Date Night Disaster

Our plan for today was to take a trip to the DVD store, wet market then to Wal-Mart to buy a grill.  We found a little (3 feet high if that) charcoal grill…

a far cry from the grill we had in the states!  I picked up some eggplant, a pineapple and some grill accessories.  When we got back to the apartment our steaks (the most amazing steaks I ever bought…the ones I smuggled from Hong Kong) were defrosted.  Adam put the grill together and I prepared the marinade for the pineapple, seasoned the meat and the eggplant.  The pineapple marinade calls for melted butter so I melted it in the microwave.  OOPS the microwave didn’t work…I noticed the oven wasn’t working and the hot pot light wasn’t on.  I yelled at Adam a little because he wanted to wait till Monday to have someone come and fix it (we tried the breaker…that wasn’t the problem)…BTW I didn’t yell at him because I was mad at him but because I knew there was no other way to fix this problem because...well we can’t read a phone book to call a repair man and even if it was in English I am sure the repair man couldn’t speak English.  I called Jodie because I knew she has had people come fix things for her, she told me to translate a note online and take it to the security guard at our gate and he will call someone.  It worked…someone came noticed that the breaker box was smoking,

This is about the time I wish we had a smoke detector

 went to the store bought a part and is here fixing it as I type.  I am sitting here in the dark with a grumbly belly while Adam runs to the store to pick up lighter fluid after trying to start our self lighting charcoal for a half hour. 

so much for my nicely set table

We ended up eating dinner at 8:50 pm…it was delicious…and in the end I don’t think it was such a disaster.

It All Started With My Dirty Breakfast Dishes…

I am totally ADD and can never just get ONE thing done.  Today I went to bring my bowl and glass from breakfast into the kitchen and didn’t leave until I had done the dishes, made mango juice, watermelon juice and orange juice.  After cleaning up my sticky mess I noticed the bunch of bananas I bought the day before sitting on top of the refrigerator.  So I looked up a banana bread recipe and whipped up a loaf of bread.  And just because I could I made a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies.  I barely was able to eat lunch and take a shower before afternoon tea with Jodie.  It was one of those days where I stayed in my pj’s until 1:30…however I don’t think it falls in the same category as my other lazy days. 
It is nice to finally have my energy back.  On the way to the Airport in Vietnam Adam started getting sick.  We figured it was food poisoning or just eating too much at Sunday Brunch.  Then when we had been back for a day I started feeling sick so I guess Adam had a bug and gave it to me…and as of today I am back to 100% again.  Not only that but I finally have the desire to eat and drink things with flavor…and now it looks like I have plenty!

All the signs point to PREGNANT!

I took 3 more tests just for my own piece of mind.  There wasn’t a doubt in my mind until they told me they would take a blood test before I could see the doctor…I started thinking how awful it would be if the test came back negative after I got so excited and I was stuck in Hong Kong totally disappointed.  So never mind the fact that I am 2 weeks late (when I am normally like clockwork) and never mind that I am tired and bloated and I have gained 1.5 kilo’s (my scale in Kilo’s which I don’t mind since the number is much smaller) and never mind that I really feel it (it is crazy I felt cramps and just weirdness in my belly).  I needed the three more tests for my own piece of mind.  They all came back positive.  I am so excited about my doctor’s appointment, until then by my calculations I am 5 weeks.  It is so cool to think that the baby is the size of a poppy seed and next week it will be an orange seed with a beating heart the size of a poppy seed.  It is growing so quickly…no wonder I am exhausted.

