Burritos, Golf Balls, IKEA, 10000 Buddhas, & the American President

Regretably it's been such a long time since I blogged, and although the past few weeks haven't been particularly special, I thought it might be important to record some of the usual-type going-ons...

After about one week of post-travel blues, things started getting better as I settled back into the routine in Shenzhen. The first week of teaching was extremely busy and tiring. This semester's schedule has us going in early in the morning and coming home at about 6:00 PM three times a week - sort of like a real job! I finally finished watching five seasons of Entourage on DVD with Liz. I got a couple of foot massages and hair washes, participated in the pub quiz at 3-D Bar, shopped and visited the tailor, and have been grocery shopping every other day to keep up with my sudden and persistent urge to cook.

By the way, going to Carrafour (the closest supermarket) stresses me out immensely. The store is uncomfortably warm. People walk slow and block the isles with their grocery carts. They stand on the moving ramp, which moves very slowly, and block me from walking on past them. They stare and whisper to their friends to turn around and look at me. I arrive at the cash register sweaty and flustered and am embarrassed when the woman at the register tells me I am, "piao liang" (beautiful). As I wipe off my sweat mustache, I know she is lying, but she must feel inclined to say something nice to the foreigner.

Ian came over one weekend, and I made chicken in peanut curry sauce with rice. He brought over some cake for dessert. It was nice to catch up with him and also reminisce about the good ole days at Maersk. We both really started to miss aspects of Maersk - getting coffee and breakfast in the morning, lunch-time errands in Ian's truck as we sang songs on the radio, all of our old friends and co-workers... Liz, Megan, Cody, Danny, and Kofi came over after dinner. Everyone had brought their take-out Chinese dinner with them and ate it around the coffee table. Megan and Cody had brought bananas and made chocolate fondue for everyone - mmmm...

My friend Danny had found some 7 lb weights in his room and brought them over after I had finished tutoring one Sunday night. I'm planning to get back into "body sculpting" (Andrew Wah style!). I have lost all of the little muscle I had when I first got to China, and drinking Tsing Tao and eating fried Chinese food and McDonalds all the time doesn't help. I have sort of given up McDonalds for Lent, though I've cheated with ice cream and fries - but I feel like I'm doing good by not getting a filet-o-fish or Big Mac. Danny arrived with the weights and two avocados. We made the most amazing burritos ever. We made homemade salsa and guacamole. I cooked up some seasoned, shredded chicken with sauteed onions, jalapenos, and cilantro. Danny doctored up a can of refried beans. We were so uncomfortably stuffed afterwards, so we walked up to the Mei Lin resevoir and hit golf balls at the driving range there. There is something very therapeutic and relaxing about cooking and hitting golf balls, though as you may suspect, I sucked at driving balls. Danny insisted he sucked too, but he was hitting them WAY further than me. I was even tempted to reach out onto the green and grab a few balls that I hit, they were so close...

My Liz ("Doreet," as we affectionately started calling one another after a hilarious incident involving Doritos) and I have slowly weaned ourselves off of each other. With Serena back from vacationing with her parents, Liz is no longer spending every night at my place, but we still got together weekly to make Kraft Macaroni Shells & Cream and watch DVDs. We've finished Entourage, and I'm now working my way through the Wire. We also went to an intense yoga class, which was a lot of fun! Liz joined the gym, but I am sticking to my 7 pounders and Wah workout. We also often see each other at Kofi's on Tuesday - which we call "Tradish Tues." I often get a text from Kofi on Tuesday afternoon, "you tradishin?" This involves joining Liz, Kofi, and Danny for a happy evening of eating junkfood as we watch movies in Kofi's "parlor" (the empty bedroom in his suite with a nice flatscreen tv).

I talked to Appa, Amma, Anand, Crystal, Archana, Lance, and even John Luke on the phone last week. It was so great to hear everyone's voices. Amma was telling me all about John Luke when he was in India, and it made me laugh to picture him doing the silly things he does, and I missed him so much. Amma said she would squeeze him and kiss him; he would get mad and attack her with his open mouth kisses and try to hit her in the face. We said he was going to end up so spoiled because we all love him too much, so much we don't mind when he hits us in the face. The other night I called, and Archana put John Luke on the phone. I talked to him and tried to get him to make his usual nonsensical noises - "ada!" This time, he politely said, "hi" and handed the phone back to Archana. He said "HI" to me!!!! He is getting so big, turning 1 on Saturday, and I am so disappointed to be missing all of this.

Serena and I made plans to switch rooms, but not before doing a little shopping at IKEA. It was my first trip ever to IKEA, and we asked Lori and Megan to come along. couldn't believe how cute and cheap everything was, and I immediately set to work dumping objects into my cart... a bright new comforter, cushions, candles, even a new chair... We ate a nice western dinner there - all of us got the salmon in dill sauce, served with vegetables and potato cakes. The salmon was a little overcooked, and I wished I had gotten the Swedish meatballs and even considered going back and getting them after I had finished my dry salmon. We had weighed ourselves on the scales in IKEA, and the numbers weren't lookin good, so I resisted eating two entrees. We spent hours in IKEA, singing Back Street Boys in the spacious elevator, imagining our future homes, and engaging in girl talk (per Lori and Megan, dating younger guys is "in"). Once we finally arrived home, lugging huge IKEA bags and Serena's cumbersome mattress pad, everyone decided to head to Coco Park for a few sidewalk drinks. Not me... Instead, I stayed home alone, watching Slumdog Millionaire on youku.com and assembling my new IKEA chair.

