To the land of .... IKEA!

Hello friends.

I have to start this post with a name drop. But not the normal name drop, I'm not gonna say I know or saw someone famous and thus try to add credibility to myself.

Nope.

This is a shout out to my Gram.

(Yes, gram, you)

I'll explain for those of you who don't have my Gram as your gram... which is everyone of my awesome readers except my sister.

(Hi Twig!)

My Gram. Where to begin. Sweet. Loving. Wonderful. She's my gram. She's the one who knows me best after my mom (Hi Mom!)

Okay... Side step. Hello everyone else! There. I can stop saying 'Hi' to everyone now. ;)

Back to Gram. Yes. She came to every elementary school event no matter how trivial, every high school achievement was met with a big smile and a hug and the occasional $5 to supplement my spending change. (Which was always so crisp! I think grandma's have a special bank where they get only brand new $5 bills... seriously!) As I've gotten older, I've helped gram get into the world of tech. She's got a nice laptop, and wireless printer. She's got email down, Facebook and I helped her book mark my blog so she can get here in one click. The latest lesson, just before my return to china, was how to leave comments on my blog. So you know what?? She commented the other day with a short "Meg, where are you??"

......

......

Seriously!!!!!! Gram. No, Hi, how are you? No, miss you. No, love ya. Just want an update. Good grief. ;) Ha, I love you Gram!!

In her defense, it has been a couple weeks. I apologize. At the end of last year I believe I mentioned that there was less to talk about because things had become normal. For example, if all of you kept a blog of your daily comings and goings it would peeter out after a couple weeks because our lives have strong leanings toward routine. Unless you work for a temp agency or make a point to do something different every other month, this is true.

The same applies to China. It has become my normal. So the last couple weeks have been the same. School. Home. School. Home. Sleeping and eating and socializing. Nothing noteworthy. But, now something has happened.... And Gram.

So, here's the update, per request of Gram.

Saturday, yesterday for me, my school organized a bus trip to IKEA. We had probably 40 people sign up to go and for 50yuan we took a bus to Ningbo to go to IKEA for four hours and then come home. Seems simple enough... We allotted two hours for travel each way and the time table of the day was leave at 9, return at 5. Of course, this didn't happen. Our driver got lost. With all of the smart phones that our Chinese guides had, and the GPS stuck to the dash, this should have been a slim possibility. But we got lost.

Geography lesson: Shaoxing is directly west and slightly north of Ningbo. Our driver took us almost directly North to a place called Cixi. (ssss-i-she) Which meant that our two hour trip to IKEA that started at 9am turned into a five our trip. We arrived at 2. No, I did not mistype that. 2. Thankfully, we stopped for directions and were able to use a restroom.

My first stop was the restaurant. I was starving. Got some swedish meatballs and a coffee and I was in heaven. Then meandered the store a little. But the real fun place is the market. Where all the free standing, small items are. I bought two candles and a square dish to stand them on. The are 45 hour block candles, unscented, one red and one white. They look very christmas-y... But as they are so great, and I love candles, and they are burning next to me right now, I'm not sure they will last until christmas. Ha!

>>Side note: I'm listening to Bette Midler music on Spotify as I type and 'Baby Mine' is such a great song. mmmmm. yup.

I also bought a plain brown bowl. It was only 6 yuan (that's a dollar) and its the perfect size for easy mac. Oh yea! We only have one microwave safe bowl at the apartment, so I figured it was necessary. I also bought a cute coffee mug. It's got a tiny little handle and its plum colored. I love me a new coffee mug.

I mentioned we arrived at 2. Our departure time was set for 6. Carina and I finished our shopping with an hour and half to spare. So naturally we headed to the bistro for ice cream cones and hot dogs. I am unashamed to admit that I had two hot dogs and three ice cream cones over that last hour. Twist cones for 2 yuan. That's about thirty two cents for a twist cone from IKEA. I realize that it's China, and their quality isn't always up to par... But their ice cream cones were so worth it. And I wasn't gonna waste this prime opportunity.

Then, we loaded up all our goodies on the bus and headed home. Mine obviously fit into my purse. But the other teachers bought larger items for their apartments. Chairs, end tables, rugs, dishes, etc. A few of the moms did most of their christmas shopping for the kiddos. The trip home was met with some good natured trepidation. Choruses of "We'll be home by morning hopefully", "Five hours back right?" and other jests at the amount of time it took to arrive. Well, an hour and forty minutes later we were pulling into campus, home again.

Take a moment. Five hours... less than two... what? Yea. Do that for another half hour or so and you'll be where we all were when we got home in a fraction of the time.

But its a classic Chinese travel adventure.

In other news, my knitting is going well. I finished a pair of hand warmers. They are basically just a square piece of knitting that I stitched into a tube leaving a hole near one end for my thumb to stick thru. But I knit it with a pattern so they're pretty sweet. Now, I'm working on a coozie for my new glass water bottle. I filled it today with hot coffee to take on the bus but it was so hot to touch that I stuck it inside a sock so I could carry it. But I figured, I can make a little handmade 'sweater' for my bottle. I've got about 4 rows in.... So I should be able to finish it tonight.