3 Positive Tests

We planned on starting to work on getting pregnant at the end of the summer/early fall.  Well our plans don’t always pan out the way we expected.  I went to the doctor for a pre-appointment in June and he gave me some prenatal vitamins and said that I should go off the pill two or three months early.  And well apparently I got pregnant right away.  I took a pregnancy test after I was a little late and we both went in after 5 min. to look at it together.  At first glance I didn’t see anything but we both noticed a very light second line.  I took another test 3 days later and we had a darker line but it still wasn’t DARK.  At this point we were in Vietnam and I was convinced I was pregnant.  I had lots of cramps and an odd feeling in my belly plus looking back it explained why I had been so tired lately.  I had been up to working out at the gym 3 times a week (half hour of cardio and half hour of weight training) and I had felt like I could go all day, plus I was doing yoga daily and my wii fit when I wasn’t at the gym.  All of a sudden last Sunday I couldn’t make it through my whole workout.  Monday I pretty much laid around all day, Tuesday I tried to go to the gym again and I could only last 15 min before I started cramping up.  Wednesday we had the very faint test so when I went to the gym on Thursday I slowed down the workout allowing me to last 30 min.  BACK TO OUR SECOND TEST…I figured I better be pregnant because I couldn’t explain my sleepiness and my weird belly feelings any other way.  Adam needed another test so we bought one in Vietnam (the test I bought in China was the equivalent to about $1 US and the one in Vietnam was about $0.75 US….so we were a little worried about how well they worked).  Positive again.  Yesterday I made an appointment at the doctors in Hong Kong for Monday.  After I heard they would be taking a blood test before allowing me to have an appointment with the doctor I started getting paranoid about these tests being wrong and my symptoms are all in my head.  So on my outing this afternoon I plan on buying some more tests, different brands so that I feel sure before I get all the way to Hong Kong and have to come back because the Asian tests aren’t accurate.  We are planning on not telling anyone back in the US until we are three months into the pregnancy, just to make sure things are OK.  I will keep up this journal so that I don’t have to try to remember these stories to share with everyone once they know. 

Vietnam

We had a wonderful trip (as always).  We spent 3 days in Hanoi where a tropical storm was supposed to come through (no wonder the plane tickets were so cheap) but decided not to!  It was crazy hot and humid (not worse than Huizhou, but we were outside all day long) but that is better than a tropical storm.  Anyway we spent each day doing a variety of activities, we saw the sights (Pagodas, Pottery Village, Silk Village, Presidential House, The Old Quarter, and The Hanoi Hilton) we shopped (I LOVE Asian markets, and a whole village with just silk and another with all pottery…of course we shopped!), and we ATE (Vietnamese food, Thai food, Western food…and MEXICAN…we used to try and eat places we don’t have at home if we were traveling when we lived in the states…well we don’t really have anything at home in Huizhou, so yes we are probably the only western tourists that go to Vietnam, Hong Kong or Thailand and choose a Mexican restaurant).  We even went to a puppet show, which is impossible to explain but it was basically a puppet show in a pool in a theater telling the history of Hanoi (I think…it was all in Vietnamese).

I didn’t believe it when I read it but the streets were crazier than in Huizhou the only difference being Vietnamese people slow down if there is a person in the road.  The coolest thing I learned is that Vietnam’s architecture and culture is really a hodge podge of French, Portugese, and a little from the USSR.  The row houses were really cool and were painted bright colors (but only on the front) and they were obviously not built with the next house in mind so all of the houses are different heights and different styles. 

The pottery village was really cool (I even made a pot…well painted a pot…think Mad Platter International).  Families have been working for many generations making pottery.  One thing I read said that the pottery village we went to has been around for a thousand years.  Supposedly some of the best clay comes from that area of Hanoi and is imported to Europe.  The silk village was equally as cool.  Families had their own silk work farms (some of the worms came from India and China but some were Vietnamese) and created the thread and used old fashioned looms to create fabric.  The looms had patterns that looked like songs on a player piano (you know…lots of holes that apparently mean something).  The silk made in Vietnam is a lot different than the silk made in china…they use a more raw version of the silk to create texture, some of the silk even felt like rough linen.

The “Hanoi Hilton” was by far the best stop on our trip.  It is actually a prison (for those of you that don’t know your Vietnam war history…like me) that American pilots nicknamed the “Hanoi Hilton” John McCain spent some of his POW days there.  They showed all the horrible things they did to the local people were I guess considered traders.  They locked them up they died of disease, they did slave work and had their heads chopped off.  Then we saw pictures of the AWESOME time Americans had as a prisoner there.  They had Christmas parties, played games, raised chickens for dinner, and were even given souvenirs on their way out.  The print and video in the prison talked about how the Imperialist Americans had destroyed their way of life which was apparently perfect before we intruded. 

