Not really. This is China.
Last week Dan and I had the week off. It started off in the best way possible. We had gorgeous blue skies from Friday until Wednesday. Dan and I took advantage of the weather and biked as much as possible. It was wonderful to have time together, as a family and as a couple. I think I can safely say that both of us feel better about life right now.
Positive attitudes aside for a moment, every now and then I am bombarded with reasons to leave this country. I don't because in spite of the inconveniences, which I love to elaborate on, we live a very comfortable life here, and it somehow manages to redeem itself right as I reach the brink of tolerance.
On Tuesday, Dan and my (and every other Bank of China customer's) bank cards stopped working. No cash, no debit, no banks open because of the national holiday. It wasn't fixed the next day or the day after that. We had to wait until Friday before our cards worked again. I would feel safe betting that they knew in advance that the cards wouldn't work and didn't feel the need to notify people. All I could think was imagine we had an emergency and they didn't take foreign cards! We would have been very, very sorry.
On Wednesday, the pollution kicked in again and we risked suffocating Olivia every time we wanted to go outside. It was absolutely disgusting. We could barely see a block in front of us. That lasted until the end of the holiday. And, on Monday morning I woke up to sparkling blue skies, and work.
The real kicker, though, is that on Friday, when our bank cards started working again, the hot water stopped! Of course there was no warning, because this is China. It's been five days now, and nobody has any idea when we will have hot water again. What really kills me is that someone had to have thought, "Hey, it's getting cold out. You know what would be a good idea? Let's fix the hot water pipes, now."
Yeah, let's.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Saturday, October 02, 2010
Ahhh, Vacation!
So, I'm on day two of ten days of vacation. Does it feel good? Yes. Have I done much? Absolutely not! School ended early on Thursday, and so did I. I think I was asleep by 6:30 or so, just after Olivia. On Friday, barring our usual morning walk, we stayed home most of the day. We only went out for a few hours to buy Dan a new bike. He was a bit reluctant to get one, thought maybe it would be a waste of money, but it turns out he's pretty happy to have a bike.
Today Olivia and I took Da Mi for a walk early, and then came home to drop of the dog and pick up Dan (who needs his beauty sleep). We went out for Chinese breakfast for the first time in a while. It wasn't as good as I hoped it might be, and the donkey meat sandwiches (we passed on the plate of donkey eyes) we had at the specialty hole in the wall were better than anything we had at the bigger place. The highlight, though, was actually the weather. It was another clear, only lightly polluted day in Beijing!! It rained last night so our lungs got a reprieve from the cancer-causing fine particles, but by 8 a.m. the sun was drying things up!
This little, or actually, relatively big guy was pretty cool, too. I found him in the middle of the sidewalk and decided that I would save him in spite of the giant horn on his butt. It's o.k. though, I used Olivia's snack tupperware. A little caterpillar juice never hurt anyone, right?
After breakfast we went home, and I was thinking Olivia might take a nap. Unfortunately, it only lasted about 40 minutes, so just as Dan and I were getting into an interesting conversation, she started crying. It's really annoying because she never used to cry when she woke up, but she always does now. She's not my infinitely happy morning sunshine anymore!! I'm not sure what happened. Judging from the amount of drool that's been leaking out of her mouth lately, she might be getting a tooth or two. Or maybe she's got some sort of saliva regulation problem and she's crying because it really is disgusting to wake up with drool all over your face.
Anyway, she played for a while and when she got tired again, around lunch time, she refused to go down for another nap. So, Dan and I did what any good parents would do. We strapped her in her stroller and took her out for coffee. Nothing quite like caffeine to get a kid to pass out. I suppose it was technically the ride in the stroller that helped her pass out, but I would like to give Starbucks credit because I really enjoyed my latte. She was asleep for so long that Dan and I actually got to read books, at the same time! It was nice to just sit and sip coffee together. That never happens anymore.
After coffee, the weather was still beautiful so we decided to take a bike ride to a park. I sort of had an ulterior motive, but we'll get to that later. We packed up and strapped in, and off we went. We sort of took the long way there, going through some hutongs and ending up on the second ring road, but we made it just as the skies were clouding over. Oh, but here's where my ulterior motive comes in. We weren't actually at the park... we went to a restaurant near the park that has really good chocolate milkshakes :-) We had a late lunch and then went to the park. Unfortunately, by the time we got in the park, went up and down some stairs about twenty times with Olivia, and walked a few meters, the clouds started to get a bit darker and the wind was blowing a bit harder. We decided it was probably time to leave, so we headed home.
Now, Olivia is in bed and we have some time to ourselves. It's wonderful knowing that Dan doesn't have to leave tomorrow or the next day. I'm really enjoying this whole "same vacation" thing.
Today Olivia and I took Da Mi for a walk early, and then came home to drop of the dog and pick up Dan (who needs his beauty sleep). We went out for Chinese breakfast for the first time in a while. It wasn't as good as I hoped it might be, and the donkey meat sandwiches (we passed on the plate of donkey eyes) we had at the specialty hole in the wall were better than anything we had at the bigger place. The highlight, though, was actually the weather. It was another clear, only lightly polluted day in Beijing!! It rained last night so our lungs got a reprieve from the cancer-causing fine particles, but by 8 a.m. the sun was drying things up!
This little, or actually, relatively big guy was pretty cool, too. I found him in the middle of the sidewalk and decided that I would save him in spite of the giant horn on his butt. It's o.k. though, I used Olivia's snack tupperware. A little caterpillar juice never hurt anyone, right?
After breakfast we went home, and I was thinking Olivia might take a nap. Unfortunately, it only lasted about 40 minutes, so just as Dan and I were getting into an interesting conversation, she started crying. It's really annoying because she never used to cry when she woke up, but she always does now. She's not my infinitely happy morning sunshine anymore!! I'm not sure what happened. Judging from the amount of drool that's been leaking out of her mouth lately, she might be getting a tooth or two. Or maybe she's got some sort of saliva regulation problem and she's crying because it really is disgusting to wake up with drool all over your face.
Anyway, she played for a while and when she got tired again, around lunch time, she refused to go down for another nap. So, Dan and I did what any good parents would do. We strapped her in her stroller and took her out for coffee. Nothing quite like caffeine to get a kid to pass out. I suppose it was technically the ride in the stroller that helped her pass out, but I would like to give Starbucks credit because I really enjoyed my latte. She was asleep for so long that Dan and I actually got to read books, at the same time! It was nice to just sit and sip coffee together. That never happens anymore.
After coffee, the weather was still beautiful so we decided to take a bike ride to a park. I sort of had an ulterior motive, but we'll get to that later. We packed up and strapped in, and off we went. We sort of took the long way there, going through some hutongs and ending up on the second ring road, but we made it just as the skies were clouding over. Oh, but here's where my ulterior motive comes in. We weren't actually at the park... we went to a restaurant near the park that has really good chocolate milkshakes :-) We had a late lunch and then went to the park. Unfortunately, by the time we got in the park, went up and down some stairs about twenty times with Olivia, and walked a few meters, the clouds started to get a bit darker and the wind was blowing a bit harder. We decided it was probably time to leave, so we headed home.
Now, Olivia is in bed and we have some time to ourselves. It's wonderful knowing that Dan doesn't have to leave tomorrow or the next day. I'm really enjoying this whole "same vacation" thing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
