The Upside

So, I was chatting with a friend from afar today, lovely to see her face, hear her voice, talk as if we were just chatting over coffee, and catch up. Our conversation consisted of many menial daily things, work, shopping, family friends, the usual, but I was curious, after a while, as to why she kept asking me, "What are some of the good things, the things you like about China?". I finally asked about what her perspective on my time here seems to be so far, and it seems that my realist, sometimes slightly pessimistic thinking has oozed through my posts to indicate a little more of the downer than the upper. So, just to make sure you know that we are not crying ourselves to sleep every night, and we are not wishing we were home, I will try to spin the upside a little more. And really, there is SUCH an upside to our experience in China thus far. To start, today is gorgeous! Probably the most gorgeous day since we have arrived. Sun, blue sky, a cool breeze but slightly warm clear air. We were out with our real estate agent today, looking at apartments. She is an absolute gem, very unlike our first agent who was a bit of a nightmare. TingTing showed Ben a few places this morning and I joined them later. Her English is fairly good and her sense of humor makes up for anything lacking in language. TingTing seems to have become more of a friend than a service provider which makes these experiences relaxing, stress free and a good break from the week. It seems we have also come upon some promising prospects for apartments, ones which are far nicer and more convenient than the one we are currently living in and may turn out to be cheaper as well. Later on this evening we will return to a few that Ben and TingTing found to be the best and explore a couple others.
As for the rest of the day we may take our bikes downtown to explore a little more and enjoy time to relax. I love riding my bike here. The traffic is horrendous which, for me, changes a bike ride into a thrilling adventure. Swerving, weaving, no hesitation, bells, horns, gliding along, watching for sudden open doors and unaware walking wanderers (which is actually pretty much everyone:). Our favorite place to eat so far is still the Muslim noodles. We have tried quite a variety of foods and restaurants and little nooks in back alleys, but the noodles are the best and for the price you simply can't go wrong. Less than a dollar for a whole meal. We have also discovered that next to our noodle place, there is a lady who makes the greasiest, tastiest flat bread with a veggie tomato sauce on top. It is a bit like flat pizza bread, hard to describe, easy to scarf down, and simply fantastic! Beer is cheap here, cheaper than water so we usually drink beer at meals out, water at home and at school. One would start to think that our figures might begin to show evidence of this practice, but because we live on the sixth floor, no elevator, and we live outside of the main area of town, no car, we get a lot of exercise into a day and we have actually both trimmed up a bit:). As for evening amusement, there is a plethora of places to choose from and decent quality. Grey's anatomy, season 1-6 for 5 dollars is fantastic! Friends, the complete series for 5 dollars, yet to look at but I was reassured it could be brought back (and I'm sure sold to another sorry sap, but 5 dollars is 5 dollars:). Recently we invested in a Chinese version of a magic bullet. We have been craving slurpies and aim to discover the best way to construct them in our new machine. It will be an interesting task, any thoughts or contributions to our experiment are welcome. Lastly, for recent purchases, we came upon a lady in the "Ren Ren Le" (translated: "People People Happy") a local grocery store, a bit like Superstore, who was quite helpful in finding us the perfect frying pan/wok. We bought one when we first arrived but returned it for various reasons. We later purchased another one from a small back alley shop, reassured it was good quality, for a lovely price of 7 dollars, which quickly rusted after one use. So, our friend at Ren Ren Le guided us through the process of finding and caring for an ideal, yet not pricey, cast iron wok. It is beautiful, cooks like magic and cleans quick. It rivals my beloved wok that is packed away in Canada, though it has separate specialities of its own.
Of all the things we do here though, we spend most time teaching. The students are growing, and language is slowly getting better. There are really some lovely students here, the quirkiness of the whole is something we are learning to laugh about, but the experience and interactions with particular individuals is quite rewarding. Each day is new and learning how to properly communicate with learners who are in a BC program but cannot handle the language of a regular BC program, a challenge but it has its prize moments. Moments when you say "aha!" or you realize you finally communicated clearly with one class, one student, for one lesson. There are moments and they are growing. We are definitely being challenged and definitely growing and we are very much enjoying ourselves, on the whole, through the process.