The Complications of Ex-pat Life!

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Life here tends to be complicated! Here's an example: I've only mailed one letter so far. But, first of all, I took it to the post office in my subdivision. Apparently international mail doesn't go from there - I needed to take it downtown. Fortunately, I knew where the downtown office was. But the post office is the "China Postal Bank." Of course, not reading Chinese or understanding how anything works here, I wandered into the bank side of things rather than the postal side of things. Someone redirected me back outside and into the next door to the postal side of things (which seemed to be a big deal - when they saw I had a letter, they couldn't just point out the door toward the next door - I would have figured that out. But no, they had to go find someone who spoke English to walk me out the door and in the very next door!). Then I stood in line for a long time, even though there were only 2 customers in front of me. Finally, when it was my turn, I was redirected to the "international services" counter. Fortunately there was only 1 person in line ahead of me there! And envelopes here aren't pre-glued with stuff that requires a little lick... nope: the lady behind the counter handed me a bottle of glue for the enveloped she had given me (I had to put my already-addressed card inside the envelope they provided). Anyways, the card got mailed so all is well!

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Photos

The Post Office
This is the one downtown... the one from which I actually COULD mail a letter to Canada!