Dumplings and Birthdays

            Hello again from the smoggy city of Tianjin! On a side note before I get into the meat of the blog, thank you everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes.  It was so nice to hear from my family and friends back home! I miss you all dearly and love you all very much! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

            Ok so things have been pretty busy around here the last few weeks. Work is going great and I even found a language exchange buddy whom I meet with on Thursdays.  I help her with English for an hour which is fun because I know NOTHING about grammar and when she asks why the word would and wood are spelled different but pronounced the same, I get to smile and say say, “I dunno…it just is.” Yeah, I bet that really clears things up for her…. In return I get an hour Chinese lesson, which is mostly me asking how to say sentences vital to my existence, such as, “Please don’t talk about me in Chinese while I’s standing next to you, because I understand and it’s awkward.” “Where can I buy a screwdriver?” “Why are you so surprised I can feed myself with chopsticks? I’m not impressed you can use a spoon…” “Do you have these pants in a bigger size my? My American tushy doesn’t fit in a size 0!” and most importantly “Please don’t smoke in the elevator right next to the clearly marked NO SMOKING sign. It forces me to suffocate for a 31 floor ride down to ground level and therefor lowers my overall happy meter for the day.” Yey!

I am still on the lookout for actual Chinese classes, but as it turns out there aren’t too many foreigners here so it’s proving a bit more difficult than I imagined. I’ve also gotten the chance to explore outside my neighborhood more, and am getting better oriented in this decent sized city.  The other day I took a walk down to the river at night when it was all lit up and there were people dancing and selling things and even a few older men fishing!! It was pretty neat to see.  It kind of made me wish people did stuff like that back home, or maybe they do just not in Idaho haha.  Next time I won’t bring a purse that I have to worry about so I can join in the fun!! Sorry the video is sideways…I can’t for the life of me figure out how to rotate it, ugh technology.  The weather is getting pretty hot but we have the occasional rainstorm blow through just long enough to clear the air and flood the streets for a day. It’s a real treat.

Also one of the girls at work asked me over for lunch to her house the other day where her parents showed me how to make dumplings and let me pick cucumbers in the garden!! Her Mom is a pro and makes like two dumplings per second (exaggeration…sort of) and her Dad showed me how to make picked cucumbers.  Not like we think of pickles, but still very delicious! It was a real hoot, although turns out I have a lot of practicing to do before I can make pretty dumplings…mine were more like dough blobs really.  After lunch we just chatted and watched Chinese Idol (Yes, it’s a real thing AND it is EXACTLY like American Idol…but I don’t recognize the judges…dear God, what is this world coming to?!), and they even sent some leftover dumplings home with me! What a treat!!

            To add to the fun, last week was my birthday and I had a great time!! I was given this tiny cake and some other adorable gifts, including a doll, a mug with a Chihuahua on it, and a monkey purse.  I felt so loved! On the Sunday after my birthday all the girls and I went out for a big hot pot dinner (boiling pots of broth in which you cook meat and noodles and veggies…so simple and so so good) at the mall to celebrate and I felt really lucky to have such great co-workers and friends in my new city!!!

            Although I did not really celebrate Fourth of July this year (I know…shame on me!) I received this picture of how Charlie spent his holiday.  Such a great picture right!! Thanks a million for getting this to me Angela, you’re the best doggie-sitter ever and I miss you both!

Last but certainly not least, just in case anyone is dying to be my pen pal, this is my mailing address here in Tianjin (Yes it ALL has to go on the envelope and it’s probably just easier to print it off and glue it on):

Madison MacNichol

天津市南开区

北城街245号

吉的堡少儿英语

300000, 天津

中国

Tianjin Nankai qu

Beichengjie #245

Jidebao shaor Yingyu

300000, Tianjin

China

Also please don’t send much more than letters and absolutely nothing of value.  Mail customs has a dirty little habit of opening foreign incoming packages, taking all the goodies and forwarding the empty box to the recipient.  True story.

