July 10

Hey, friends and family!

I was finally in the mood to upload some pics to my blog, but I can't get it to hook up today, dang it. I've tried facebook as well, and nope. I know that the Chinese government blocks certain web pages - I wonder if facebook is one of them? They can't have blocked blogger, because I know people in China who have accessed my blog at one point or another and been able to comment on it, etc. And I was able to look at it when we were in our hotel in Beijing. Who knows?? Maybe I'll upload some pics onto this e-mail. How does that sound? We make due.

So I last wrote you two days ago in the afternoon (for us). That night, we went out to dinner again with Ben's work associates. It was just downstairs in our hotel. I've noticed that a lot of Chinese restaurants are just several small rooms with hallways in between. There was a main dining area with several tables in the restaurant we ate at in Beijing, but I haven't seen one like that since. And each little room has a round table with its own waitress. These waitresses crack me up. People bring the food in, the waitress puts it on the lazy susan, and you swing the lazy susan to reach the things you want to dish up (which, for me, is nothing). Man, such service. In Europe, customer service was non-existant. Here, it's almost like the gals that work in the clothes stores at the mall - you're like, "Dude, leave me alone." Gage was asleep on me, and I was trying to cut this thing called a "Bowda" with my fork - a bowda has either vegetables in it, or some kind of meat, and they're wrapped in dough and steamed. All dough is steamed here - not baked. In fact, in the apartments Ben has been looking at, we have been unable to find an oven. People steam or fry everything. The bowdas are okayyyyy. Better than lots of other options. So back to my story. I was trying to cut the bowda with my fork, but not succeeding, because steamed dough is kind of rubbery, and this little waitress kept coming over and cutting my food for me.

So here in China, everything is about connections. Ben's work associate, William, has a good friend who teaches at the university here in Baoding. His name is Professor Han, and he is a sweetheart. So that night, Professor Han, as well as a bunch of his friends, ate with us. It's Professor Han's friend, Tsu, (which is the Mandarin word for "left"), who is a realtor and has been showing Ben apartments. Connections, connections, connections. Professor Han's neice is staying with him for the summer - her name is Lillian, and she is actually from Toronto! She's 12 and very tall and skinny. We met her this morning. It was a relief to speak English with someone.

They have the funniest cultural tradition here - when you go to eat together, you spend the entire meal toasting each other. And you do it in a certain order. You'll go around the table clockwise. So you'll toast the person on your left, and then the person after that, and so on. And you are supposed to take a shot from your shot glass every single time. Except if you don't drink, like us, you say, "Co-Cola." And then you're supposed to take shots of your coke. If the table is too big to clink your glass, you get up and clink glasses. They spend the whole meal on their feet, getting drunk! It's hilarious. Or sometimes, if the table is too big, you clink your glass on the lazy susan at the same time as everyone else.

The kids are still struggling a little bit with jet lag. Actually, Dylan's doing alright, and Ben and I are accustumed to the time change now, but Micah, Sadie, and Gage are having a hard time with it. Sadie ends up zonking out in the late afternoon, and we have to get her up to go eat, and she is grumpy during the whole dinner, which is embarrassing to me. These poor Chinese people are trying to smile at her, shake her hand, etc., and she just frowns at them, crosses her arms, and says, "Hmph." Jason said that she is like the Children of the Corn, which made me laugh. I succeeded in keeping Sadie and the baby up all day yesterday (except for scheduled naps for the baby), but they still were up a lot in the night. Hopefully, once we get an apartment and have a sense of normalcy, things will settle down.

Micah and Sadie continue to be very, very clingy. They fight over who gets to spend time with mom. Sadie is obsessed with these paper dolls I bought her for the plane ride. I'm soooo tired of playing paper dolls. I've been stuck in the hotel a lot with the kids, which is hard. Ben's been on a breakneck schedule since the second we got here. I really, really wish he had come over here a few weeks earlier and then come home to get us, like we originally planned. They've been interviewing for a local interpreter - for now, Debbie, who I just found out is actually "Gabby" - oops - has been Ben's interpreter just for now. She lives clear down by Hong Kong - she works for William. William and Gabbie will come up every now and then to see how things are, but they won't be here much. Actually, Ben just got "home" (to our room), and he hired me two personal assistant interpreters - just for me! Weird!!! So they can help me if I want to go somewhere with the kids, or if I need anything...they will switch every other week, ten hours a week each, to help me.

We finally picked an apartment today - I haven't seen the other apartments, but Ben and Jason say it's the very best one yet. It's very close to where we are staying right now. It's housing for foreign university professors and their families. We took a look this morning, and um...yikes. Bikes. I think it's been uninhabited for a long time. Very, very dirty and smelly for now. It's also unfurnished - which means that there is NOTHING. No cabinets in the kitchen. No fridge, no microwave, now flooring. Just concrete. Gabby told me that Dome Technology is going to pay for the apartment to be completely refurbished - flooring put in, furnished, air conditioning, etc. It will take two weeks. I have to stay in this teeny hotel with these naughty children for two more weeks. Ugh. The apartment is very, very spacious. I'm excited about it.

Ben left me high and dry yesterday for lunch, and I was like, Raaarrrr! So I resolved to go find a western restaurant with the kids. I went down to the front desk - they don't speak a BIT of English. So I pointed to the sentence in my Mandarin-English dictionary for "Please hail me a taxi." So she did. Then I showed the taxi driver the Mandarin sentence for "Please take me to the closest western restaurant." He goes, "K.F.C.?" Sigh. Okayyyyyyyy. So we ate at dang K.F.C. again, again with the grossest food ever. en I hailed a taxi all by myself, showed him the business card for our hotel, plus the word for "university" - because there are a few of these hotels in Baoding. And guess what? He brought us right back here. Phew. I was proud of myself.

Ben and I were invited to a fancy party last night with his associates, but we obviously had no one to watch the kids. So Ben went and guess who got to stay here in the hotel with the kids? Me. It's getting rearlly old. Ben's work friend (I can't remember his name) remembered that I like mushrooms, so he had the waitress pack some up for me. So sweet. I had one - they were spiiiiiiiiiiicy. Gabby says the food in this province is renowned for its spiciness. She says food in Shanghai is more sweet and calm. So yeah. I had one mushroom for dinner last night.

Ben went to a "western" supermarket yesterday to get some snacks for the kids. The pringles don't taste like pringles. The oreos don't taste like oreos. The only thing that tastes normal is Coke. Thank goodness. We don't have a fridge or a microwave, so to make the baby's bottles, I have to pour bottled water into a teapot, heat it up, and pour it into the bottle. Ben got some Heinz-rand baby food yesterday at that market, and I don't know what was in it, but Gage vomited alllllllllll of it up. Yeah.

Kay, we have to feed the baby lunch and then set off to try to find a McDonalds. I pray it tastes normal.

I miss you guys tons. I'll write individual letters later tonight, hopefully, and possibly blog if I'm allowed to.

Love,
Kar