To Town and Back On A Bike

Ok, so I think we are STARTING to get some of this technology sorted out. Phew, amazing our dependence on it, but at the moment, it means closeness and connection to people far away and that is very special and comforting to us.
Today we got right into our introductions to the rest of the Chinese staff at the school. Approximately 200 of us in total for the 900 or so students to be here this coming year. There are 50 or so of us in the BC School department and the remaining chunk are, for the most part, native to China. The afternoon has started out with department meetings, though our teaching assignments are always changing so it is hard to know where to be....in fact our assignments may even change through September and even beyond. Flexible, must stay flexible:)
Yesterday afternoon, after Ben and I joined our separate gender groups for lunch at various locations, we met up and went in search of the ideal toaster oven, an essential item here in China since most houses don't have ovens, sometimes they have stoves.....mostly its hotplates, microwaves and toaster ovens, so we're livin' it up Asian style. Once we made our lovely new purchase of a brand new toaster oven we walked it home and found our legs quite tired after the traipse downtown and back....so we bought a beautiful, barely used, mountain bike! Bikes are essential here and they carry everything! Including little Asian girls on the back rat trap, so for the evening I did as they do and rode side saddle while Ben peddled down the busy city street. Smoke Alley is an area downtown with food markets, little sidewalk shops (more like garage doors opened to concrete roomsnfilled and overflowing with anything and everything for a home), streetside restaurants, vendors selling dogs, cats, grasshoppers, goldfish, turtles, etc. Aromas sting and warm and puncture our noses as we meander and tiptoe through and over whatever lies in our way. We plunked ourselves down for dinner, our bike precariously leaned with new baking bowls perched on top, next to an old cart. A Chinese man with a white Muslim cap served us fantastic fresh fat noodles with meat and vegetables interspersed, oozing with a plethora of flavors ready to burst in our mouths. After wiping our lips and politely throwing our napkins on the floor, we hopped on our bike for one last stop before heading home. Around a corner, along a side street and up to a shop displaying infant clothing....still open and lit at 8pm on a Wednesday night. I walked in and past the dust covered display of used children's clothing gaily hung on the walls, and turned left into an enclosed room filled with rack after rack of a little piece of home. Cinematic pretties in my mother tongue, printed, wrapped, and sealed with love. Oh joy, it was great to find something I could finally understand! Some days I concentrate so hard on understanding the chitter chatter of Chinese, but sadly it never magically transforms into clarity. So I grabbed a few of interest, paid the mere pennies for my findings and jumped back on the bike for our ride home through the cool evening air that had begun to rush between the city walls.
Finally, we settled back into home, with what, before, I would have seen as meager items on a shopping list, but here, they were lovely joys that seemed to brighten our day even more. Small pleasures, small, life, big city, can't wait for tomorrow:)