing all of the crumbs on the wood beneath, which I assumed everyone did and therefore it was ok. We talked for a bit, me not knowing anything he was saying. The girls and I then walked away, and he began picking up all of the crumbs off of the ground. I felt horrible.

Here are the kids and I eating at Muslin noodles. It was a hot day, the restaurant had no air conditioning, and the noodles were in a boiling hot soup. Notice the sweat stain on my back. Also, notice the soda can in Evelyn's hands. It was full at the time, and it was the only cooling thing on the table. Soon after the picture, she threw a hissy fit and tossed the soda on the ground. She was freaking out, we were trying to discipline, and all I wanted to do was get home in the AC. I could just picture the people around us saying, "Well what do you expect with three kids." More likely, however, they were still saying, "Aren't those three kids cute."

Some other random notes:

--We now have Ju Jie as a full time nanny. It is working out great. The girls love her, and we do too. She does all of our laundry every day. This morning I woke up, took a shower and headed to my underwear drawer. To my surprise, all of my underwear were neatly folded and tightly packed into the drawer, such that pulling out underwear was like pulling a library card out of a Dewey-decimal catalogue. Jane noticed that her underwear was the same way. It was pretty wild to know she does all of that, but also pretty concerning to know she goes through my underwear drawer. Ju Jie has 4 kids of her own, who are all grown. Though she does not speak English, she and Jane can communicate. She also says everything in Chinese as it happens. If Evelyn picks up a leaf, Ju Jie says leaf in Chinese, and then points to a tree and says tree in Chinese. She says that Evelyn understands, or acts like she understands, everything she says.

--We got good news for Dan, he is moving up in school. He was in a Chinese kindergarten, taught fully in Chinese. Though he was probably learning more Chinese than anyone really knows, the classes had a ton of free time, and we were becoming concerned that he was being left out or getting confused with what was going on (he was the only non-Chinese kid). So, he is going to move up to Preliminary 1, which is like moving from pre-school to kindergarten. One of his teachers will actually be Jane. Now, instead of general Chinese free time, he will have distinct classes, including: English (with Jane as a teacher), Chinese, math and science, humanities, physical education and piano. His class will be in the school that Jane teaches in, so he will be a lot closer to us. Also, we think he will learn a lot more from the structure. Though most of the school is taught in English, he still will have Chinese classes, and we think he will get enough Chinese elsewhere to become fluent pretty soon. Everyone, including the principals of the schools and us, agreed that this was the best move for him. He is excited about it as well.

School is going well otherwise. Though we are busy for the next 10 days or so, afterwards is the Chinese National Holiday, and we are off of work for 8 days. We are planning on going either to Beijing (where the Great Wall and Tiananmen Square are) or to Xian (where the terracotta warriors are). I'll try to include more posts before then, but those posts will definitely have a bunch of pictures.

Lastly, here is, I hope, a video of Evelyn walking down the sidewalk. I took this video using our digital camera, and it works fine on my computer. When I download it to the blog, it took forever. I tried to do it once before, and it would not play. If it doesn't work, I will keep working on it; I am sure people will like to see actual moving pictures. Ciao.

Pagoda Park

Well, it is Monday night at 10 p.m. Today was a holiday called the mid-Autumn day. It was nice to have the day off of work, which gave us a 4 day weekend. We did not go to any neighboring towns as expected, mostly because we thought it would be too hectic. The days were nice, though, because we were able to get around Changzhou and see what there was to see.

Friday, Dan had school. Our new nanny, Jiu Jie (pronounced "Jew Je-yah"), stopped by first thing in the morning to see how we take care of the girls, and therefore how we hope she will take care of them. She is very nice, and though she speaks no English, the girls really like her. Jane does as well. I took Dan to school that morning and when I got back, Etain was just going down for a nap. Jiu Jie told Jane, Evelyn and I to go for a walk so that she could clean the house, which she did. We went for a 40 minute walk, during which time she cleaned the kitchen, floors and bathrooms. During our walk, Jane, Evelyn and I went to the Shangri La Hotel, which is a big international hotel nearby (where we went for the fancy breakfast the other week). They have an indoor pool and a fitness facility. Jane and I were thinking about joining an annual membership there so that we could use the facilities. It is quite expensive, but it would be nice to be able to swim whenever we wanted, year round. We are still debating it.

