We made it! It's crazy to say, but yes, we are now living in
Beijing, China. As part of Ryan's IMBA program he will be studying Chinese here
for a year. I think over the last two weeks I have literally felt every emotion
known to man...Excitement, Anticipation, Fear, Anger, Sadness, Joy,
Apprehension, Anticipation, Friendship, Kindness, Envy, Frustration,
Appreciation, Love, Hope and the list goes on. I feel like the positive
emotions have outweighed the bad and I try not to focus on bad emotions that
come, but they sure do sneak in.
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| Out to lunch with some friends. Such a big boy! |
So it's probably my "arrogant" American mindset
that led me to believe there would be more people here that spoke English, but
I have honestly been surprised at how few do. It makes the easiest things very
difficult, like ordering at KFC. Luckily there are quite a few signs that also
have English, so at least when I'm at the super market I can find my way to the
bathroom. SPEAKING OF WHICH, the public bathrooms here are NOT like the
bathrooms back at home (heck, the bathroom in my house is not like the one back
home). No lies, the public bathrooms here are honestly a hole in the floor. A
squatty potty. (At some point I will try to post a picture of it). Now it's not
like this dirt floor with a hole dug out, some of them are pretty nice holes,
but holes in the floor nonetheless. Imagine your normal toilet, now make it
flat... now you have a squatty potty. You also have to bring your own toilet
paper and hand sanitizer. Oh, and let me explain the bathroom in our house. We
have a normal toilet but imagine your shower and your toilet being together.
You stand in one corner of the 6x6 bathroom to shower and your potty in the
opposite corner, no shower curtain or anything in between. It's pretty fancy :)
There's nothing like having to wear flip flops and holding your pants up from
the floor to go to the bathroom after someone has just showered.
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| Random ally way on the way to Ryan's school. Can you say advertisements! |
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| We thought this was a pretty cool tree :) |
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| The traffic here is insane! I swear there are NO traffic rules and everyone just does whatever they want. That includes people crossing the street. It's insane! |
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| Check out those brown eyes! |
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| This little face just exudes sweetness! |
I don't have a lot of pictures to share because I have
honestly spent the last two weeks keeping my head above water, learning where
the grocery store is and HOW to get there, getting our apartment to a place
where it's comfortable and feels like home, learning a few Chinese words to
help me get by, etc. I also feel like I have NO idea how to cook here. I really
don't think it's all that different, but I think my mind just has this block.
The grocery store is completely overwhelming to me still because I can't read
anything. That might be a bit of a stretch, because some labels also have some
English, but I'm still not familiar with what kind of ingredients this country
has and doesn't have. For instance, they don't have a lot of spices I'm use to
cooking with and their cheese is really expensive and not awesome quality (of
course it's pretty expensive in the states too) but I did find out they have sour
cream and VERY expensive cream cheese. It also doesn't help that all my
frequently made recipes are sitting in my recipe box in SC. Anyway, if you have
any awesome wok recipes or recipes with basic ingredients, send them my way :)
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| Surprise B-day party for a friend |
I have met some wonderful people here! We do have 4 branches
is Beijing and we have to travel for about 45 minutes on the subway to get to
where our branch meets. I love our branch so much already. They are so
supportive and kind, truly a branch family. There are a few families in our
branch around our age that have befriended us and a few of them live pretty
close to us, so that's nice. I already feel like I have known them forever! The
church is amazing that way! It's pretty phenomenal that you can go half way
across the world and meet a whole group of people that already love you! We
also met a family the other day as we were getting off the subway. They were
struggling to get off because they had a bunch a luggage and a few sleeping
children. We offered to help them get their things to their apartment and they
have become some pretty good friends. We have met them for lunch and dinner a
few times. They are from Poland and they have two children, one age 2 and one
age 2 months. I love making friends and meeting new people. I am so thankful
for the wonderful people my loving Heavenly Father has placed in my path.
Every day here is a new adventure. A few stories...
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| This lady came up to take a picture of Dylan while we were in line getting some dinner one night. |
... Dylan gets a LOT of attention. A
LOT may be an understatement. When we are walking down the street just about
EVERYONE looks at him and smiles. Lots of people want to touch his chubby
cheeks. Today on the subway a lady just wouldn't take her hand out of her face.
She was like waving to him, but her hand was literally and inch away from her
face. LOL No respect for personal boundaries. Twice so far when we have been
eating out, the people running the restaurant have asked to hold him.
They also like to take pictures of him. lol
There are always little things you
see that make me laugh. Like on this moving sidewalk that goes up into a
grocery store there is this one Chinese caution sign on the wall and the
English translation under it reads, "Carefully Pinch" meaning to tell
you to be careful because you could get pinched, also in the supermarket there was a fork packaged up, but the
packaging in English said dinner spoon. We
saw a restaurant that had the Chinese name and then a translated English name
and it was called, A Restaurant. lol :) Little things like that make me smile every
day.
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| This is currently outside on the the grocery stores. Christmas in March anyone!? |
The other day I took my first bus
outing with Dylan into unknown territory. It went alright. I did get on the bus
going the wrong way for about 7 stops (and the whole time my gut was telling me
I was going the wrong way but I listened to 3 Chinese people that all told me
it was right.... darn that language barrier!) I got turned the right way and an
hour and a half later made it to my final destination. I was meeting some
friends from the branch to go to a store called the Metro. It's kind of like a
Costco. It's a membership store, but they allow foreigners to come without a
membership, so that's pretty cool. It was fun to look around and see what kinds
of things they had (stores around here are kind of hit and miss. Sometimes they
have things and sometimes they don't and they all seem to carry an assortment
of different stuff. So it's not like in the states where you can just stop at
any Wal-Mart and you can pretty much guarantee they will have what
you want.) My favorite find of the day were my most favorite cookies in the
whole world. They are some cookies that are popular in Australia and I have
only seen them in the states once... they are called Tim Tams. Anyway, that was
a fun, albeit slightly expensive find.
Also, in the middle of all my bus
craziness and counting the stops to make sure I got off at the right stop I got
on one bus and right away this older Chinese lady grabs Dylan away from me so
she can hold him and no kidding, for like 5 stops continues to scold me about
how cold he must be... he needs a scarf.... he needs a longer coat... he needs
longer pants... he needs longer socks.... he needs a hood that stays on his
head better... he needs gloves. She just went on and on (in Chinese of course).
That is actually a very common thing among the older Chinese that I was warned
about. They always tell us how cold our babies must be because we don't wrap
them up like Eskimos. I heard it has something to do with them thinking
that if he's cold he's going to lose his Chi or something. So I
wasn't surprised but it was a bit much especially because I was
trying to focus the bus stops so I could get to the right place :) I handled it
all okay until she pulled a tissue from her pocket (it looked a little used to
me) to wipe his face. That was a bit much for me!!!! Then she pulled out this
whole wade of toilet paper (unused) from her pocket and put it around his face
like a scarf. LOL So many new adventures! :)
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| As part of Ryan's classes he has to go on an outing every week. This week we were able to go with him to see a Kung Fu show. It freaked Dylan out, so we took turns with him out in the hall. Even though we each only saw half of it, it was a fun show |
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| Kung Fu show. Just as soon as the drums started Dylan wanted NOTHING to do with it |
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| The Pearl Market |
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| The Pearl Market |
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| Our loot from the Pearl Market |
Overall we are enjoying ourselves and
adjusting well. We think of all of you often and miss you lots! Please keep us
up to date with how y'all are doin'
Love, Julia
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| We keep this little one busy! He is always happy to hit the sack when it's time! |