The Intercontinental Hanoi...it cost like $60 a night including an awesome breakfast and VIP status

the pottery village

notice I am the only adult painting

Vietnamese people locked up at the Hanoi Hilton

The silk village

The Lights Went Out In Huizhou

Today the electricity went out in the whole city.  No reason just went out.  This has happened a few other times since we have been here and according to Jodie this happens a lot over the summer.  Today it happened just as I was washing my hands and about to head out the door.  I had hands soaking in soap when I realized that the power being out means that the water doesn’t work.  I cleaned my hand with a wet nap and headed out the door of our apartment on the 24^th floor during a power outage.  Thank goodness our lift has a generator (I figured this out because the two men I shared the lift with were speaking about how they were annoyed that the power went out for lunch time and discussing how the lift had a generator…I assume).  I am not looking forward to more outages over the summer…my water still isn’t really flowing 9 hours later and it seemed like it took forever to cool the apartment off since the ac doesn’t turn on automatically when the electricity comes on.

Date Night On The Road…HONG KONG

For the next few months we will be in and out of town but I want to keep our tradition going…I figure take a week off and then two and then it’s finished for good.  Today we went to Hong Kong, it was supposed to rain so I didn’t bring my nice camera and carried 2 umbrellas all day.  I guess it did the trick and it didn’t rain!  We went to the Peak which gives you a full view of Hong Kong. 

We went to Madam Tussauds Wax Museum, I have been before in different places but the cool thing about the Hong Kong one is Asian people don’t care about the people we care about, so there were no waiting in lines and no waiting to take pictures with exciting people like Madonna.

We stopped off at (lucky us) the Beer fest that we happened to run into.

We went to the book store and the food store (I now have all my baking supplies) and we went for Mexican food and a picture of Mango Margaritas. 

It was the first nice day I have spent in Hong Kong (weather wise) and it was Adam’s first full day in Hong Kong not suffering from Jetlag.

Struck Again

This is a random Lindsay story that has nothing to do with China…

We just found out that there was an electrical issue with my town house, apparently there was a lightning strike that blew the electricity in the living room.  There was no fire and no damage other then the lack of electricity.  So this is the crazy part, it’s not the first time lightning struck something of mine.  In 2005 I worked at an office in Upstate NY and the hot water heater that was behind the wall in my office was struck while we were working.  Again there was no fire and the only damage was the hot water heater broke.  Not 4 months later I was in my apartment in Mebane NC and the outlet my TV was plugged into was struck and blew my TV.  There was no fire and the only damage done was to the TV and the outlet. 

Here is the question…am I incredibly lucky, totally unlucky, or (my theory) do I have strange luck?

The Nerve of Some People!

I am a creature of habit and routine.  In China I only have a few set things on my schedule each week.  Wednesdays are my gym/pool days.  I have a summer membership at the hotel in town and I think I am only one of 2 people that actually have this membership.  The hotel houses my own personal gym and pool on Wednesdays from 11-3.  Last week I was disappointed to find out (after showing up in my work-out garb) that the facilities were closed for repair.  This week there were other people there.  I have been spoiled, and I really have no problem with people using the pool or the gym, but it was the one place in China that I could go and not be the object of curiosity.  Chinese people don’t work out and they don’t like getting tan so I was safe.  Children stared at me for half of my workout…am I really that more interesting than playing in the pool?  After they left a couple men came into the gym to cool off and have a smoke (yes SMOKE).  I started listing in my head some of the interesting generalizations I have figured out about Chinese people. 

1) they are thin and healthy despite the lack of exercise, the amount of oil in their cooking and their smoking habits

 2) men wear Speedo style swimwear while women practically wear coveralls (shorts and a high back high front top)

3) they are all LOUD!  Not only did I enjoy breathing in smoke during my workout, but I could hear conversations over my iPod and through the closed door

Now…I totally love the Chinese people they are very nice and there are so many things that I love about living here, for instance the NSync Christmas album that played at the hotel restaurant where I ate lunch.

It’s been a while and I don’t want my mom to think I am unhappy…

My mom and I were talking about my honesty entry and she said that she could tell when the low points were because I didn’t post anything during that time.  I can’t say that wasn’t true all times but it wasn’t true a lot of the time.  Epically lately, the daily events are just that to me…daily events.  It’s not a strange part of my life anymore when strange things happen.  At this point in our move we have all our stuff, we are settled, we know our way around town and we are learning the language so it becomes easier to get around.  I think it is safe t say if I am not posting for a while it is because nothing out of the ordinary happened.  Today I went to lunch with Jodie and we got our nails done, yesterday I did laundry and baked cookies.  Tomorrow I will most likely go to the gym and pool.  Your welcome for not making you read that kind of stuff each day.  That stuff goes on Facebook…just don’t tell the Chinese government I am using Facebook.