On Saturday, we decided to head downtown. As we left our apartment, it started drizzling. By the time we were a block away, there were plenty of big and fat raindrops. Luckily, when we made it to the main bus stop (about 6 blocks away) it stopped for the rest of the day. Here are the water-logged kids as we are about the board the B1 bus to head downtown. When we went downtown, we didn't have specific plans. We did some window shopping, though most of what we bought was food. We bought some more meat on a stick for Evelyn, and Jane found a guy on a corner who made an old favorite of hers. I cannot even try to spell it, but it is pronounced (something like) chick-pean-quodza. It is like a crepe with a few eggs in it, along with tiny bits of meat and spices. I thought it was good, and she loved it. The portion was big, and it only cost 2.5 quai, about 45 cents.

Again, everywhere we went, we attracted a crowd. One of the scariest things I have heard in China is "wait here", so Jane can go run into a store and look at something. Without fail, a group of people crowd around me and the stroller, speaking (obviously) in Chinese. I have become quite good at saying "Wo ting bu dong", which means I don't understand. I say it so much that people seem to make fun of me for saying it, but they don't seem to get the point, because right after I say it for the 10th time, they keep trying to talk with me.

We have been going out for entire days, letting the girls catch cat-naps in the stroller. This day, Etain was particularly tired, so we stopped in a park area to eat at some benches and to give her a bottle. She laid down, but so many people wanted to see her that there was no way she was able to fall asleep. While we want to be nice with everyone, it came to the point that we had to say, "Please leave her alone so she can sleep." At that particular moment, we realized how movie stars felt after being hounded by paparazzi. Here is Dan, in the park, surrounded by some of his lady-admirers (these girls followed us around for 20 minutes).

Here is Dan on the streets of downtown, snacking on a strawberry smoothie, posing with the lolli-pop girls, as we called them.

Here are Dan and Evelyn posing near a fountain in the park where we ate. Jane took the picture, I am off to the left, trying to keep a very tired Etain from crying despite having people constantly peeking into her stroller to catch a glimpse.

With no specific plans for the day, we decided to head to the large pagoda a few blocks from downtown, knowing that there was a park at the base of the pagoda. We didn't know exactly where to go, though we could see the pagoda in the distance. We just headed off in the general direction. Here are Jane and the kids on a very Chinese street (I do know that all of the streets are Chinese, but you know what I mean). The guy to the left is selling fruit; the green things on the bottom are actually oranges (which are still pretty tart, they are not quite in season yet).

The very Chinese street came to a dead end, so we walked up an alley to a street that was under construction. As we were walking on it, it seemed as if we were the first Westerners to ever be in that spot. Here I am talking to a passerby, the conversation (as usual) being about our having three kids. [Jane and I were considering trying to pitch a reality tv show, following our day to day lives in China. The name of the show would be "Sanga!", or three of them, because we still hear it constantly.] The other day, we walked past a guy lounging on his motorcycle. As he saw us, he said in a long, loud way, "Sanga???". It is hard to type how it came across when he said it, but it was pretty funny.

Notice that people still walk the streets and businesses are still open despite the extreme construction. This would never be like this in the U.S., it would be the subject of immediate lawsuits. Here is another picture, from a different day, of Dan near our apartment. In the background you can see Evelyn, frozen and crying. This is because we yelled at her to stop, because she was getting a bit too close to an open manhole (which has been open for days). We don't want another baby Jessica on our hands. A fall down this particular manhole would involve falling about 8 feet and getting entangled in a mess of wires. But don't worry, grandmothers, our kids have been fine and there have not been any problems or even close calls.

Here is Dan on a large bridge going over a lake next to the pagoda. The pagoda park was amazing, it was huge, very clean and very peaceful. Again, classical music was piped through outdoor speakers. Also, on the pagoda, from each corner of the building, on each floor, hung a wind chime. It made a very soft and peaceful noise. Dan is snacking on a large piece of honeydew, which was purchased by a street vendor.

Here are Dan and I a few blocks from the pagoda.

Here are Dan and Evelyn inside pagoda park. In the background are Chinese flamingos. The park has a lake with paddleboat rides, a bird house, a playground, an amusement park, the pagoda and many other smaller building and statues. In the picture, Evelyn is snacking on a sweet potato, cooked in a trash can, and sold by another street vendor. I get the impression that people think it is interesting that our kids so enjoy what they consider traditional Chinese food.

