Advertisement
Published: September 16th 2009
So much to blog, but finding it hard to make time to do it. I think these weekly reviews are working well. Let’s do this thing.
Last week was another busy one. I helped out with a new parent orientation at school. While stuffing the welcome bags and talking with the women who were going to be speaking, I was offering my ideas and next thing you know—on the agenda. Darn. I was a bit nervous, thinking it would be hundreds of people, but it ended up being a much smaller group than last year. We had the potential for as many as 200 new parents to attend but it was not that crowded. I spoke about transportation (subway, taxis, buses, trains, etc.) and I saw a few people taking notes which was nice. I was a little worried my audience would not stay with me since about 90% of them said they had cars and drivers. However, after my talk I was approached by another woman who said she was relieved to hear about how well it’s gone for us using public transportation. She said her family won’t have a car either and it’s been worrying her. I chatted
with a few other new parents at the breaks and helped set up and register people. I loved being a volunteer at this event. I have a lot more friends this year. I know more people. I am just more comfortable in all aspects of my life here. It was a nice way to give back and pay it forward a bit.
I am still going to Weight Watchers for those interested but afraid to ask for progress reports. I am doing well, and will share the big milestones as I go. I am nearing one soon. It’s hard, but doable and I know I will have success. I am walking almost every day to school and sometimes back home. The cooler weather makes walking a very enjoyable means of exercise and I also have a walking buddy which helps tons. My neighbor/new friend has been walking with me to school. So much more fun to have a walk and talk buddy. Plus, I have to show up. It’s hard to blow someone else off so I can goof around for an extra 30 minutes in the morning. The walk takes a little under an hour, and we walk
fast. Plus, we have obstacles to avoid—people, bikes, giant trucks, road construction which adds to the excitement of the walks.
My Chinese classes remain solo classes but I’m learning a lot. I am using the new words and grammar points every day and I have definitely reached a new level in my Mandarin abilities. I will probably take a short break when this session ends and resume my studies after the October holidays (and our trip to Vietnam) in early October. I am sure I still sound like a monotonous American trying to speak Chinese but I have a much higher success rate with my attempted conversations and that makes me keep trying. I talk to the taxi drivers, traffic cops, the restaurant staff, the subway monitors, the store clerks and random people on the street everywhere I go. So in that regard, nothing has changed. Once a chatter, always a chatter. Mark has always encouraged me to take the time and spend the money on lessons while we are here. I know he wants to spend more time studying but he's just too busy with work. I am very lucky to have had this opportunity and grateful to
Mark for his role in providing this experience.
Mark was gone again (as he is this week) but home on the weekend. He shared a really funny story and said I could post it here. He was walking down a street in the town he was in (a factory town called Dongguan near Hong Kong) and a guy approached him and said “wa wa wa” or something similar and Mark could not understand him. Sometimes people think we’re speaking English when we are speaking Chinese and in this case, Mark assumed the guy was speaking Chinese, but he was saying “Viagra” in English. Mark declined, but said it was like receiving live spam. All those thousands of spam emails offering Viagra, and other pharmaceuticals and this guy was the live version.
We had a fun date night on Saturday night at an interesting Japanese place called Shintori. I was craving sushi, but it was more eclectic, modern Japanese with a side of sushi than a real sushi joint. Still, we had a great time and ate some new things. I ordered this cube themed appetizer because it sounded intriguing. It was odd, that’s for sure. And certainly true
to the name. There were four types of cubes. However, one of the cubes (well really a rectangle) was a shrimp inside a gelatin shell. Mark got that one. He said it tasted as good as it looked. Very diplomatic. I was the dorky tourist taking pictures throughout the meal. It was photo worthy.
We then stumbled upon a massage place and inquired about foot massages. The guy at the counter told us we could come back in 20 minutes. The price for a sixty minute massage was 60RMB. Sounded good. We went to a nearby Filipino café for dessert. The place had live music and two for one coffee. We tried a few of the desserts. One was a brown sugar tart shaped custard-type deal and the other was coconut custard with corn niblets. Again, interesting. The coffee was great. I loved the music. It was a guy at a keyboard singing classic 80s music. I was singing along and I know Mark thought that was awesome in that I’m not going to let her know I think she’s a great singer because I don’t want it to go to her head kind of way.
Then it
was off to the massage place. I was very excited. My craving for sushi was only surpassed by my craving for a foot massage. Mark had been working so hard, and this seemed like a great use of our date night time.
We get settled in our massage room and I’m a little bummed to see we are in a room with another man. Not that it’s a big deal, but I enjoy private rooms. Oh well. We get to soaking our feet and we wait so long the water starts to go cold. But, finally, two people come in and get to work on our feet. Now, I need to pause and say that in our year plus getting foot massages in China, there have been great ones, average ones, and some that were just okay, but mostly the methodology is consistent and we leave happy. Un-pause.
These massages could really be used as methods of torture for war criminals. It felt (and I actually looked a couple times to check) like the guy was stabbing me with knitting needles. He was doing these crazy voodoo pressure point squeezes on various sections of my feet. He pulled at my toes, pounded my legs and seemed to find and focus on the various bruises I already had on my legs. Oh, and I’m certain I had new bruises post-“massage”. Now you might be wondering, “Suzanne! What the heck is wrong with you? Say something and make it stop.” Well, is my reply back, it’s not that easy. I said it hurt several times. I moaned. I winced. I may have shed a tear or two. I’m starting to block out the memories of the night in the same way I have blocked out the pain of giving birth to my two children. Except in the case, I was not handed a new baby at the end, but rather a bill.
Mark’s experience was even worse than mine. His person was clearly a first timer. She kept sneaking peeks at my guy and was trying to copy his moves. Mark did not say “ouch” or “it hurts” because he’s a man. He’s so strong and brave. But oh how he let me know about the pain the minute we left, later that night as he hobbled down the street, and the next day as he exaggerated his efforts to walk across the apartment. Why he wanted to protect his image in front of two crazed foot squeezers, I don’t know. I have mostly recovered although today (Wednesday) I did have some flashes of foot pain and one of my toes still aches.
The kids are doing great in school. Emily is working extra hard on her math and her Mandarin. Nathan is working on a cool project where he has to invent a solvable code. He loves stuff like that. They are learning Kung Fu and I observed today. Seriously cute. As the kids were told to race from one end of the room to another, I saw Emily whiz by and absolutely destroy her partner. He was either 4 or 5, but still. She was amazingly fast. Nathan was serious but seemed to be having fun with the poses and yells.
Final random update--tonight, I made tortillas from scratch and we had our first taco night. I was inspired by a friend who said she makes tortillas from scratch here in Shanghai. A pack of tortillas at the expat store with all the imported foods costs about $8-$10. I brought a bunch of packs back from our trip home in August, but those are long gone. The tortillas were fantastic. So fresh, so easy. Now I need to find corn flour so I can do both types. Yum.
In general, we are all quite busy but happy. Still have the Shang highs and the shang lows but for me, a lot more up days than down days lately.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.231s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 7; qc: 51; dbt: 0.1421s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
NatalieB
non-member comment
The Pain!
Speaking of pain...my sides hurt from laughing at your hilarious description of your agonizing massages. I'm not laughing at you (or your pain) but at the image of Mark hobbling across the floor...all from an overzealous massage! Great blog - super funny and totally YOU.