My Amateur Travel Agent Skills at Work

I have just finalized plans for 3 more trips.  Adam is unable to take off work until October with exception of one day in July.  Since the first 5 ½ months of living in Huizhou went by so quickly we decided to go ahead and put our trip list into action.  In July we are taking a trip to Hanoi, Veitnam for a long weekend (the flight is under 2 hours and I got an excellent deal).  In September (for my birthday) I am planning a trip to Hong Kong Disney World (it’s a VERY small version of the Florida park).  For October I have planned a trip that was on the top of our list when we found out we were moving to China.  We are going to Japan, 3 ½ days in Tokyo, 2 ½ Days in Koyto, and 2 ½ days in Osaka.  Due to my mad value finding skills we are under budget for each trip (we budget for the travel and hotel, then food and entertainment) and thanks to my travel books I have found great cheap restaurants with views.  Our Thailand trip was so successful (I planned what we were doing down to the restaurant) with no “what do you feel like eating…I don’t know what about you”.  I did the same thing for NY (at least planning what area we would find a restaurant).  So for our next trips I am planning everything.  I go in with the mindset that it is OK if we don’t do everything, but we have a plan if we need it. 

I've got the grocery store blues

The can’t find what you need and don’t know if you actually bought the right product because it’s written in Chinese BLUES!
Grocery shopping in China is an experience in itself.  I pack up my grocery bags and my hand sanitizer and head to the store about once a week (per store).  I mainly shop at Jusco (a Japanese chain) or Walmart J.  The organization of the stores makes no sense to me so I have to wonder each aisle and search for each item.  I don’t make a list because that would just be disappointing.  I always buy milk if they have it and it’s fresh because they don’t always have it in the store, and I have to buy the same milk each trip because the one time I bought something that looked like milk (it was in a milk carton and had a cow on the side) and I didn’t realize it was a yogurt drink until I tried to make mac and cheese with it.  Not only did I end up with no dinner but I wasted a box of kraft mac and cheese from the states.  I used to love grocery shopping in America…the smell of the bakery (now I smell meat and fish that have been sitting out)…the meals I would plan as I walk down the aisle (now I just hope I can find some chicken breast so I can cook it the same way I always do)...planning a surprise treat when walking down the baking aisle or the ice cream aisle (now I HOPE what I buy is what I think it is)…going to the refrigerated section (I really have no room in the refrigerator so I can’t buy much that needs to stay cold).  The rough part is I still love grocery shopping but every trip is a huge let down.  
I hate being totally negative so here are the positives about grocery shopping in Huizhou: 1) I save so much money by not buying things I don’t need and will never use (I don’t have room and I don’t have the desire to stock up on vacuum packed chicken feet).  I spend on average $25 US a trip (2 trips a week?) for fresh fruits, veggies and meal items.  The exception being my last trip when I passed the American section and bought nothing real to eat but spent almost triple my usual total.  One of my favorite parts of shopping is that everyone is so interested in what I buy.  If I leave my cart to gather apples or pick something off a shelf sometimes there is someone going through my cart to see what the foreigner is buying. It never fails that as I walk people glair into my cart (after they glair at me for a moment).  I bet they wonder why that foreign girl has 6 cartons of milk…well it’s because they only had the individual milk containers (like at school) that day.

Golf Is All About Having Fun…RIGHT???

Adam and I went to play golf today…Here is a little background on our history with golf…Adam’s past golf experience is limited to Putt Putt…My experience was growing up with 3 natural athletes who play golf, I have actually played before, I usually make it through 6 out of 9 holes and cause my family to have to let everyone and their mother pass us because it takes me 10 strokes for the average persons 1 stroke (not counting the times I swing and miss).  After today we can now say we have golfed in China…which is truly an experience.  After golfing in China I will never be able to golf anywhere else.  First of all we arrived got out of the car, went to the changing area, walked through the back door where our bags, carts and personal caddy’s were waiting for us.  My caddy was amazing!  She only spoke a little English but (sorry mom and dad) she was the best golf teacher I have ever had.  She brought me the right club to use, made sure I was lined up correctly, and would let me have a do over.  A way to describe my golf game is short but straight.  I hit the ball straight every time but it never went far enough to matter.  Adam’s caddy was also pretty good, she encouraged him to skip hard shots and found his ball amazingly on the fairway every time even though I could have sworn it went into the water or the woods.  Adam’s style was 1 out of 10 (1 out of 10 shots would be AMAZING but the others were sporadic…he was playing with too short clubs).  I lost 3 balls (due to water being between my ball and the hole and my short shots). 
FOR MOM: After the first 2 holes I had a score of 16 (5 on the first and 11 on the second) and realized that it was going to be hard to keep track of my own score.  I knew you would be disappointed if I didn’t keep score so I asked the caddy to keep score…she must have realized that I wasn’t very good and I guess she didn’t want me to feel bad about my score so she fudged a little…I ended the first nine holes 3 below par, scoring a couple birdies. 

