I'm baaaackkkkkk.... and it hurts when I turn over...

I am so happy to be back in the virtual world of blogging... I missed sharing my scary thoughts with all...

Well it's official, we have taken up residency in the Great Red Country...
We moved into our new apartment one week ago today. We live in a sort of village (called Huafa New Town) of apartment complexes, surrounded by beautiful trees and plants and flowers, and lakes and fountains everywhere you look. There are even beautiful black swans with white tipped wings just outside my patio... And and and!!! I can feed giant goldfish everyday, hundreds of them... Doesn't this sound like a dream???? Well hold on, I'm not telling you the whole story!!!

The place might be beautiful, but heck, ALL beds, (in Hongkong, Hotels, our apartment) are bloody hard!!! Like rock hard. No joke, every time I turn over during the night, it bloody hurts!!! Ouch!!! And naturally it wakes you up, and because you are jet lagged, you cannot easily recuperate. BUT, Harry was not having any of this B.S, so as of now, we have purchased 3 different layers to add to our bed. : ) 2 foams and one extra couette. So we have a bit of give now...and our sheets, thank goodness, still fit!

Have you ever moved into your apartment in 2 taxis??? Well , that's pretty much how we role right now. Remember, we arrived in China with 7 suitcases, just enough clothing to get us by for the next 6 to 8 weeks t'il we receive our belongings from the U.S.. So, for sure we had to buy a few things or 100... Towels, kitchen stuff, linen, groceries, king size foams for our bed, etc... and we don't have a vehicle.. : (

So here we are, trying to explain to the cabbies in Mandarin, or sign language, that we would like to go to the supermarket or mall. WELLLLLLLLLL... it's like talking to someone from mars. Our languages have nothing in common, and our hand gestures are not really compatible either. Thank God we bought a translator and Harry has a blackberry.. Between the two devices, we get by..

So our first shopping experience left us utterly exhausted.. Shopping here is a foreign, no pun intended, experience... Ex: Let's say you come from the planet Saturn, and you arrive on earth.. On Saturn, all runs smoothly when shopping. You choose your items, you proceed to the cashier, and you exchange currency for product, and away you go... WELLL!!!! NOT IN CHINA!!!! First of all, you can't read the labels, 2nd, you have about 6 or 7 clerks following you around pointing out all the wonderful chinese items, and attempting to convince you in their own language how much you all need them. ( you can read that on their facial expressions) so eventually you start putting stuff in your basket.. but the moment you choose an item that is over, say, $7 u.s , they take it from you, and write out a ticket, then proceed to the cash register of that particular department and make you pay immediately...just in case you forgot and left with the expensive item, (7 dollars!!!). Remember, this is a communist country, so people walk out of store without items unpaid because they believe that the government provides them, hence the lack of payment.
So here you go, through the entire department store paying every time you picked up something more than $7!!!!! Needless to say, after 4 hrs of this, we were wiped out...
Now, we have to get this mountain of purchases home... So, with a bag or box hanging off every body part we own, we drag our buttocks to the exit, down the escalators, walk to the street, and proceed to hail a cab. By this time, we are sweating. The temperature is 28 degrees c, or 80 F , humid and we are tired tired tired... We are able to give directions with the use of a business card from our complex, and we are on our way home..
The cab drops us off at the curb in Huafa, and we load up again, to treck to our complex, up and down stairs, across the lake to our apartment, about 1/4 kilometer.

Can you imagine? We had to do this at least 4 times. I am going to be in good shape after a year of this. I'm tired now.. just talking about it..
But hey, stay tuned, there's more...I'll be back!!!

Your sentence of the day (cause I've been gone so long) is : Yi Ping Shui ( pronounced, "E ping shway" ) which means, 1 bottle of water.

NiHao for now, Pauline : )