June 1st in words

Heidi was worried that she would have adjusted to the time change by the time classes started but she didn’t need to worry – she was up an hour before her alarm went off. I, on the other hand, had visions of walking her to class and then working on my camera skills or going up the 700 stairs behind the college but that didn’t happen either. I was quite happy to stay in the apartment and work on my Chinese lessons and look into travel options. After class we did what we’ve done every day – try to get better internet, look into fixing the printer, try to sort out meal cards and the cell phone store. This time I really do think we made progress. In terms of the internet, we have been entered into the system so hopefully can use the Ethernet in the apartment instead of the wifi but it will take 24hours to activate. Heidi’s Chinese phone is finally working (there is a new rule that the vendor needs to take a picture of your passport with the SIM card. We used a photocopy of our passport and that wasn’t acceptable so we had to go back with the real passport). So I have a Chinese SIM card in my iPhone and Heidi has her Blackberry with her US international plan and another basic phone with a Chinese Sim card so that we can text and call each other. We got the meal cards but couldn’t put money on them until after 4:30. Oh and we picked up our laundry. Sounds mundane but it’s a highlight of our day, not just the clean clothes but the lady is so nice, one of these times we need to ask someone to come along to translate. She’s always so happy and seems to have a story to tell. We think she was trying to tell us that they weren’t ready yesterday because she had to take them down (she hangs them outside on clothes lines to dry) because of the weather.

After yesterday’s venture for lunch, the grad student remembered of a similar restaurant but much closed so off we all went and enjoyed another great lunch of green beans, sweat and sour pork, beef and peppers, scrambled eggs and tomatoes, fried potatoes, eggplant and rice. Add a large bottle of OJ and of Sprite and the 5 of us ate for a total of 50RMB  (that’s roughly $10 CDN).

However, the best part of the day was the pineapple on a stick! Last time, all the students kept telling me how I had to try pineapple on a stick but I came later in the summer and we couldn’t find it anywhere. Turns out, this time we’re still a little early but one store indulged us and neatly sliced up a pineapple and served it on a stick. It was so sweet and juicy! Just the right thing on a hot day.