My class this week is going to be about Halloween. I've worked up a little 'history of...' to show my class and put in pictures of myself carving a pumpkin and dressed up in costume. They'll get a kick out of that for sure. I'm also getting observed on Thursday by a fellow foreign teacher. I'm not worried, it's mostly just a formality.

And that's all. Life continues as normal. In the future, (this is for you gram) I'll try to be a bit more prompt in my updates. :-P

Until next time.

Knit 1, Pearl 2

A vice of mine is Pinterest. In the States I use it as an idea center for teaching, for cooking, or when I get that craft itch and want to try something new. Here in China, I use it to feel at home. I browse the home page while sipping coffee and its glorious.

I usually try to avoid the food.... because most of the food is difficult to make here, and it always makes me hungry. (Although, we did make potato-bacon-grilled cheese and it turned out fabulously)

Well, my latest Pinterest gem came in the form of knitting. But not the usual knitting. I used my arms as the needles!!

Crazy, I know... But hear me out. I used real bulky yarn, and then instead of one strand, I used four. Quadruple the fluff! and then knitting is fairly similar to on needles (as far as I know) and you're left with a lovely bulky scarf.

Well, when I was in Wuhan, we went looking for yarn so I could teach my friend how to do it. And in the process, she bought me some needles to teach me traditional knitting.

So, now I am a knitting fiend!!!!

I made two arm knit scarfs, and one traditional knit cowl. I'm working on a long, skinny scarf at the moment. But the best part is I learned to purl (because of that saying I used in the title). So now I knit a row, purl a row and it make a great little pattern.

I've found that I love to knit, and it suits my weird brain that needs something to do always. I can knit while I watch tv or listen to music, or sit on the bus.... I spent a good chuck of the train ride knitting.

My next project is a simple pair of hand warmers. The kind that have no fingers and a hole for the thumb. I found an excellence pattern on Pinterest (of course!) and as soon as I'm finished with my current scarf, its gonna happen.

Until next time.

My current project. A skinny block color scarf.

My first attempt at arm knitting. This is a double infinity scarf. 

Busy wanderings

Hi y'all!

It's been a while (sorry)... I've been traipsing about the country for a while, and busy busy busy!

This last week, the 1st- 7th was National Day holiday here in the Middle Kingdom. Which meant we had off of school!! (fist pump)

So, like all teachers off of school, I took the liberty of sleeping in. But I also traveled inland a bit to the city of Wuhan. A fellow FoC city where my friends live. I'd never been there, and this seemed like the perfect time to go.

So, my roommate Carina and I left on a Thursday night train arriving in Wuhan at 7 am.

We took hard seats for the trip. Which is the equivalent of hard airplane seats.

Why??

Well, for starters they were less than half the price of the sleepers (beds) and I figured if I could sleep on a plane, then I could sleep on a train right?

WRONG.

China has this thing, where they have a billion people. Yeah. And national holiday is a time when they all go home. Which means that every mode of transportation is over crowded. This train was no different. So, we were lucky really to have seats. There were probably two dozen people with 'standing room' tickets. Which meant that they had to stand/crouch or sit on the floor for the 8 hour trip. Basically, there are people everywhere. The seat that I had was on the end of a row at the end of the car. I was sitting next to a crowd of people who were crouching/sitting on the floor. One man was sitting next to me on top of his luggage. My shoulder and his butt were fast friends (huge eye roll!) There was even a short time when he was falling asleep and he was nodding off onto my shoulder. A quick elbow to the ribs solved that problem. (don't gasp, everyone is extremely rude when traveling.)

The trip back was better. There was less luggage underfoot, and no one leaning on me. And the smell was better because we were not next to the bathroom.

Okay, so now that you've been throughly horrified about travel in China... Don't worry, it's only like that during the holidays.

What did I do in Wuhan???

I visited coffee street and got some more coffee. I'm almost out of the coffee I brought from America, so it was a good thing.

Walked along the river.

Took a ferry boat ride across the river (it was essentially a bus fare to get across)

Visited art street, and food street... both very very crowded.

Spent an afternoon at the Hubei Art Museum. Very cool, and relaxing. I enjoy art so much. There was one very interesting piece that was geometric cross type patterns painted on tartan... Yup. A painting on Scottish plaid. How cool!!

OH! I almost forgot. We watched the Packer-Viking football game Friday morning when we arrived.

I made banana bread for my host and friend Becca.

And we visited a beautiful Buddhist temple and climbed a pagoda where we could see much of the city.

We went to the shop called Mr. Mai's two times for homemade apple pie. The owner is from Louisiana, and it was a taste of home for sure!

I had a ton of fun, and I'm glad for the experience in a new city. The differences in China between provinces is so great... Just going over two means there are so many new and different foods to try, and the people are so different, and the culture is even different.

I'm off now, gotta go to class and teach my students about American food/ restaurants.
(We're gonna watch a VeggieTales clip. =) )

Until next time.