Home Sweet China?

This was written a couple days ago. So the dates and timeline is a little off in real time. And I still don't have Internet. I'm using a friend's internet right now. Deal.

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I moved into my apt today. I have no Internet. I have not completely unpacked yet. Nancy helped me move my luggage over and then we walked over to IKEA to find bedsheets. Rather, I went to find bedsheets because Nancy had to go back to the office and i guess she figured that I knew enough Mandarin to survive.

Chinese people seem to love their IKEA. It was pretty crowded and people were walking around taking pictures of the furniture and room set ups. I wonder if many people really were buying things or just wanted to pass the time. It was almost like a museum for them to see how Westerners decorate their homes. Except my home back in America certainly doesn’t look like IKEA. And the IKEA food court was really crowded as well.

I spent so much time looking at the bedsheets. First of all, I didn’t know what size my bed was. It wasn’t a twin and I didn’t think it was a king, so I was going with the assumption that it was a queen. Problem was, I didn’t know how big a queen was in centimeters. Blasted metric system. I finally realized that I could just go over to the mattress section and find a bed that looked like mine and look at the measurements on that. So after I figured out that I was looking for 200cm x 200cm it made things easier. Though for a moment I thought maybe I could do things cheaper and just get a twin size quilt, only to realize that that would make things more complicated and riskier in whether it would fit or not. Plus I like to roll into a comfort pod, so I went default and just picked things out. Since I am still in the process of getting my deposit money together, I knew that I had to spend as little as possible.

I got back to my apt and dropped things off. And then I was hungry so I thought this was a prime opportunity to explore my new neighborhood. The reception/lobby lady is really nice to me and told me to go to her if I ever needed something. She even gave me some laundry detergent because she knew that I hadn’t been able to find a store nearby that sells it. Her and other people who were in the lobby tried to direct me to a China Construction Bank. But when I found out that I had to take the metro to another area just to go to the bank, I decided to save that trip for another day. Maybe I’ll make a stop to the Jinhui (JH) office tomorrow and use the ATM there because I know where it is. Plus it was starting to become evening and I didn’t want to have to travel too far away.

So I am wandering and wandering around the streets near my apt and I pass the same stores like 3 times. I think it was a lot easier having Ryan around because I could use him as my excuse for not knowing how to read all the items on the menu. “Give us a moment, I am translating the menu to him.” I finally pick a restaurant that had a pretty large picture menu (and English menu as well!). I think it was because it’s located so close to the Shanghai Stadium where they had some of the Olympic Games. While I’m waiting around for my food, I txt msg Lisa, Ryan and Karol because they started work today (not Karol as I found out later). Karol replies saying that she is at IKEA and I thought that was just dandy because that was just around the corner!

I met up with Karol at IKEA (second trip in one day) and I help her pick out a couch and coffee table. And other random things. It was great to see someone I knew! We got some looks because we’re both Chinese girls speaking perfect English. IKEA stuff is cheaper in China than in America. Or at least I think it is. I told her we had to stop converting things into US Dollars otherwise we’d buy too much stuff. We have to start thinking only in the Chinese currency. As evidenced when we were comparing two couches that were a 300 RMB difference (~ $43) and were like “you might as well, only a $40 difference” and then realized, ”wait a minute, you can do a lot with 300RMB in China. Like eat 5RMB bowls of noodles for 2 months. Or buy a ticket to Leehom’s concert.“

I show her my apt and tell her to visit whenever she wanted. Poor Karol is pretty much by herself in another part of town. I need to start lesson planning now. My first day of teaching English is tomorrow!