Here are Evelyn and Etain at the playground. The playground was quite packed, but everyone is willing to take a break from playing on the equipment to stare at two white girls. One day, when we were downtown, Jane pulled one of her "stay here" tricks (she was actually buying our cell phones). Suddenly, a crowd gathered around me and the girls. After the crowd grew to about 40, one guy asked me why people were looking at us. My response was, "I don't know, American children, I guess." He seemed to agree, mentioning that it was a pretty rare sight. [I may have already mentioned this in a previous blog entry].

Here are Jane and Etain, enjoying a moment at the rose garden in the park.

Here are Dan, Evelyn and I on a small bridge leading to an ancient building. The lake around us was full of foot long spotted goldfish.

Jane and Etain, standing on the same bridge.

On Sunday, we went for a walk near our house, again stopping at the park that we stopped at a few weeks ago. Here is the view from the far end of the park, on top of an observation deck.

Thrown in for good measure is a picture of Evi on the street near our house. There was something going on Friday morning because there were tons of people (I think it was an employment fair). Anyway, Evelyn has become quite the little ham, waving at everyone and talking some language that is not quite English and not quite Chinese. (Although she does pronounce perfectly the work "shiguo", or watermelon). In addition to the waving and talking, she loves to pose for pictures, then demanding that she look at the camera (I guess to make sure that she looked ok).

As it was a long weekend, we did some other things, but I will have to keep them for the next post. It is getting late, and we have school for 11 of the next 12 days. Good night and/or good morning.

A Few Pictures

It is Wednesday night. Tomorrow is the last day of our ten day rotation. We then have four days off (we normally would have three off, but this weekend we have Monday off as well). The school has our passports, because they are doing the work as far as getting our residency permits. Without our passports, we cannot travel long distances, because it would be hard to rent a hotel without them. So, our plan is to do some small day trips to neighboring cities, including Shanghai, and just to spend a day or two checking out some of the sights in Changzhou, as well as getting some shopping and work done.

I have to do some more chemistry reading tonight, electrochemistry again, but I wanted to show some pictures first, in case there were no posts over the long weekend (I will still try to do at least one).

Here is a picture taken from the 4th floor of our school, near my office. It was taken at 8:45 a.m., and it is a picture of all of the Chinese students lining up for their morning exercises. Classical music plays over the school's loudspeakers as the kids do stretching and calisthenics for about 10-15 minutes. Our school uses classical music for everything. When the "bell" for class rings, it is not a bell but a recording of a symphony by Mozart. When the class ends, Bach may play for thirty seconds or so. It is pretty nice. Also, at around 2:00 p.m. each day, a voice comes over the loudspeakers for 4-5 minutes, again accompanied by classical music. I asked my lab assistant what it was, and she informed me that it was directions for eye exercises, to keep people awake and alert. I have not yet seen anyone doing them.

Here is a good picture of Etain swinging in the park that is about 7-8 blocks from our apartment.

Yesterday, we had to get more passport-type photographs taken, for all of our residency permits and teaching certificates. The photo lab was a next to a family-run engraving business. The mother and daughter were out front, and the girl stopped to pose for a picture with Dan-man.

Here is a picture of Evelyn just after falling asleep tonight. As you can see, compared to the previous picture of the girls' room, we bought her a new comforter, which she uses as a mattress pad. She was sleeping on a thin sheet directly on the mattress (China does not have fitted sheets), but she kept kicking and wiggling throughout the night, and every morning the sheet would be wadded up in a corner and she would be directly on the mattress. This should stay in place a lot better, along with being more comfortable and cleaner. We bought it tonight at a small storefront that sold household furnishings, such as bowls, pots, fans, and sheets. At the MegaMart, this would have probably cost $15. We were able to get two of them (the other is on Dan's bed), for $11.

Evelyn does not necessarily need to be in her bed to relax. Here she is striking a similar pose while watching Ratatouille. The DVD player that we bought, which is hooked up to our TV is not working right. It went out the other day, but I was able to find the button on the remote control that corrected the problem. This time, I cannot find that button (they are all Chinese characters), so we will have to make due with the portable DVD player until our nanny, Stacey, can help us out with the remote tomorrow.

