Monday, July 25, 2011

July 13 - Well hydee ho...‏

Hey, my special ones.

I'm working on sending out individual e-mails, but it takes time, so be patient with me.

We went to Pizza Hut last night again. It was awesome. Never have I had such amazing stuffed crust. Apparently, it's expensive, though. Ben was like, "Um, just so you know, this meal costs the entire per diem amount we've been allotted." Oh. I don't think we'll be eating out that often once we get into our apartment. I'd rather cook myself and have food that I actually like. :) Depending on what I can find. Yikes. Jason, Ben's boss, spent 4 months in Morocco a couple of years ago for the company with his family, and I was like, "Howwwwwww did you eat??" He's like, "Um, we had a lot of potatoes and carrots..." Bless his wife's heart. We women go through a lot for our men.

They kept bringing us these Cokes that...I don't know. Something was wrong with them. They were not only flat, but they tasted really bizarre. We thought it was tea, but the lady told us that they don't serve tea there. We kept asking her to bring us new ones, and she kept bringing back the same ones with a lemon, without a lemon, without ice.... Lost in Translation is the story of our lives here. We finally got the menu and gestured for 7-Up. And that tasted normal.

Eating out takes ten zillion years here. Even at "fast food" places. You wait FOREVER for your food.

Our cab driver took us to the wrong university last night when we wanted to come home - we had to call Summer and give the phone to the cab driver so she could tell him where to go. She is so cool - today she gave us this little notebook that has written addresses for our hotel, Pizza Hut :), McDonald's, that big supermarket, and a place she says that has nice clothing for me. She is adorable.

We tried some local pastries from a bakery on Stinky Street for breakfast. It was nice to see some bread that has been baked instead of steamed. But it all tasted weird. They have some dope-looking cakes - there was one with this huge dragon thingey on it - I'm sooo getting that for Ben's birthday on Monday. I'm trying to figure out what to do for that. I wonder if I should invite some of Ben's work friends here to a little party somewhere.

I skyped with Beads this morning - it was fantastic. If any of you want to skype with us, it's more reliable than Google Talk here. Ben's skype name is utahben76. Let us know.

We ate at Popland for lunch again. More grossness. And it took like an hour and a half to get our fries. Sigh.

We went to this really famous garden here called the Lotus Garden. According to the sign, it's one of China's Top Ten Gardens. All of China! It was INCREDIBLE. Oh my GOSH. When we came upon the Lotus Pond, my breath was literally taken away. Surrounding it were all of these pagodas and buildings. It was, like, the governor's official garden, or something like that. I finally found out what all of this Imperialist Pigs stuff is about - there was a sign in English. In 1900, some allied forces from Great Britain, France, Italy, and Germany invaded Baoding. They looted and burned all of the buildings surrounding the pool. I'll have to read up on my history to find out why they would invade Baoding in the first place. But it's sad. Anyways, they just barely renovated everything - but there are a few buildings they're still trying to fix. They have all these really cool bridges and paths going over the pool - the bridges are vaulted really high. So neat.

It was my turn with the baby backpack, and holy crap. I have never sweated so badly, except for, like, in spinning class. My hair was dripping wet when we got back. I took a huge nap - not meaning to. I slept right through dinner, which Ben bought from a local street vendor - which makes me really nervous. He's had a little bit of diarrhea, and so has Sadie - I just don't want everyone to get sick. The food from street vendors isn't as weird or spicy as from nicer restaurants. Ben bought some wrap-looking and pita-looking things. I only took a few bites - I'm just scared of getting sick. If you have ever gotten food poisoning in your life, you are scared of it forever after.

Kay, I'm going to finish re-sizing our pictures, and then I'm going to put them on Smugmug. Then I'll send you a link there so that you can see more than two pictures at a time.

I'm hoping we do more cool stuff - I find that, the more interesting stuff we do, the better I feel about staying here.

Oh, and our small refrigerator was delivered today!!! Cold drinks. So important.

Love you and miss you tons.
- Kar

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