After a trip to Decathlon and Carrefor, Aric and I decided to stop and pick up some dinner on Baise Rd. (the street we live on). Aric waited while I picked up my dinner, and then I waited while he got his. I was bored and decided to record a bit of footage. There really isn't anything too interesting in the video, but it shows a bit of Baise in the evening.

written by  AricMelanie on November 17 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

This weekend, we took trips to Carrefor, Decathlon, and IKEA. On Saturday we went to both Decathlon and Carrefor. Running errands is a whole day trip when it takes 22 minutes on the subway each way, then a 10 minute bike ride back from the station with all of the goods that were bought. At Decathlon we had to stock up on our cold weather attire for our hiking trip this weekend. A group went on a hiking trip this weekend, and the area that they went to had 7 inches of snow! Brrr! Decathlon was soooo crowded! You had to push and shove to get anywhere. We'd been there several times and have never seen it like that. I guess this is the first weekend since the really cold weather hit, so everyone needs to get their new coats and fleeces.

On Sunday, we took a trip to IKEA and B & Q (the British Home Depot). Sadly, we found the B & Q that the Line 3 Metro passes is closed. I wanted to get a bigger pot for my plant and some potting soil. My peace lily has outgrown its pot. Our mission at IKEA was to get a table to extend our counter (we have an empty space from when we moved the washing machine out of our kitchen). After many measurements and comparisons, we finally found a table for a good price. We also picked up a potato masher (hard to come by), a kitchen timer, and some fitted sheets (the sheets that came with our room are not fitted and get untucked easily). Aric was a trooper and carried the table top all the way back from the subway station on his bike. I rode behind him with the table legs and all the miscellaneous. To top it all off, it was drizzling.

In fact, it has bee drizzling all weekend. From what we hear, this is what winter is like in Shanghai. It isn't cold enough to snow, so it just rains, drizzles, and mists all of the time. We didn't make it to Wuxi this weekend because of the weather. Bummer...this is one of the few 3 day weekends we have for awhile. I guess we'll have to stop acting like we're 30, not get as much rest, and take a trip in just a two day weekend.

We turned the heat on in our apartment on Saturday. It has been consistently in the 40s and the walls are paper thin. The temperature outside becomes the temperature inside quite quickly. The noise outside and in the hallways comes inside easily too.

I am so excited about our additional 4 feet of counter space! It is wonderful. We now have a place to put our oven, instead of having to store it on top of the armoire when we're not using it. It is also easier to prepare meals. I used to have a 1.5 ft by 6 in rectangle available to use as counter space. Now I don't know what to do with all of the space!

I graded all of my midterms. Ugh. My 6A class did not do as well as I had hoped. My 6B class did very well. It makes me feel better that at least one of my 6th grade classes did okay. When I entered my grades into the online system, it calculated my average much differently than I did (much lower). I am hoping to get this figured out.

We were able to find a larger pot for my peace lily at IKEA. However, I have not found decent potting soil. I did purchase some of the dehydrated kind (it is vacuum sealed, just waiting for water to be added). However, when I brought it home, I realized that there are pictures of cacti all over it, so I'm afraid to use it. I think that I'll take it to work tomorrow and ask some of the Chinese teachers if it would be okay to use. I really don't want to kill my plant.

Aric is out watching the Pats vs. Colts game tonight. He accidentally saw the score on ESPN.com, but wanted to go anyway because it was a close game (35-36). The downside is that they don't usually play the games here at the sport's bar until 10 PM, so he has a late night on Mondays and sometimes Tuesdays. It all depends if he wants to watch the Sunday night NFL game or the Monday night NFL game. I still find it strange that the game is streamed from South Africa...small world.

One thing that we aren't see as much any more are what I call, "bum pants." I may have mentioned them before. Many babies and toddlers walk around with the crotch cut out of their pants. The purpose for cutting the middle out of the pants is so the babies can go to the bathroom anywhere. We've witnessed parents holding their children over trashcans or just over the curb, spreading the legs, and letting their children go. Not everyone does this. It varies between socioeconomic levels. However, I've been waiting and waiting to get a good "bum pant" shot, but I haven't gotten one yet. Alas, I may have to wait until spring...