After we got our passport photos yesterday, we walked home from school. It was a much shorter walk than I had thought, the whole family could have easily made the trip in 25 minutes. The only problem with any long walk is the humidity. It is darn-hot out now, about 33 degrees Celsius. The worst part, though, is that we are in monsoon season, and there is a dampness in the air. There have been plenty of days where there is no breeze, and if that is the case, you are sweating if you walk a block. Considering I walk about a mile when I take Dan to his school and then head to my school (after getting off a bus with no air conditioner), it is pretty obvious to my students that I am a foreigner (my shirt is stuck to my body and they are all cool and collected). In my first class ever as a teacher, the first thing that anybody said to me was, "You look hot."

Anyway, on our walk home, we stopped at a place called Muslim Noodles (there's nothing like a steaming hot bowl of noodles to cool you down after a long walk!). We bought a beef brisket, which was ok, beef skewers, which were great, and a large bowl of potato noodles with pork, which was very good as well. The meal cost 14 quai, or about $2, and we had a few leftovers.

Here is Evelyn enjoying one of the beef skewers (these are actually probably lamb).

Well, apparently we found a food that Evelyn really enjoys: meat-on-a-stick. Tonight Jane ran to the store and to a dumpling restaurant next door. Here is Evelyn eating, this time a chicken skewer:

Here is young Etain, waiting for Evelyn to drop her food. Most of the time, Etain consumes about 30% of Evelyn's meal (straight off of the tray, oftentimes to Evelyn's annoyance). [If you enlarge the picture, you can really see Etain's new pearly white].

Here is what we bought for dinner: two chicken skewers (for Evelyn), and 24 dumplings (called joudzas). The joudzas are filled with vegetables and pork and beef sausage. They are very good, especially with soy and pepper sauces. This time the food cost about $2.50, and it fed us all.

We hope things are going well for all of the readers. Things are going well here. We will try to collect stories and pictures over the 4 day weekend, and we will let you know all that happens.

School Has Started

It is Sunday evening. Today was our first day off from school. Our school is on an interesting rotation, in that they do six days of class, one day off, then four days of class, with three days off, then six days of class, etc. It can make for a long week, but it is also nice because you have a three day weekend every other weekend, which gives us time to travel. With our one day off, we decided to head out to downtown, braving the Changzhou traffic. Here is a picture of the traffic, taken out of Evelyn's bedroom window. Every car in the picture was moving, most at full speed. What I have learned of Changzhou traffic, size matters. Buses are the biggest, so they go where and when they want. Then come vans and large cars, then small cars. It is common to see a car going the wrong way in the street. After cars come bikes, and then come pedestrians. The drivers here are actually quite amazing: they know exactly how little they need to slow down to just miss something or someone traveling in another direction. Nobody stops all the way; they simply slow down a bit or take a new course (sometimes over curbs) to [barely] avoid something in their path. Actually, in the physics book that I had read for school, there is an entire chapter on the physics of traffic. Here is the press release shot of our school. Actually, now that I look at it, I think it is the back of the school, but the front looks the same as well. It is eight stories high, my office being on the fourth floor. Jane is in a separate building, a much smaller building which would be situated just behind the photographer of the picture below.

As expected, Jane is teaching English to first and fourth graders (I may have mentioned some of this in a prior post). She really enjoys it. She has a very broad range of nationalities in her class, from throughout Asia and Europe. I began teaching chemistry and physics, but I dropped the physics. There is an engineer who also teaches higher level physics, who was scheduled to teach English. Because physics is his strong suit (and not really mine), we swapped, and now I teach chemistry, basic science and English reading. My chemistry students are pretty amazing, they range in ages from 15-17 and they are all preparing for college level chemistry. The book I am teaching is different from the books I learned from, so it takes a lot of preparation on my part to be ready to teach. It is nice, though, to have such energetic and interested kids. In my basic science and English class, there is a much larger difference in English comprehension, but again, the kids are all doing very well.

After our first few days of classes, we had a welcome dinner for the foreign teachers. At our table below, from right to left, are me, Jane, Jenny (the local director of the teaching program that our school uses), Mr. Jiu (who I will talk about later), Ali (the physics teacher from Canada), and Cecile and Severin (French teachers (from France)).

