Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Playing outside

The school playground - the red thing spins really fast!



More school playground - that thing spins too



Kevin's new bike - riding on the patio - our condo is in the background

I Love Eddie!

Today, Eddie brought me a slice of home. The missing ingredient to my beloved bean burrito. I had the pinto beans (dried beans brought from home), I had the cheese (imported - I paid a premium for it at Metro), but I was missing my flour tortillas. I had full intentions of learning to make them in China. But then along came Eddie.

Eddie runs a western style restaurant in KaiFaQu (Kye-fah-chew - the nearby suburb of Dalian). Mike had eaten there several times - good, familiar food. We had heard that Eddie had started delivering bread to Campus Village. I was expecting that we could get only white bread, but I was quite surprised when I saw his order sheet. Many types of bread, bagels, muffins and flour tortillas!

So I placed my order - 2 loaves of bread, 6 bagels, 2 cinnamon rolls, handmade tortilla chips and a dozen flour tortillas. And today, at noon (that's 9 pm your time), my order arrived. The tortillas aren't as good as the Costco-cook-them-yourselves-ones, but they were great for China!! We had bean burritos for dinner and we are having cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa for bedtime snack. And Eddie's wheat bread is good too.

Yup, I love Eddie...
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Monday, June 29, 2009

Where Are We?

We are on the top floor of IKEA...there is our family and if I turn a full circle, I see one other family and a well dressed couple only....the rest of the store seems empty. "Apologize" by OneRepublic is playing over the store speakers. Are we really in China??? Yes, we are.

Also at the grocery store today, I heard "Hotel California," a song from the 60s that I can't remember the name of, and "Waiting for You" by Bryan Adams. These were mixed in with Chinese songs (which I can only assume are pop songs by the beat).

I used my iPod today to translate the word "pork" to verify that I was actually buying pork. What a great program! Kiana and I have decided that we like the challenge of living in a country where we don't speak the native language. It really is quite easy, once someone shows you the basics of how to navigate. For example, to pay at the store: the lady shows me the total on the cash register, I hand her my ATM card, she hands my the keypad so I know to input my PIN, she hands me a reciept and a pen (I sign), then she hands me the final receipt. No English needed.

The kids even went into KFC by themselves today to buy ice cream. We had already been there, so we knew they had a picture menu. They pointed to the ice cream, the girls rings it up, the price shows on the cash register, they pay, get the ice cream and they are on their way. I was very proud that they were willing to go in by themselves (I was outside with our grocery cart watching them). It's funny that the manager came up to talk to them so he could use his English :)
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Sunday, June 28, 2009

Perfect Storm of Pasta

by Mike:

The other families we know who arrived in Campus Village before us have been wonderful. Besides providing details on their life in their own blogs, they’ve gone out of their way to make sure we are settling in with ease. One friend met us at the airport and took back most of our luggage to her townhouse, so we only had a few suitcases at the hotel. Her family also had us over for dinner our first night in our condo so we wouldn't have to cook :)

We have also had the support of Santa Fe, a relocation company that provides a bi-lingual agent to help us with banking, getting cell phones, Metro (Costco-like) membership, housing issues, and anything else we need. Charlotte, our Santa Fe rep, has been very kind and helpful. She even gave us a welcome bag with some basics food items she thought we needed - potato chips, coke, ketchup (oh the American diet must be world-famous). And, toilet paper. There was some spaghetti in the bottom of the bag, but as we didn’t unpack it right away, we didn't notice it.

On moving day, we stopped at Metro and bought some food, including a couple 3 packs of pasta. After we moved in, 2 other neighbors also brought by care packages to help us get settled.

Apparently, pasta is the first thing everyone cooks when they move, because when we unpacked it all we counted them all up – we now have 17 bags of pasta and macaroni and cheese! Yeah!

For lunch we had mac and cheese, for dinner we are having spaghetti....
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Saturday, June 27, 2009

How to Get ‘Bumped’ to First Class

Here’s a story that happened to us on the flight, that at the time was quite scary.

About 20 minutes into the 13 hour LA to Seoul flight, Kevin and I (Mike) are at the restrooms at back of the plane – Kevin’s inside, I’m waiting outside. The plane’s still climbing, the nose pitched up, so it’s slightly downhill going toward the aft. When the aisle reaches the bathroom, it jogs a little to the side to go around the bathroom.