Tomorrow is the beginning of the work week. I'll give midterm tests back to my students. I feel terrible when I have to give poor scores back to students who really thought that they'd do better. I also feel terrible when students are excited that they got a 70% when I think that they could do much better. The joys of the testing world.

-Melanie (& Aric)
11/16/09 11:20 PM

New photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008979&id=177700216&l=e651142009

written by  AricMelanie on November 16 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

4 comments...

One exciting thing about having to buy imported food in order to cook our Western delicacies is that we get our pasta straight from Italy. That's right, authentic Italian pasta. We also get our milk and butter from Australia. Boy...those Australian cows sure do make tasty milk :-) Our salad dressing is from Germany (really nothing cool or exciting about that). Our Mexican night fixings are from the good ol' U.S. of A. Our cheese comes from the U.S. as well. Although, we do have some European cheese for our grilled cheese sandwiches. Ha...American cheese from Europe. We've picked up a few different spice packets from Thailand, Taiwan, and India. We haven't tried them yet because we've wanted Western food. If we want some Asian varieties, we just step outside.

My 6th graders are currently taking their mid-term. I don't have proctoring duties for my homeroom today, so I've been running back and forth between the 6th grade homerooms answering any questions. The tension in those classrooms makes me stressed! I graded my 4th graders' midterms. I've got an average of 81%. If you take out the outliers, it goes up to 85%, so that's pretty good. The school wants it between 85 and 90%. I had a few kids score below where I wanted them, but the rest were pretty good. I have two students who don't belong in my class, but I can't get them to level down. One of them got a 35% on my midterm (her highest test grade has been a 64%), and the other scored a 53%. Ouch. Neither will be moved, and both are failing their other subject classes. The lowest one really needs to move to non-native. Her writing is textbook non-native, as is her speaking. However, her father refuses to let her move. Both of her homeroom teachers have talked to him and tried to convince him that she'd be much happier if she leveled-down, but he won't budge. It is a pride thing. I'm really hoping that my 6th graders score well! Although, I think the average in middle school only needs to be between 80-85%. I always hope for an 85%.

Wheww...I just got back from my second run to the middle school. (I had to put the blog writing on pause for a moment.) I made my run to each 6th grade classroom (there are 9) asking if the students had any questions for me or Mr. Sayre (6th grade honors). The Honors teacher had proctoring duty, so I had to cover answering questions for him.

Oh, I’ve been meaning to mention the library system here at the school. Quite interesting. I miss the Dewey Decimal system. Everything is categorized by alphabetical order, only using titles. There is no card catalog system. This makes it quite an adventure to find books! The students can check out up to 3 books at a time. They must fill out a paper with their name and the book number, and then the librarian types it into the computer. The kids may check out the books for one month. The homeroom teacher prints out a list of students that have books checked out (the names are all in Chinese so I can’t read it), and the students have the responsibility to go to the library and turn their books in if they’ve been checked out for more than 1 month. So far, that’s it. There aren’t any fines (that I know of).

Brrr...it is cold today. When I left for school this morning, I wasn't expecting winter to have come over night! It is 43 F out, but it feels like 34. It is November, but I really wasn't ready for it. We have a 20-30 mph wind from the north. Try riding your bike straight into that...not easy. I think the weather is going to clear up this weekend. Lately we've been getting these once per week bursts of winter. I guess we do need to be reminded that it is November!

Last weekend we, well mostly Aric, moved our washing machine from our kitchen to our bathroom. We never use the washing machine in the kitchen and we have this big empty space in our bathroom, so it worked out well. Now we are in the market for a table to go in our empty space in the kitchen. I can't wait for the additional counter space! Right now we have zero counter space. I can barely fit my mini apple shaped cutting board onto the counter.

Yesterday the 4th grade homeroom teachers (foreign and Chinese) went out to the KTV. In China, the KTV is like Karaoke. It was a lot of fun. We had two private rooms with comfy couches, and an all-you-can eat buffet downstairs. We ended up splitting up into two rooms (Foreign teachers in one and Chinese in the other). The foreign teachers wanted to sing English songs, and the Chinese teachers wanted sing Chinese songs. When I got back from the KTV, Aric was playing volleyball for open-gym night. I think every Thurs. we'll play a game (not necessarily volleyball...blah) in the gym with some of our friends.