Jenny (from New Zealand), moved into our old apartment (poor Jenny). She is very nice and she and Jane have hit it off quite well. It is funny, there are about three teachers from New Zealand and a few from Australia. I share my office with one guy from New Zealand and two from Britain. My Chinese does not seem to be improving too quickly, but I think I am developing a pretty good Australian/New Zealander/British accent. In the picture below, we are at a very nice Chinese hotel, and we are dining on our first round of food. In front of me is an expensive bottle of special Chinese wine that the principal brought (it was very strong, like saki). There were several toasts at our table, and the Chinese men taught us that when touching glasses during a toast, if you respect the person you are toasting, your glass be lower than the other when they touch (the tip of your glass should touch the middle or bottom of the other glass). Well, everyone at our table respected each other, so it was a constant struggle to be the one with the lower touching glass.

Here is another picture of our table, with some of the other foreign teachers in the background. You can see the new round of food on the rotating table (you take what you want out of the big bowls and plates and put it on your personal plate). I would say that they probably brought out 30 different foods altogether, some being: chicken skewers, beef, many different vegetables, wontons (my favorite), and plenty of fish (including an entire fish that was about 2 feet long and 1 foot wide). Also in this picture, you can see Felix to my left. He is the vice president in charge of academics. He is extremely nice, and when he did toasts, he was almost laying on the floor to ensure that he was the bottom glass.

As a side, at the dinner, Felix paid me a pretty big compliment. He said that I reminded him of a soldier, meaning that I was strong, clean-cut, educated, and level headed. He said that he thought I would be a good role model to the students. It was quite a nice thing for him to say, but simply put, he is a nice guy. Now on to Mr. Jiu, another nice guy. Because we have still had nanny issues, Jane has not been going to school in the mornings, and she did not go for the first few days of orientation. When we were at dinner, Jane talked a lot with Mr. Jiu, especially after a few of the toasts started taking effect. Jane was being her boisterous self, joking with Mr. Jiu and calling him her new best friend. Mr. Jiu said that whenever we have visitors, we should bring them to him and he will help show them around. Jane thought that Mr. Jiu was the driver that had driven the bus of teachers to the hotel for dinner. I then realized that she had no idea who he was, so I told her that he was the headmaster of the school. It was pretty funny, but it did not matter, we would have had a great time with him, and the others, no matter who he was.

After dinner, when we were leaving, a few games of mini-pool and mini-ping-pong were played in the hotel lobby. Mr. Jiu beat Jane 11-9 at ping-pong. One thing is for sure, the Chinese take ping-pong quite serious; the game was pretty intense. Below are Jane and Jenny playing pool, and Ali and Jack (the vice principal in charge of non-academics (housing, pay, meals, etc.)

On Wednesday night, we decided to go out to dinner instead of cooking. We decided to go to a Sichuan restaurant, where the food is in bowls of hot liquid, filled with tons of different types of hot peppers. We got a chicken soup, and here is Danny gnawing on the chicken's foot. He was not brave enough to try the chicken's head (nor was anyone else). Dan actually found the foot by wading his chopsticks in the deep soup bowl, which he called "fishing for chicken".

Here are Jane and Evelyn at the same restaurant.

Here is Danny with Stacey, who has been the kids nanny in the afternoons when Jane goes to work (the pictures were taken using her phone). Stacey is a college student who we randomly ran into at a bus stop; she asked Danny, in English, what his name was, so we struck up a conversation with her. She is very nice and is very interested in our family (being with us is a good way to study English). She goes to class in the morning, and then heads straight to our place afterwards, where she works for four hours or so watching Evelyn and Etain (Dan is in school all day). She also watched the kids Friday night when Jane and I went out, and she has offered to be an on-call babysitter whenever needed. She has been a big help with the kids, and she has taught us a lot about where to go and how to get places.

Here are Etain and me.

Here are Dan and Evelyn, playing in the playground of KFC. Stacey took them there one day, where they feasted on soda, juice and cookies.

Here is Stacey and Etain, the picture being taken by Dan.

