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Published: September 5th 2013
We’ve been in Nanchang, China for about 5 days now. Ava had her first day of school yesterday. She says she made a friend whose name is Zandar (probably spelled with an X instead of a Z). I paid approximately $44 for the month and she will go full time. This price includes her lunch at school. I know that most of the daycares overseas are about as expensive as in the U.S., so I will really do my best to stay here for the 2 years until she will be able to start primary school in whatever country in next in our list. There are a lot of kids in the school but the teachers seem to have control over them and Ava was very excited to have made a friend. Her teacher said that Ava seems to be a very clever and friendly girl and that she will do well despite her nonexistent knowledge of Mandarin. She doesn’t have to wear any official uniform or t-shirt, nor does she have to wear indoor slippers.
Having our internet installed has been a real challenge because it requires stamps and certificates and can only be completed by one official person.
So, if that one person is busy, we have to wait until they are able to help us. It seems to be the story for every simple thing that needs to get done. The good thing is that the weather cooled considerably two days after we arrived. It’s now closer to an average northern Michigan summer temperature and perhaps more reasonable than that. We only sweat after we’ve been walking for a while and there is a somewhat steady breeze. It’s actually pretty nice and we are hoping the weather sticks for a while.
Yesterday while Ava was in school, Zac, Lauryn, and I went into town to buy a few more odds and ends for our apartments. We got there early and decided to explore the town before going to Walmart. We really like the back streets and ate some yummy street food. I saw a diner with “Dumplings” written on the side and started dreaming about the soup dumplings that JingJing introduced us to in Philadelphia. So, we all went inside and I decided to try to order. I made the motion of a bowl and eating soup with my hands and then said “dumplings”, but the
cashier looked confused. So, I said “dumplings” and it seemed like I needed to give a number. I gave the sign for 6 because that seemed like a good amount of dumplings for one person. The cashier nodded and then asked another question. My thought was that she wanted to know what type of dumpling, so I pushed my nose to look like a pig’s nose and she nodded again. I paid about $5, which I thought was a little pricey for 6 dumplings, but let it go. Zac suggested that we split up the order since we were trying something new and they would like to be saved the pain of ordering. We found a seat downstairs and a woman looked at my receipt and wrote something on it. Then she went to get a cart and we had to choose between a red chili dip and chunks of garlic. In the end, we decided to get a saucer of both. Then the woman brought us about 30 dumplings! We realized that I had ordered 6 SERVINGS of dumplings! So, like the fantastic Americans we are, we bellied up to the table and went to work on those dumplings.
After not having meat for several days, the pork was amazing. We finished the whole plate of dumplings without any room left in our bellies. We decided to walk around a bit more before hitting Walmart and found a great street with a lot of street food vendors. It smelled amazing and most of it looked absolutely delicious. However, we were way too full from the dumplings to try any of it. We will definitely be going back several times during our stay though. Expect more video as well, since many of the vendors make the food right there. Buying food at a Chinese dumpling shop and eating street food were definitely confidence builders for us and I don’t think we will feel the need to rely on American franchises while we are here. We did find Pizza Hut, Papa Johns, KFC, and Starbucks next to Walmart. It’s nice to know it’s there but better to know that we can find cheaper, more delicious Chinese food by walking down a side street.
In have included video below to help you better visualize streets in Nanchang. You may have to copy and paste them into your browser until I learn
to format videos from Vimeo.
Video from a side street in Nanchang's city center: https://vimeo.com/73769989
Street near NIT with some olympic buildings: https://vimeo.com/73821392
Street on the outskirts of Nanchang: https://vimeo.com/73824294
Streets near the city center of Nanchang: https://vimeo.com/73824502
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Conrad
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Lots of Dumplings!
I pictured the three of you eating dumplings while laughing as I read this, ... and thanks for the pic of the police car!