Next weekend we're taking the trip to Yellow Mountain (as of now...). This weekend Aric and I are just going to relax a bit and take a day to visit one of the cities on the water by Lake Tai. It should be a nice relaxing weekend.

Currently, tickets are on sale for $780 from Wichita to Shanghai roundtrip during Nov. That figure may look expensive, but it is actually really really cheap for a roundtrip ticket overseas. And...if anyone would like to come and visit, we supply free room and board. We would love people to come and visit, but don't think that we desperate and lonely :-) We've just never seen tickets that cheap before! We will have visitors coming in January. We are super excited about it! My sister, Cristina, and her boyfriend, Adiël, are coming to explore China for 2 weeks. We're already making plans and figuring out what we need to do to prepare our spare room.

Arrggh...I have 4th graders coming in and bugging me about their grades. My policy is not to tell scores until we come back to school on Tues. even though I have them all graded. This is hard when some of the teachers are wishy-washy and give in to the relentless bugging for grades. The Chinese teachers are all telling grades to all of their students. Oh well...I'll stick to my policy.

I'm going to try out the China Post system this weekend. This is an adventure because I don't speak Chinese, and China post doesn't have anything in English. Good luck to the postcards I'm sending!

Happy Friday the 13th.

Tonight is Mexican Fiesta night. I wish I had a sombrero to cook in :-)

Adios amigos,

Melanie (& Aric)
11/13/09 10:25 AM

written by  AricMelanie on November 13 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

On Friday, Aric and I went to a Korean BBQ place that we'd had our eye on for awhile in Xuijahui. We had to wait quite awhile to get in. I'd like to say that it was definitely worth the wait, but the Korean BBQ that we had in Beijing definitely beat this place. Part of that may be our fault, since we haven't quite gotten the knack of which raw meat we should order to grill. Our best choice so far has been the barbeque mutton. We always get a veggie tray as well. My favorites are grille sweet potatoe and grilled egg plant. Aric likes the potatoes. We felt like we were underserved because we don't speak the language very well. We didn't get our grilling tongs until about halfway through our meal, the tea at our table was cold (Korean tea is the best!), and we didn't receive any wet towels to wash our hands with. All in all, we'd still probably give this place another try. However, there are so many other restaurants to try in Shanghai, it'll take some time to get back to this one.

On Saturday I had my recording job. It was interesting. I found out that if we needed extra money, I could get a job teaching at the Children's Library on the weekends. No thank you...I like my weekends! Anyway, I sat in a small sound proof recording room with a large microphone. I had to read text book sentences, directions, vocabulary, and dialogue. The first 30 pages were easy. Then, I think the text book type changed, and they we're not pleased with the way I was reading the vocabulary words. My voice naturally goes up at the end of words. This was not acceptable. It was really frustrating trying to change this! Also, I was irritated having to read sentences that were grammatically incorrect. I would correct some of them, but sometimes they made me go back and read them the way they were written. They didn't not like my phonemic pronunciation of /r/ and /l/. I tried my best to compromise between their pronunciation, and the pronunciation that I knew was correct. Ugh. I spent 4 years studying this...I think I know what I'm talking about. But whatev...I took my 800 Yuan and met Aric at the Subway across the street when it was all over. It was a stressful 2 1/2 hours! However, I'd probably do it again because the pay is excellent.

As a treat after my exhausting recording session (and because we were heading there anyway), we went to the Fake Market in Shanghai. This is similar to the Beijing Silk Market. If you want any name brand things, this is where to go. I'd recommend the Beijing market. The Shanghai market is a whole different atmosphere and a different bargaining technique is needed. I picked up a few new pairs of shoes and a few other things. Aric got another Chelsea jersey. Across from the Fake Market is the Pearl and Jewelry Market. I plan to stock up on some accessories there.

