A bunch of things

TAXIS & SHOPPING
The pastor at church today said that every day that we make it home safely is a time to thank God because of all the crazy traffic here. That has definitely been our experience.

We took a cab back to our hotel after church. The driver had to use only one hand to drive because the other hand was used to hold his door closed during the ride because it would not stay shut.

Yesterday we hired an A/C car and driver. We learned our lesson from when we just took non-A/C taxis from non-A/C flat to non-A/C flat. It was especially uncomfortable because the roads are so bumpy and the cars have no shock absorbers. And since there was no A/C, the windows were down to let in all the pollution and rank smells. Jerry commented last night that he wanted to clean his ears out and see all the nasty black stuff that must be collecting there. Gross.

Anyhow, when you hire a driver or a taxi here, you are basically hiring a mode of transportation because the drivers do not know where many things are in the city. You can tell them an area of town and then you better know how to get to your destination from there. For instance, what we usually have to do is ask the driver to take us to let’s say, a well-known police station. Once we get there, then we start a whole lot of charades and pointing. And then maybe we get to where we need. It can be quite exhausting! One night it took us 45 minutes of pointing and motioning and calling our local friends for us to get back to the hotel. It should have taken 20 minutes. And it does not even help a whole lot for a local to give directions over the phone because they themselves just know how to get to places by sight. There are hardly any street signs, but LOTS of billboards at street level. You could try to use the billboards as landmarks, but once they change…

Back to our A/C car and driver – it took an hour to find a store called Spencer’s. And the annoying thing is that Spencer’s has a lot of billboards around the city that ALL say, “You are minutes from a SUPER shopping experience.” I guess minutes can refer to 2 or 50.

Another stop was to a place that I will call the Wal*Mart of the city. First of all, the traffic getting there was HORRIBLE, even worse than I-10 during rush hour in Houston. There were periods of time when we were stopped for 10+ minutes and people would just get out of their cars and start socializing. You have not seen gridlock until you see the traffic in this city. We finally made it to the Mega Mart and it was packed, just like a doorbusters event at Wal*Mart. Everything was 25% off except clothes. Wall to wall people. At least I did not get groped.

As new residents of the city, we would love to explore, but Golly! It is NEVER easy to get anywhere. There have been a few evenings when I have told Jerry, “I do not want to get into a car for a week!”

SOMETHING POSITIVE
I feel like this blog entry has been a rant, but there are so many things to get used to. Before we left, lots of people would talk about the sacrifice we were making. Maybe we naively agreed to come here. If I knew exactly how it would be, I think I would have been very tempted to tell God, “No thanks.” Every time I get frustrated, Jerry says, “Later, this will be an anecdote that you can put in the blog.” So, ya’ll get to be entertained by our ‘adjustments’.

So let me tell you about a very pleasant experience here…. at the Hyatt Regency Hotel. (hahaha) Seriously, we have had some good experiences here that are not Western. But first, about the Hyatt… It is literally an oasis for foreigners. We have been told that we NEED to get away on a regular basis and enjoy some comfort experiences so we do not burn out. It was the 3rd stop of our all-day excursion. We sat down to lunch and it was so lovely that Jerry said that we were not leaving; we would stay the rest of the day. It WAS our longest stop - we stayed for about 2 hours. The first thing that we noticed was how spacious it was. Space is a precious commodity here. Even the more expensive flats we saw were pretty cramped feeling. We joined Club Hyatt, which gives dining discounts on food for a year. Here is something interesting, for one person the discount is 10%, for 2 – 50%, 3 – 33%, 4 – 25% and 5 – 20% and 6+ - 15%. So, the best bargain is for 2. We had the buffet, which after our discount plus drinks, tax and tips only came out to $12.50 each. And the food was great. We ate as much beef as we could! Oh, for the days of our BBQ tour of Texas…

FOOD
Food here is pretty good and cheap, albeit a little spicy. We can eat well for 1-2 dollars for a local meal. We did venture out to Chinatown one night and ate at Big Boss. The steamed fish was just as good and better than many Chinese restaurants in Houston. Everything else was okay to pretty good. As we ate, 3 large tables of mainland Chinese people came in. I was so curious as to why they are here that I stopped to talk to them on my way out. They are working for a telecom company here in the suburbs. I asked one guy how he liked living here and all he did was hang his head. I said, “It’s really hard, isn’t it?” And he nodded yes. And they live in the nicer suburb area. This guy is from Harbin, a city in China where I spent a month teaching English 6 years ago. I asked the whole table where the best Chinese restaurant is and one guy replied, “Mainland China.” I was thinking, “Haha, now really tell me.” But there IS a restaurant called Mainland China! However, it is just that the restaurant has Peking Duck. The food is expensive and just okay. They said that Big Boss is really the best place. We are going to meet them sometime and go to a place they also like called Jimmy’s Kitchen.

CAMERA & PICTURES
Sorry that I do not have many pictures. The other ones were taken using our Macbook and it is not practical to lug that thing everywhere we go. On a sad note, our digital camera is on the fritz. Jerry is trying to resurrect it, but I think it is time to look for a new one. Suggestions for an easy-to-use smallish digital camera for around $250 are most welcome! We can buy it online and send it to my parents, who can give it to our friend’s mom who is coming to our city soon from Houston (to visit relatives) and she can bring it to us.