Well I think that’s about all to report for now! I miss you all! Please let me know how things are going in your neck of the woods (Al Roker moment sorry ;). xoxoxo

Tianjin

So it appears my drifting day are over for the time being. I am officially settled in Tianjin for the next 11 months. Yahoo! No more suitcase livin’ for me! For the first time ever, I am the owner of an apartment lease for which I pay rent monthly and an am required to maintain. I feel so…grown up! My apartment is a little studio on the 31st floor of a newer building in an older part of town, which is great because I can take advantage of the more traditional Chinese lifestyle and air conditioning simultaneously.  My neighbors are a lovely couple who have a small daughter who plays the recorder…every morning…at 6am. I’m not complaining really. She’s pretty good and it’s a much better sound to wake up to than an alarm clock. Yes, I am very pleased at my new spoiled position.

As for the city itself, I am happy/relieved to report Tianjin is right up my ally as far as cities goes. Despite its 11 million inhabitants, Tianjin somehow maintains the local charm that I was craving in Shanghai and unable to find. The city was divvied up into countless foreign concessions back in the day, so each little sector is really a city of it’s own with it’s own personality and architecture.

There are only three subway lines (opposed to Shanghai’s miserable sixteen) which I rarely use as my work is a 20min walk from my building. I also found myself a swell little gym down the street complete with spin bikes, treadmills and a pool! Surely you can imagine my excitement. And to top it off, right across the street is a wonderful open-air produce market where I can buy pretty much anything that grows in the ground. To be honest, I doubt I’ll ever buy veggies in a supermarket again! Although the fact of the matter is I rarely need to buy groceries because my neighborhood has a plethora of delicious hole-in-the-wall restaurants of which I have become a regular. At 7-12 Yuan/meal ($1-$1.50), most days it’s just more economical to eat out! Plus, if I ever get a hankering for western food, there is also a mall about two blocks away that has a Tex-Mex restaurant, a Cold Stone Creamery, a Subway, and a foreign grocery store where I can buy cheese and skim milk. What else could a girl want really! (The photo is of the other Kid Castle foreign teachers and I out for Tex-Mex. My tacos were satisfactory ;)

As for the city itself, it has a good vibe. A river runs through the middle (a not disgustingly polluted river might I add) where people take ferryboat cruises at night when the city is all lit up. The river also has a great promenade on both sides making for a lovely evening stroll (minus the mosquitos). Sadly the proximity to Beijing makes for less than desirable air quality. Some days I think I would be better off smoking cigarettes rather than breathing the air. At least cigarettes have filters, but I suppose I can’t have my cake and eat it too. I figure I’ll take the hit for bad air to live in a cool place…for now.

The local food is delicious and nearly every restaurant has vinegar and chili sauce on the tables, which is always a good sign in my book. Tianjin is mostly famous for it’s variety of yummy street snacks. They mostly seem to be some variety of fried dough and meat, so I usually stick to noodles or rice instead. Steamed buns and dumplings are also everywhere and I must say, Silk Soy Milk ‘aint got nothing on the soy milk here which they make fresh on the streets in huge bubbling pots for about $0.20 a cup. Needless to say, I’m not starving by any means. J

Work is also going really great! Kid Castle only has three branches in Tianjin (Shanghai had a night-mareish thirty seven to make a comparison) and I am the only foreign teacher at my school. It is a hoot because all the Chinese teachers are women and we just have a ball together and I feel extremely lucky to have such a friendly work environment. My classes great with the exception of one very naught bunch on Friday evenings, but I’ll whip ‘em into shape soon enough…maybe… The younger ones are sickeningly adorable and last week I was given a drawing of Hello Kitty by a 4 year old. My heart melted.

Also I recently made a trip to IKEA to get a few things for my new place with my co-worker Rena. We had a blast goofing around in the display rooms and I bought a few houseplants with the hope that they would clean the air in my room. We’ll see. Meanwhile this is what I’m missing out on in Idaho…awww, what a cutie! Well I think that’s all to report for now! I miss you all tons and hope everything is a wonderful as you want it to be! xoxoxoxo