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.