The Guangdong Games

Adam went to the opening ceremony and didn’t get a whole lot of pictures (I will post them later).  He started the evening at the Kande having dinner with all the other VIP’s.  After dinner he was summoned by the Vice Mayor of Huizhou who was taking meetings with people one on one in her private room.  He then boarded the shuttles and the VIP’s were taken right to the door after all the other 24000 people had arrived and had been sitting in the sun for 2 hours waiting for the show to start.  The show started right after he arrived.  He said it was like Beijing on a smaller scale, dancing, lights, music etc…After the show the VIP’s were the first to leave (picked up at the door) and were taken back to their cars.  I actually saw the police escorted caravan of shuttles going to and from the stadium.  Adam came home with a goodie bag, he said it was one of those things you have to see to believe. 

Date Night: Canceled for the first time

Date night started when we lived in a hotel and had to eat every meal out.  Eating out became an annoying part of our routine.  It became something that would put us both in a bad mood.  A) There were only a few places that we knew how to tell the taxi and that had an English menu.  B) There were a lot of rainy cold days where we just didn’t want to try to find a cab or even leave the room.  C) It gets old after eating out for lunch and dinner every day.  We decided date night would be Saturday nights and when we called it a date, went to a nice restaurant and got dressed up it gave us a whole different perspective on our routine.  We decided to do something new or just do something different on this night and it would be something we look forward to all week.  Since we started it there have been weekends where we have been out of town or Sat. nights where we went to parties with friends but this is the first time we have had to sit down and decide if we were OK to cancel it (per our agreement…plans cannot be made on date night without a discussion).  Adam was invited to the Guangdong games as one of two representatives from Cree as guests of the local government.  He is (as I type this) having dinner at a banquet hall at the Kande hotel, and will we heading to the opening ceremony in police escorted shuttles to the brand new stadium built for the games.  Without hesitation I said GO!

Aussies in China

My Australian friend Jodie is in Shenzhen this weekend with her brother and his family who are touring China.  Her nephews are high school age (I think) and organized a basketball clinic for a very low income, rural school this morning.  Jodie invited us to come if we weren’t too tired from our party.  We were exhausted but went anyway.  Adam got to help the boys teach basket ball skills, while I hung back and played with Louie and passed out Lollies and water.  It was really cool.  Jodie made up treat bags for the kids with things from Australia (a flag, a koala, kangaroo stickers etc..).  I took lots of pictures before my battery ran out.  I was really excited to see that the kids had English instruction (I am learning that English is something people need to know to succeed) and that most of the kids that came to the clinic were girls (and as Adam said they were better than the boys).  The principal invited us up for tea and to say thank you (nothing like hot tea on a hot day).

Louis

Jodie handing out Australian flags

Adam paying with JJ

Sigh of Relief

The day of the party I stuck to a tight schedule so that the hot food would stay hot and the cold food would stay cold.  Everything went in shifts (unfortunately you can’t keep everything cold when your refrigerator is the size of a large cooler).  I chopped everything for salads the night before and put them in baggies stuck wherever they would fit.  After I made the salads and cut the fruit I took all our drinks out to make room.  Two hours before the party I switched the salads and fruit for the drinks.  I cooked all the hamburgers and chicken wings in a frying pan early in the day then heated them in the oven starting a half hour before the party.  I cooked the pigs in a blanket an hour before the party.  I put the cobbler in the oven right before people were scheduled to arrive so that we had cobbler smell and not meat smell in our apartment.  When people arrived I had just finished setting up and had a mouth full of chip and guacamole.  Everyone liked the food and had a great time playing wii…and as always I have a ton of leftovers.