One of the big things I’ve had to learn while living in China
this summer is learning how to relearn
things I thought I knew. It may sound
silly but there are so many things and sometimes several steps to getting
something done that back home I could have done with my eyes closed.
Laundry Laughter: Doing laundry here at Maria’s is very
similar to how I did laundry in the dorm. The laundry room has several washing
machines, which is perfect for Sarah and I to do all our laundry all at
once. The only challenge is that ALL
the buttons on the machine are in Chinese characters. Our first week here we were showed which
buttons to push to make it turn on, and get our clothes clean. We thought we
were set! Then one night we walked down to get our clean clothes out to find
them still soaking in a washer FULL of water.
We knew what we needed to get the washer to do, the question was how on
earth were we supposed to guess which button would do it. But guess what! There really is an App for
everything!! There’s one that you can scan characters and it tries to translate
it for you. This is great, except the
translations don’t always come out right or make sense so we spent quite a bit
of time laughing and trying to decide which one would make the most sense to
pick. When we finally got it and the
water started emptying we were jumping for joy! Mostly because we wouldn’t have
to try to communicate in Chinese that we had broken the washer or flooded the
room.
Pizza Hut High Fives!
Pizza Hut would not normally be my first pick when wanting
to go out for Pizza. But it definitely
became a favorite this summer. Pizza Hut
in China is actually a really nice sit-down restaurant with lots of other food
options to choose from. Thankfully their
menu has lots of pictures however, a plain cheese pizza is not a typical option
to order. So what we thought would be an
easy item to order always turned into 5-10 minutes of me and Sarah trying to
explain that we want the pepperoni pizza without the pepperoni. As you can imagine we got a lot of blank
stares and laughs but we eventually figured out the right Chinese phrasing so
that we could get a plain cheese pizza.
It was always a feeling of success when a cheese pizza actually came to
the table!
 |
| Day 46: Noodles are one of my favorite dishes! Although, Sarah says, "you have to be in the noodle mood!" |
 |
| Day 47: Our moms flew all by themselves to come visit and spend 10 days with us!! |
 |
| Day 50: Flew to Beijing with our moms and the Renichs and even got to have dinner with Kelsi who was on Sarah and I's first Show Hope trip. |
 |
| Day 51: The Great Wall of China! It was a beautiful, clear day and we it made through 5 towers of the wall! |
 |
| Day 52: The Forbidden City. A very hot day!! |
 |
| Day 53: The Pearl Market: A lot of shopping/bargaining was done! |
 |
| Day 54: Sending our moms back home! Sad they had to leave but so glad they came!! |
 |
| Day 55: Afternoon running errands and some hot noodles and ice cream for lunch! |
 |
| Day 56: Going out to one of our favorite Chinese restaurants Shao Kao (Chinese bbq) |
 |
| Day 57: We each received a Bottle of Tears from Lindsey! Check out her website: www.bottleoftears.com |
 |
| Day 58: We weren't exactly good at keeping plants alive... |
 |
| Day 59: Our own weekend pool day to try and get some sun! We got a lot of disapproving looks from the nannies because in China it is frowned upon to be tan. |
 |
| Day 60: Work day in the office planning our project to leave behind at Maria's! And we even did some online shopping on a Chinese website thanks to Google translate for the supplies we needed! |
 |
| Day 61: Our favorite aisle at the grocery store: the imported products aisle! This is where we found macaroni noodles, pretzels, goldfish, apple sauce, and yes, NUTELLA! It was definitely a life saving aisle! |
 |
| Day 62: Starting our project in the team dining room with the projector and some paint! |
 |
| Day 63: Our days were filled with taking lots of pictures of the kids.. and our selfies of course :) |
 |
| Day 65: Saturday morning out for coffee and waffles at a cozy coffee shop and we had time to work on blogs. |
 |
| Day 66: We did watercolor paintings all day in preschool and are going to incorporate in our project for the dining room! |
 |
| Day 67: All the paintings from preschool in frames. |
 |
| Day 68: After lunch at the Pizza Hut we found in the mall we found Menchies frozen yogurt and paid a lot to have a taste of home! |
 |
| Day 69: The Renich's came back from the states and brought us DIET DR PEPPER in their suitcases for us!! |
 |
| Day 70: Our finished project in the team dining room! All the art was made by the preschool kids! |
 |
| Day 71: BBQ on the roof!! |
 |
| Day 72: Getting our nails done!!! |
 |
| Day 73: Still working on the art of a jumping picture! |
 |
| Day 74: The day Sarah had been waiting for... the FINISHED puzzle with only minutes left before the team arrived! |
 |
| Day 77: Our good-bye party on the roof! Vickie let us finish the chocolate left in the pan! |
 |
| Day 78: Early morning goodbye to MBHOH and time to catch the train to Beijing! |
 |
| Day 79: Our last adventure was a trip to the FRIENDS look-a-like coffee shop in Beijing with the Renichs!! |
 |
| Hard good-byes at the airport but thankful for a wonderful summer with some amazing people who made it so special! And we efficiently packed our suitcases to be under 50lbs for the second time! |