With our one day off, we decided to head downtown to do some much needed shopping. Another thing that I forgot to mention that our whole family has fallen ill with some flu type symptoms. Evelyn had it first, gave it to me, and then it went to Dan and Etain. I think now we are getting over it. But with the chills, the aches, the rock hard beds, and with adjusting to everything being slightly lower than normal, my lower back has been killing me. The first thing I wanted to get was a foam mattress. We headed off downtown, went to another huge department/grocery store, and bought a bunch of stuff. I bought my mattress, but it was just a tiny little pad (hopefully everything helps, though). Afterwards, we headed to McDonalds, where Danny got another happy meal with a Star Wars guy, as well as some balloons. We then went to another shop along the street, where we bought cell phones. Right now, our phones only do local calls, it will take a few weeks before we can register for international calling. Our cell phones cost about $40 each, and we got the cheapest ones. The phones here come with SIM cards; there are no calling plans. Each card has some pre-paid amount on it, and when it is up, your phone does not work. I think the card charges per call, regardless of the length, and each charge is about $.03.

Here is young Daniel walking the streets of downtown Changzhou. (The funny thing about this picture is that, seconds earlier, the red balloon was in Evelyn's hand. She dropped it, though, and it went flying down the street. Jane chased it for about a block and a half before she was finally able to snag it.).

Here are the Grizwolds coming home from Wally World. (Actually, it is us after leaving the store (the stroller was packed with groceries, and pushing it felt like pushing a dump truck. We also got bombarded by street vendors, and Jane gave in for the extra balloons.))

That has got to be enough for now, I have to go read about electrochemistry to prepare for my classes tomorrow.

School Begins

Evelyn reveals herself as the true author of the blog: With the weekend over, it was time to get down to some actual work. Jane and I were scheduled to be at school at 9:30 a.m. for orientation. We had still not yet found a nanny, so the kids went along as well. The school picked us up in one of their vans, and the driver looked pretty shocked at the amount of stuff that we had (3 kids, double stroller, enormous diaper bag, snack bag). We had to pack a lot, though, because we had no idea how long we were going to be at school. When we arrived, we met another teacher who had taught the previous years, so we followed her to where we needed to go. We went into the meeting room, and there were roughly 20 other teachers and directors. It turns out that the principal who hired Jane and I, and our contact throughout the entire process so far, are both leaving for new jobs in Beijing. The leadership has been rearranged, and there are now, as far as I know, four principals.

We sat in the meeting and learned a bit about what we were teaching and who everyone was. As we are in the international division, there are no Chinese teachers. There are plenty of teachers from New Zealand, a few from France, Zambia, Canada and Australia, with one guy from North Carolina. We found out what we will be teaching: As expected, I will teach chemistry and physics. Jane will teach English (as a second language) to younger children (elementary school age). My students will be the most senior students, preparing for university educations. We also received our teaching schedules, and we are each teaching throughout the day. I only teach 3-4 hours per day, but it appears I will be at the school pretty much all day long. Jane tried to have her schedule changed, for purposes of the nanny (when we get one), and she was able to get all of her classes packed into the middle of the day, so she can come a bit later and leave a bit earlier [We found out, as I am writing this, that Jane will be allowed to teach in the afternoons only for the first 2 weeks, until they find a better solution for child care. Jane found, independently, a student studying English who she really liked, and I think she will be our nanny in the afternoons, if everything works out. She is coming over tomorrow afternoon to meet with Jane and the girls. Jane says that she can just sense that this girl is right for us, as she did with Becky, our prior nanny in Jefferson City, who was very good]. After I went and got my books, we ate lunch in the student cafeteria. We feasted on white rice (as always), curried potatoes, chicken (I think) and snow peas, a chicken leg, green vegetables (like collared greens), and soup. Monday was over around noon. Though not the most impressive picture of the school, here is Danny standing in one of the courtyards of the school where Jane and I will be teaching.

After lunch, I took the girls home and Jane took Danny to the school where he is going. The plan was to take him around and help him get acquainted with the new place (a large task, since he was going to be in a class conducted entirely in Chinese). Based on his age, he would be in the more advanced kindergarten class, but since he speaks so little Chinese (though still more than I do), he would be in a lower level. When he went to the school, he seemed to just fit in with the higher class, so that is where he is. I was surprised when Jane showed up at the apartment shortly after I did, and even more surprised to see that Dan was not with her. Instead, Dan fit in so well that he told her that she could go and he would finish out the day with the class. Here he is with a few of his new school chums (he is the blond one).