Anyway, I’m standing there and look up just in time to see a 40-something white guy in sort of a stumble or fast walk, smack head first into the magazine rack on the bathroom wall. He doesn’t lift his hands, just hits the wall hard, falls straight backwards, and lands almost flat on his back in the aisle with a loud thud. He’s out cold. From what I can tell, he must have passed out a few steps before the wall. I open the curtains to the galley and get the flight attendants’ attention. One of them immediately calls someone on the phone and several more flight crew arrive (big, long haul flights like this have something like a dozen crew).

My first thought was, oh great, I just saw watched someone have a heart attack and die right in front of me. Kevin, who heard the crash in the bathroom, emerges so we cross through the galley, up the other aisle, and make out way to our seats. Someone on the PA announces in Korean and English that there’s a very sick passenger on board and they need medical help. Since this happened at back, most passengers didn’t notice anything is wrong. After several minutes we see he’s moving (good, he’s not dead).

Our next thought, "Are their going to land in San Francisco to let him off?" They move him to the jump seat in the back and treat him for another 15 minutes. He must have hit his head on an armrest on the way down, because later we see he had a bad cut on the top of his head (this is in addition to the forehead into the wall and back of head on the floor). Maybe 30 minutes after the fall he’s able to walk back to his seat, which happened to be immediately behind mine.

About 15 minutes later, the head flight attendant helps him get his carry-on items and they move him up to the front of the plane, presumably to a business or first class seat. We saw him after we got off the place in Seoul and he appeared OK.

The message of this story is that if you’re willing to knock yourself out, there’s a good chance you’ll be upgraded to first class.
-Mike

Friday, June 26, 2009

Shopping again

I have access to our blog again, so I will try to post more often.

We did our big shopping trip today, and I was right - it was exhausting. Our first stop was Decathalon, a very nice sporting goods store. Kevin finally got his new bike! Shopping there is quite easy (sporting goods are easy to figure out). And both times we have been there, they have had staff who speak English (the kids learn English in school, so many know enough to understand and help us).

Then we went to IKEA and ate lunch. The 20-something Chinese couple next to us was giggling about Kevin eating Swedish meatballs with chopsticks! We bought rugs and hampers and stuff for our condo.

Then on to Metro. Grocery shopping seems to be the hardest, because we really need to look at the products and read the labels (when we can). Luckily our driver speaks English, so when we need to, we invite him to come shopping with us and he is able to translate the packages. Still, it is hard to find enough food that we are familiar with to make healthy meals. We have been to all of the major supermarkets. Next we will try the local market for produce. We still haven't found a good source of meat. We are a little squeamish about the fresh meat, as it isn't always clear if it has been reliably refrigerated.

For those of you going grocery shopping over the weekend, you can reflect on how easy it is!

The good news is that tonight I made my first batch of cookies in China (chocolate chip) and they turned out great! Actually, better than usual since I used real butter, which I don't usually do at home.

We are all feeling better, but not well yet. I'm sure the stress has delayed our healing. We were able to sleep in past 6 am this morning, so our bodies are adjusting to the time change.

We are going to have a relaxing day tomorrow and then hopefully visit the beach on Sunday.
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Campus Village - Day 3

Our neighborhood is called Campus Village, as it is adjacent to the Dalian American International School. It is kind of in the middle of nowhere - in a rural area. We are on the road from the city of Dalian to the resort beach (a 1 hour drive - we are about 45 minutes from downtown). In our neighborhood there are about 40 families, most in townhouses and condos. The teachers from the school live in the neighborhood too. Our neighborhood also has a medical clinic, a gym with workout equipment and ping pong tables, playground, restaurant, and administration offices. The best part is that it is so kid friendly - it's almost like when I was a kid growing up - kids just outside playing - multiple ages playing together, games unplanned, and just having fun!

Every Wednesday night at the restaurant is buffet night. We experienced our first buffet night a few days ago. It was great! Kind of like a casual dinner party for many families - adults sitting and talking, kids eating and switching seats, kids going outside to play when they are done. After dinner the kids played outside while Mike met and talked to many families (Debi went home - she was sick). Everyone here is so helpful! We definitely have the benefit of arriving later! People have learned how to do things and where to find things and we are learning from them!

