Thursday, September 26, 2013

Days 28, 29, 30 - Half a PPT, Joint Restaurant, Entrance/Exit Station

Days 28, 29, 30

Tuesday, I just lay around the apartment.  Tried to get some work done, but I just didn’t feel well enough to sit up for very long. David had to run several errands: getting copies, pumping up his bike tire.  He had some students (class monitors) come over in the evening to get some things organized for his class.
Wednesday, I did feel a little better.  David had to teach in the morning.  I got ready for my class.  Made a couple of Powerpoints for it.  Tried to be as organized as I could.  So I went to class and the first hour went quite well.  I had more than enough stuff to fill the hour.  After the break, I got into the lesson and discovered that I had not saved half of the Power Point that I was going to use.  It was still at home on the computer!  ERG!!  Oh well.  What else could I do?  I pulled some things off the CD from the book and it got pretty boring from that point on.  Never forget to save your Powerpoints to the USB from now on, lesson learned for today!

Stan and Nancy Pace came over and we went out to dinner together.  We chose a restaurant where they cook up pork meat from the backbone joints all day long.  They just have a big pot of them cooking.  So you come in the store and tell them what vegetable you want to have with it and they bring you a big bowl of this delicious meat in the broth with a bowl of rice and a small bowl of some “pickles.” It is a very delicious and filling meal, but you have to eat a lot of it with your hands because the meat is that which is around the bones.  It just melts in your mouth and the broth is so good.  The only problem we have is that they don’t have an “English” menu for us to look at and say, “We want that vegetable.”  We had looked on Google translate ahead of time and I knew that they had squash, seaweed and cabbage there, but couldn’t remember anything else, so we printed the pronunciations for those and also potato and yam in case they had those.  You could also make the choice of 2, 3 or 4 joints of meat in your bowl. 

Once in the restaurant, armed with our trusty (?) translations of what we wanted, be proceeded to try and tell the clerk what we wanted.  We thought we have gotten it across to her, so we go sit down to wait for the food to come.  David ordered the squash and that was what he got.  I ordered the cabbage and that was what I got.  Stan ordered the cabbage and that is what he got.  Nancy ordered the squash and she got… seaweed!  One thing that we are having trouble learning to enjoy over here is the seaweed.  We had a fun visit and David took some of Nancy’s seaweed and he gave her some of his squash.  It all tasted so good though, except the seaweed.

Thursday.  David taught again this morning.  I went to the market and got some meat.  The lady doesn’t speak any English, but she is kind and honest and she has some of the best quality meat around.  On my way back, I usually stop at a little stand nearer the road and get some fruit from a lady there.  Today, she had some large yellowish fruit; about 8 inches in diameter that I thought might be a melon, so I bought it.  She was trying to talk to me and I think she was asking me where I came from, so I told her (in Chinese… aren’t you proud of me?) America.  She was so happy that I could understand that much!  She said a bunch more stuff, but it all went over my head, so I just smiled a lot and left. 

I started to cut the fruit open when I got home.  It gave off a very citrus smell, so I knew I didn’t have a melon. As I tore it open I knew I had what looked to be a VERY large grapefruit.  So into the trusty computer I went and Googled citrus fruits.  Right away, I saw a picture of my fruit that I had bought and it was a Pommello!  Now, I realize that some of you have bought them in the States before, but I have not.  I have an aversion to buying fruits that I know are grown in a more tropical climate and shipped to other parts of the world or nation, not in season.  I enjoyed the pommello!  I will be buying that one again. 

Eva drove us to the “Entrance/Exit” police station so that we could pick up our passports with the now official designation that we are officially in China for the year!  So happy to have that back!  Then she helped us with a few things that we needed help with. 

After dinner, David had 8 girls that were class monitors come over and help him with collating some papers for his class.  He is going to be doing reader’s theaters with them and he got them all copied off, but needed them sorted and put together.  They were all such fun to talk to.  We showed them a bunch of pictures of our home and family.  They all LOVE EVAN!!!  They are excited that he is their age and I know if he wants to start up some pen pal relationships, there would be many girls who would take him up on that!  It was so funny to hear them talk about how beautiful he was!  We sang them a song and they all recorded it on their phones.  They asked about Alisa getting married and they think it very strange to be 21 and getting married.  They are all about 24/25 and they are starting to get to the point that they can think about it because they are almost old enough now.  I showed them pictures of Alisa’s wedding dress and they said she was very beautiful and she was so slim in it. 


We got the pictures from our excursion as Chinese movie stars, so we are putting those on this blog.
Some of the first shots.  I know this lady next to me was thinking, "This is not what I planned to do when I came into work today!"

The whole crew.  The young lady that is the second one in from the left on the back row was our interpreter.  Every time she told us to make sure that we smiled, she pronounced it, "smell."  She did really well otherwise and I know she probably didn't plan on doing that when she came into work today either!

David with the head engineering guy.  He had pretty good English and was very kind.

Gathered around the big motor.  I wish I had known that I was to play the part of an American Executive and worn something more executive-like.  Oh, well.


Two other engineers joined us.  I am sure their thoughts were the same as the other, "This is not what I thought I was going to be doing when I came into work today..."

No comments:

Blog Archive