Here is one of his teachers, or at least one of the teachers at his school, whom we had met previously. Phoebe is very nice, and she said that after the first day, Dan already had a girlfriend, a very talkative Chinese girl.

Here is the young Jedi practicing some of his moves on his way home from school. As you can tell from the picture, he was in a great mood. He really loved school. His school is about 6 blocks from where Jane and I teach. This morning (his 2nd day), Dan and I rode the public bus to my school, and then I walked him to his school (the experience being quite a treat for me). Also, on the bus was one of the principals of my school. He was very interested in Dan, as is everyone, and he was confident that Dan would be able to speak Chinese in 6 months.

Here is a pic of the main portion of Dan's school. To the left, on the other side of the wall, is a playground area, followed by more classrooms. His school is quite impressive. All schools here have a gated entrance, flanked with guards (in uniform), to make sure that guests do not get in unless allowed and to make sure that kids do not get out without permission. It is pretty impressive, because it makes it seem as if each school, even the kindergarten, has its own big-time campus.

After our first true day of scheduled activities, we were not in the mood to cook. We planned to go to another streetside restaurant, but on our way, we stopped in a place that is right outside our building. It advertises itself as a fitness club, but there is a restaurant associated with it. Jane went in to see what they had, and we decided to eat there. The main issue was whether or not we could afford it, because we only had 150 quai in our pocket (about $23). We got in and ordered beef with vegetables and chicken. Here is the plethora of food that came out for our family of 2.5 eaters.

First, they came out withan appetizer of pickled cucumbers and dipping sauce. Then came the pork with vegetables, which was my favorite. Then they came out with the chicken, which was also very good. We thought this was the end, and we knew at that point that we would have leftovers. After that, they came out with "vegetables", which is the standard vegetable in China, again like collard greens, as during lunch. When that came out, Jane told the owner no more. However, soon after an eggplant dish came out. I don't know if I have ever eaten eggplant, and if I did it was not memorable, but this stuff was pretty good; Jane loved it, as did Dan. Again Jane said it was too much, and as she was saying that, they came out with the 5 gallon bucket of soup. The soup was awesome, like egg drop soup with green and red peppers in it. Finally, the food stopped coming, for now at least. We had no idea if we would be able to take any home, so I pushed my rice aside and began devouring whatever was in front of me. Meanwhile, Evelyn had had her fill, and Danny was up playing with the hostess and one of the cooks. The game of the night was 'Don't let the balloon touch the ground'.

One thing that made me a bit uneasy about our dining experience was that we were the only people in the restaurant. Because of this, and because no one has ever seen three blond children before, the people bring the food out to you, and then they stand a foot away, watching you eat. At this particular restaurant, I felt especially awkward, because as the kids were having the run of the place, the woman who ran the restaurant basically watched me eat as much and as quickly as possible, because I did not want to waste any of the food. After my 9th bowl of soup, my eyes began watering, and I had to call it quits. Luckily, Jane found out how to ask for a doggy bag, and we wrapped the leftovers up and had them the next day. Our total bill was 95 quai, about $14.

When we were finished, they brought out dessert, a large plate of watermelon. It was the best tasting watermelon I have ever had. Evelyn must have agreed with me, as she at 90% of it.

In fact, Evelyn ate so much of it, when the plate was empty, they brought out another plate of cantaloupe. Now, here is an interesting note about Evelyn that some might not know: she is allergic to everything. She cannot eat anything containing wheat, milk, barley, nuts, and several other things. Cantaloupe has also caused her problems in the past. We did not know how to say that she was allergic to it, we did not want to offend the hosts, and Evelyn was chomping at the bit to eat it. So, we let her have a few pieces. The result: nothing. I don't get why, but she has not had a single allergic reaction since we have been here. When we got here the first night, she slept on the sheets that were provided. I was certain that she would have an outbreak from whatever detergent was used, but she didn't. On the night we went to KFC, she was eating small portions of the skin and batter of the chicken. When we went to Monkey King, she ate the entire deep-fried chicken wing. I was positive that we would be woken up in the middle of the night by a red, screaming and itching kid. We were not. We are still, obviously, being as careful as possible, but something seems to have happened. Must be an ancient Chinese secret.