Today we will be doing more shopping (we've been doing that a lot - trying to see where to find things). We will go to IKEA (and eat lunch there - yes they have the same meatballs), Decathalon (a sporting goods store to buy Kevin a bike) and Metro (grocery shopping). After that we will all be exhausted!! Shopping takes a lot more energy in China because you have to figure out what to buy - it's not just automatic anymore.

It's foggy here this morning, seems like beach weather....
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Sunday, June 21, 2009

Swine Flu Quarantine

I am writing the first draft of this blog at 5 a.m. by flashlight with pencil and paper while the others are still sleeping in :)

We joked a lot before we left that we may get quarantined in Korea or China upon arrival because we knew they were screening incoming passengers for H1N1 flu. Considering that Kevin, Kiana and Debi all had coughs and Kevin had a runny nose, we thought it was possible that they would detain us.

Before we landed in Korea and China, we did need to fill out health questionnaires - asking if we had specific flu symptoms. Entering false information could lead to 1 year imprisonment or a $5000 fine. We were honest and checked off that we all had coughs.

In Korea, after making it through the first quick temperature screening, they did pull us aside for additional questions - "Are you taking any medications for this cough?" "How long have you had the cough?" and "Are you staying in Korea?" And they took our temperature again. Then they let us go.

In China, all passengers had to stay on the plane while they did a temperature check of everyone - laser to the forehead. We also had to fill out more specific questionnaires, including our seat # and where we were going in China. After we got off the plane, we had to pass through a health checkpoint. We got pulled aside immediately because we were Americans. We saw a nice woman who took our temperature again, gave us information written in Chinese about the H1N1 flu (wonder what it says???), and let us go on.

So here we are....

First Impression of Shopping in China

Yesterday we went to Carrefour - a French based market like Fred Meyer that sells Chinese and imported foods. Even though all the labels are in Chinese, we managed to recognize the brand name of many products. We bought Ritz, Lays, Pringles, Oreos, Snickers, Minute Maid (no I haven't forgotten that I'm a nutritionist)....and saw Dove soap, Glad Wrap, Budweiser, Doublemint gum, Skittles, Ragu and Planters peanuts.

The kids liked the special escalator that you can take the cart on.

My impression of the market is that it was loud (loud music and people with little microphones selling things), busy, bright, cluttered and hot. And that I had NO idea where to start looking for things I wanted!

And just so everyone knows, I don't think the Chinese way is bad or wrong, just different. I'm sharing my impressions so you can see some of our experiences.

Today we will visit more stores downtown.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Moving Day 3

Today was the day they loaded everything into the truck to take it away for storage....well, most things were loaded in the truck, and the last thing was loaded on the back of the truck....



Tomorrow we fly out. We'll try to blog again from our layover in Korea or from the hotel in Dalian. Until then...
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Monday, June 15, 2009

Moving Day 1

Packing our "luggage" last night:



Stuff for shipment:



Shipment packed:




More shipment packed:

Saturday, June 13, 2009

4 days...

Everyone is feeling better, hopefully we'll all be well by Thursday. We've been busy packing up everything. One more day in the house and then we move into a hotel for 3 nights (starting Monday night). I'll try to put up some pictures of us packing before we shut down the computers.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

1 week...

Tons to do, 2 sick kids, 4 trips to the pediatrician this week, sick mom, movers come on Monday....it has to get better than this....

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

2 weeks...

I said we didn't have to pack, but that's not entirely true. This week we are concentrating on packing our boxes that we will bring on the airplane with us. We get to take extra baggage on the airplane to hold us over until our big air shipment arrives (we may have to wait up to 6 weeks).

On the airplane, we will bring with us clothes, medicine, important papers, favorite foods, a few kids' toys, pillows, sheets, the Wii, laptops, phones and some key kitchen items. We will be quite the sight making the trip to the airport!

Earlier this week we packed up Lego City. If you haven't been to our house, our living room (play room) has been growing a city of Lego designs for the past 4 years. In the end, Lego City had a:
- fire station
- hospital
- tire store
- airport
- dock
- house with interior decorations and yard
- public square with statues and vendors
- police station & jail
- David Cook concert
- wedding chapel for Gary and Linda
- store
- news station
- tree house
- skate park
- Star Wars port
- and lots of cars and people!


It was sad to see it "demolished." It's now in many Ziploc bags waiting to be packed in our shipment. Our house is looking more and more like we are moving!


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