The next morning, I woke up early and packed a small backpack in preparation for hiking and camping in Hong Kong. I took a cab to the border and stood in line to clear immigration and customs. The line was so long and I needed to meet the group in less than an hour at a metro station in Hong Kong. I bumped into Dan Stein and we stood together. As time slipped away, he told me not to worry and suggested that if our friends weren't waiting for us, we find an internet cafe in Hong Kong and figure out how to get to the trail and camp site on our own. I had been thinking I would just turn around and go home and get right back into my bed. When we finally arrived at the ShaTin metro station 45 minutes late, we spotted James, Jeanette, Nicole, Liz, Kiki, Brad, Nick, and Fred sitting on the floor in the station waiting for us! YAY! We rode on a bus for about 30-40 minutes along the coast. The ride was beautiful, but then it began to rain. Camping on a beach in the rain wasn't looking so fun anymore. The weather was so dreary, and once we made the decision not to hike and camp, I felt pretty relieved. We shared all of our camping snacks, and then our group decided to split up. Brad, Nick and Fred decided to go hiking in Yantian, back in Shenzhen. I was no longer in the mood for hiking, so I opted to join the other group heading to the Ten Thousand Buddhas Monastery in ShaTin. This turned out to be a small hike too - we had to climb many stairs to get to the temple at the top, and on either side of the staircase were gold statues lined up - each holding different objects, sitting or standing in various positions, and making different facial expressions. At the top, the inner walls of the temple were lined with ten thousand tiny Buddha statues. It was really cool, and it felt good to feel like a tourist again (as opposed to a resident). Liz, Kiki, and I decided to head back to Shenzhen after seeing the temple. As we exited the temple we spotted a sign for IKEA with a picture of a hot dog and coke on it. Mmmm....now was my chance to get those Swedish meatballs! We located the IKEA and went inside, excitedly savoring the images of Western food in our head. Swedish meatballs seemed like the perfect rainy day food, and Kiki the Vegetarian had her heart set on some vegetable lasagna. Unfortunately, the Hong Kong IKEA was renovating their restaurant. We were so disappointed! We snacked on some shitty hot dogs and then headed back to Shenzhen, cheering ourselves up by spending the rest of the day gorging - first at Subway (my first real sandwich with cold cuts since I got to China!), then back at my apartment. I made a strawberry pie and served some sliced mango on coconut sticky rice as we watched a Madea family movie, 'Meet the Browns', and stayed up chatting and giggling until 3:30 AM.

That Sunday... it was almost noon when I woke up, and I still felt tired. I was dreading tutoring, but also needed to make up the money I had spent at IKEA on Friday evening. I grabbed some dumplings at the corner dumpling shop for lunch and then tried to plan some lessons for my students. Tutoring always seems to interfere with my personal time, with me just getting to be lazy, and I always dread it, but it's always fun once I'm actually doing it. Snoopy, my eight-year-old student arrived at 5:00 and we went over the words I had taught him last week. It's frustrating...he doesn't try to read the English words. Instead he tries to recognize the whole image of the written word, just like it's a Chinese character. I decided to go back to the basics... we went over the ABCs and the sound each letter makes.

I spent the rest of Sunday evening eating Frosted Flakes, sitting in my new IKEA chair, and watching American President with Kiki, who I had bumped into at the grocery store. Serena and Kiki had talked up the movie a lot, and though I usually resist romantic movies, I did find this one cute. Michael Douglas was so likable. He wasn't afraid of getting hurt or embarrassed. He simply liked Annette Benning and pursued her without hesitation, without holding back. He was absolutely expressive of his attraction towards her. It was so sweet! Why can't romance nowadays be more like that? Or is it just me? There are so many games, so much distrust. I went to bed feeling a little sad, but I don't really know why.

The following week, we showed American President to all of our classes and came up with worksheets to go along with it. We taught our students the difference between bills and laws and had them come up with their own bills. Then the class had to vote whether to pass these as laws. Serena and I had veto power. It was fun, and our students came up with some funny bills.

There are only 12 more weeks of teaching. Twelve more Tradish Tuesdays - to think of it in these terms is alarming. There is so much to do and get done while I am here, and time is dwindling! Last weekend I had dinner with a friend Nadia, who works for Maersk here in Shenzhen. We talked about what we wanted to do here in China in our remaining time, and I made a list. On Friday, I plan to go to Dafen Oil Painting Village with Liz, and the last weekend of March, we are heading to Macau (the "Las Vegas" of China, though I hear it is also a very quaint town with lots of culture and history, formally a Portuagese colony).

My 29th birthday is next week. I'm not so phased about getting older, but Serena and I have been talking a lot lately, and I definitely feel like I am in the midst of the important years when I should at least be preparing to settle down, if not actually settling down. I think the first six months here, I romanticised being free and independent and not really committed to anything, but the novelty of being an expat has worn off, and I am ready to plant some roots soon... I think? I think that's why I've been cooking, cleaning, and decorating my room. As Serena would say, I'm "fulfilling my need to nest." To celebrate my birthday, I am going to have dinner with friends at a new restaurant that just opened in Shenzhen called Modern Toilet. The seats are toilets, and many of the menu items are... gastrointestinally themed? The chocolate soft-serve ice cream comes studded with corn. Yes, I know this is gross, but if you know me, then you know I really appreciate toilet humor! Stay tuned for pictures...

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