On Sunday we went with friends to the Cuisine Festival. There were all different expensive western food vendors there. It was neat to see all of the different food options there are in Shanghai for eating out. Many of them are well above our price range. We picked up some grated Dutch Gouda (mmm!) to use in place of parmesan. I tasted some of the best olives ever! And for lunch, Aric and I ate at a steak house. It was good. I had the filet mignon and Aric had the roast. Both were equally good. They were having a special for the Cuisine Festival. My filet was 7 USD, and Aric's roast was 3 USD. Good and cheap! There regular menu price is wayyy more than that.

This weekend we found out that there is a big golf tournament in Shanghai. Tiger Woods is here! However, we don't find out about a lot of things until they're happening, so we couldn't even look into watching it.

It looks like Yellow Mountain may be a no-go for this weekend. Aric and I are really bummed about it, but will find a way to get there at some time. We are getting used to the fact that some of our friends are the type of people who have all sorts of ideas, but no follow through. I'm sure we all know people like that. Take everything with a whole shaker of salt. Aric and I are only interested in planning things that are guaranteed to have a follow though. So, we may be planning more of our own events for this reason.

I am currently planning something to do this weekend. I'm thinking about going to Wuxi or Suzhou. These are places near Lake Tai, just west of Shanghai. We'll keep you updated.

We booked our hostel in Hong Kong, and are working on booking our flights. We’re flying into Shenzhen, and then we’ll walk across the border into Hong Kong. This way we are still flying on a domestic flight. For Christmas, I think we’ll visit Disney Land in Hong Kong :-)

Tonight I'm thinking spaghetti...

-Melanie (& Aric)
11/9/09 11:15 AM

written by  AricMelanie on November 9 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Today was Mexican night in our apartment. Mmm! I browned some hamburger, added the taco seasoning, and voila...added some cheese, tortillas, and salsa and we were set! I also made a fresh fruit salad. My favorite! The salad contained apples, pears, and grapes. We had cucumbers and fresh green peppers on the side. I also cut up the pomelo. It is like a cross between at grapefruit and a pomegranate. Quite interesting...and tasty! Instead of red spheres that stain your fingers like a pomegranate, a pomelo has little clear tubes inside and tastes citrus-y like an orange or a grapefruit would. What a delicious meal...it was a feast!

Midterms are approaching at school. These midterms are about the same caliber as state assessments in the U.S. It is crazy! All midterm tests had to be turned in today. Copies should have been made with each student's name on each copy. An answer key must be provided to the office for test records. Next week we only have 2 full days of school. Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday the students get out at 11:45 after taking one hour and 15 minute long tests (even the primary school). The teachers must still complete their regular office hours. In the afternoons the teachers can grade the tests. My midterms have been, checked, re-checked, and re-re-checked. I wrote each student's name on each test. Hopefully all goes well. The school determines your teaching quality by the test scores.

Adios,

Melanie (& Aric)
11/4/09 9:10 PM

written by  AricMelanie on November 4 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

1 comment...

I'll start with my favorite part, sports. Since the first week of school, a group of us Expat teachers have been playing basketball every Wednesday for a couple of hours. That is still continuing and I'm still loving most of the games. Some days we have around 15 people and that makes it hard to play a game, we usually split into three teams which makes it better but that still means that you sit out every other game or so.
More recently, some of the HS juniors and seniors have challenged the male teachers to a friendly game of 7 on 7 American football. We play every Thursday and it has been an absolute blast. I realized yesterday that I haven't played an actual game of football since last November at the Winfield Rec Center. It's pretty fun and we usually have 6-8 of us teachers against 8-10 High Schoolers, they sub and only play with 7 (although they could use all 10 and still lose). We've played a couple of weeks now and the score is 8 TD's to 0. The third game is today after school. What was neat about getting to play some football is that I was able to go and get some cleats from our "Dicks Sporting Goods" store Decathlon; and you all know how much I love my shoes :)
I've also been playing some Europe Football, AKA soccer, with all the teachers from SHS. There was a tournament between the local schools and our school the past couple of weeks. Our overall record was 2 and 2. The first couple of games I didn't get to play for more than a minute each because it was 7 on 7 and the Chinese teachers were a bit better than me and much more vocal about their playing time. Fortunately, the last game we had, only 7 of us were there at the start so I played the first 10 or so minutes; that was exciting. Even more so is that I almost scored and caught the attention of the Chinese teachers. Today one of the English PE teachers came up to me and said that the coach asked me to join the games they play every Tuesday; pretty stoked about that. I'll now have an athletic thing on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday every week. And best of all, none of them are just strictly running!!!

