I am typing this on Friday morning at 10 AM. WE spent Friday night in our campus hotel. Our permanent apart is not ready until Saturday. They are busy renovating it. We dropped by to see our apartment Thursday. It is very nice.
THE APARTMENT
The apartment has 2 bedrooms - a living room - a kitchen - and a bathroom. It is on the 10 floor of a big big apartment building. We have AC - two beds - TV - furniture - refrig - range - microwave - western toilet - large shower. It has several elevators. The apartment is a short walk to Lulu's classroom. I will do a video when we move in.
One neat thing - on the ground floor of our apartment is a Wu Mart. It is a knock off of a Walmart. It seems bigger than a Walmart - good prices - it seemed to go on forever. We can take the elevator down and go shopping without going out in bad weather in winter. Since we will not have a car here - it is nice to be able to buy - stuff quickly by walking.
NOODLE FACTORY COOKING SCHOOL
On Wednesday - we went to a cooking class at the noodle factory. We made scratch noodles - flour - water - salt - oil. We also made scratch tomato sauce - oil - tomatoes - herbs. The rest we did by hand with the right tools. It took two hours to make and we ate it in 20 minutes.
After lunch - they hired a guide to take us thru the historic district. We ended up at an American pub with a beer garden.
FROM BEIJING HILTON TO CAMPUS HOTEL
Thursday after a very big Hilton breakfast - the college took us out to a very big intro dinner at a Peking Duck place near cmapus. I had pork and duck. They brought so much and we were already stuffed. We tried every dish - but I did not do the fish.
We then toured campus. Lulu's grad asst is our personal guide. She is lovely. She took us to a bank to start an account. But she needed a China phone number. So we went to a phone store. Lulu bought a one year phone card for $30! It came with 60 GB of data. It was enough to get a China phone number. Today we will go back to the bank to get an account. She will put her t-mobil card back in after the bank.
CHINA PHONE AND BANK ACCOUNT
The main reason for a bank account here is that China has a great money system called WeChat. You pay at the store with WeChat. You can pay other people by bumping phones. It is very efficient - and also prevents getting counterfeit money - a problem here.
So far - we have hardly spent anything. They have paid for hotel - cabs - meals. Tomorrow - once in the apartment - we are on our own a bit. Lulu has a full week off before her first class.
SEMINOLE FOOTBALL AND HURRICANE
We follow the news on our slingbox TV - Tallahassee Democrat - and Sirius Radio. We know all about the hurricane coming. We know the game is at Tallahassee at noon Saturday - which will be midnight Saturday here. We will watch. I only wish I were there to rent out a few bedrooms in Tallahassee. Jacksonville must be peed off. I will bet the Boise State team will be happy to come into Doak Campbell Stadium with a chance to beat the Noles.
No comments:
Post a Comment