Published November 6th, 2006 by Mliesie
Northern winds are blowing!!
As you can tell from the header….it is getting colder, a lot colder! But the sky is still blue and the sun is still shining, which to me makes it wonderful weather. But the wind is definitely from the north and very, very cold. I actually saw some puddles that were frozen over today…..brrrr. Fortunately our heatings are turned on and the flat is pretty comfortable. Especially during the day, with all the glass windows letting the sunshine in.
But before I get carried away about the weather, let me give you an update about the last week or so.
First of all, Kate and I went on a bikeride on a Sunday. It was great to get out of town again and hear birds whistling and see them fly in the sky! The only disadvantage was that our butts were kind of uuuh….soar after the ride. The roads were very bumpy and we have very sporty saddles…..ooops. The positive thing: no punctures and as far as I could see all my screws and nuts and bolts were still there when we got home! Woopieyeah for the Chinese mountainbike (still keep my fingers crossed for the nex bikeride though).
As it was Halloween last week, we went out to buy pumpkins. Now, that’s not a very hard task here as they grow all over the place and are sold everywhere. But, on our quest for the pumpkins we ran in to some wonderful ladies making fresh noodles, right on the spot. I couldn’t resist and had to take pictures…which they loved. They all wanted to be in a picture, but I’ll show you the ones I liked best. Don’t you love their smiles? It’s also nice to see ‘how’ fresh noodles are actually made; pretty easy……
       
On Halloween, Kate, Ellie and I were dressed up as the ‘3 wicked witches’ (I still don’t know exactly WHICH 3…) and we did various games with the students, which they very much appreciated. We did have to explain why we were dressed up (although I spent part of my Oral English lesson on that) so now perhaps next year more students will dress up as well; some had made masks though…….very scary masks……
I also got my first impression of a ‘fuming’ Chinese student. No, don’t worry…I didn’t cause her to! We were out to buy some ‘lovely’, very bright orange cloth for my house. We asked the shopkeeper how much it was and he told us 8 kuai 1 mi (8 Yuen 1 meter), nice price, so we agreed. Then he wanted to charge us for sowing seams (ridiculous, nobody does that in China!) and then……this is what made dear HM fume…..he wanted to charge us 8 kuai per square meter!!!!!!!!!! Wow, big mistake, he should never have done that. I already wanted to leave the shop and leave him with the cut up pieces of cloth(without paying), but HM…well, what can I say? She just blew up! Result? Yes! Ofcourse we got the cloth for 8 kuai 1 mi! But boy was she mad….. She told me this weekend that she went back to the shop and stood in front of it, telling customers what a rip off the man is. HA! She is some wicked girl!
On Saturday I woke up, hearing a strange noise. First I blamed it on the kettle house, which is just around the corner of my flat, but then I realised it sounded much closer. I was brave and dragged myself out of bed…..to find my kitchen flooded!!!!!!AAAAAAAAAAH!!!! Wonderful start of a Saturday morning. It seemed like a pipe had burst during the night. Fortunately I’m a pretty smart and handy girl, so I found the main tap for the water and was able to stop the indoor fountain. And so here I was at 8.05 am…..cleaning the drain in my kitchen floor which was clogged and let no water through, sweeping the water out of the kitchen, cleaning all my cabinets (that weren’t really that dirty yet) and hoping that the neighbours wouldn’t have any leakage! After all that, I fixed it with my spanner and I decided that whenever I don’t need water I’ll turn off the necessary tap. But now there is still one pipe dripping, dripping very slowly…..and that’s how it all started in the beginning…. Don’t worry, this afternoon I will have a ‘pipeman’ (????) coming over, who will hopefully be able to fix it. This story might be continued.
One last thing I will bore you with and then I’m done. Why do you think people in China (women mostly) wear those mouth caps? Ever thought about it? I always assumed it was because of the pollution; I was wrong and I bet most of you are wrong as well…. I found out from one of my students (on our way to the 2nd hand market, where I bought I grate cabinet by the way) that they use them to protect their skin from the cold winds. Otherwise it will get all red. Guess their skin is a lot more sensitive than ours, or maybe they’re just vain? Anyway, I really didn’t know that and thought I would share it with you.
Oh just a few more things….Did you know that 300 million people in China smoke (pollution??) and that 200 million Chinese are looking for a job and that yesterday I learned how to make jiao zi, and that I’ve uploaded my Spaces with new pictures again??!!
Zai jian!