As for "school" stuff, I'm still doing a lot of nothing every day and somehow staying sane. I've visited so many websites using Firefox's Stumble-upon, it's an add-on that takes you to a random site depending on your likes and dislikes, pretty neat stuff. A good thing though is that I am extremely caught up with everything going on in the world of sports, lots of ESPN reading. Lately, I've been getting these little, what I like to call "chores" from Helen. She's been having me do little monotonous things that she doesn't have "time" to do. The things range from writing e-mails and letters to creating activities for her 9th grade ESL class. It's quite boring but at the same time it helps pass the time. My biggest assignment I've gotten recently is the Speech Contest here at the HS; it's evidently a big deal to the high mucky-mucks. I've created the judges scoring sheet as well as the requirements and questions the students have to use. I also received a letter letting me know that I am going to be one of the judges for this thing as well; I know, I'm a big deal. Ha! I've also been doing some writing for the SHSID website, like little blurbs about small things like the soccer team I was on and such; nothing worthwhile but again, something to do. I've heard that I'm going to, at some point in time, be the person who reviews the English version of the website and check it for grammatical errors and fix the ones I find.

Other than that, I've been doing pretty much what Melanie's been telling you guys. The Fabric Market was pretty sweet and I plan on getting a lot of pants made, as well as some awesome leather gloves that will rival my brother-in-law Brent's; don't be too jealous though, they'll probably fall apart in the first snow storm.

I hope everything is just super fantastic with everybody back home. I miss you all a whole lot, talk to you later.

aric

written by  AricMelanie on November 4 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

A very strange thing happened last week. After school one day, I was relaxing on the couch, not really doing anything, and all of a sudden our alarm above the stove starts going off and the fan in the hood of the stove starts up. I had no idea why. I went downstairs to find our building monitor, Larry, but he wasn't there. Tina, who is on duty when Larry is gone, was there. Tina only speaks about 5 different English words (kind of like my Chinese). I explained to her that the alarm in my room was going off and I didn't know why. She came upstairs with me and unplugged everything. If we plugged it back in, the alarm would start again. She had me fill out a maintenance report. On Friday, one of the FAO (Foreign Affairs Office) people said that it was our smoke alarm, and they were able to fix our hood, but not the alarm yet. Maintenance is coming on Monday (today) to fix it. Well...the good news is that we finally figured out what that alarm was for. I still like to think it is a carbon monoxide monitor though.

We also filled out a maintenance report on our air conditioner. It has started to leak. The leak isn't constant, but it still causes a bit of a problem! Maintenance is coming today to fix it as well.

There was a Halloween party in the new apartments for foreign teachers. We live in the old apartments. I had never been to the new apartments, but Aric had. He told me that they were pretty nice, but I had no idea that they were as nice as they actually are! The building is new, so it doesn't have all of the yucky muck stuck in all of the cracks in the bathroom, the rooms are bigger, the windows come with blinds, etc. I want to know what we did wrong to get stuck in the old dorms. We probably just pulled the short straw.

A few weeks ago Aric and I ate at Subway. Mmmm! I had the Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki. It tasted just like in the States, except a little more Chinese-y. Aric had the Club. He said it was just like in the States. The very best part was my cookie for dessert. There was one chocolate chip cookie left in the case. I pointed to it, and the worker, trying to be nice, brought out a fresh tray. However, they were all burnt, so I insisted that I wanted the "old" cookie that had been sitting out in the cookie display. Mmmm....it was so tasty! Exactly what you expect when you eat a Subway cookie and the perfect soft-gooiness; I was in cookie heaven.

This weekend, we took a trip to Carrefor to restock our cabinets. Our imported foods were running out. We are planning on having a Mexican night this week. A little pricey, but when we eat on Baise, we pay about $0.50 for our meals, so we figure we can splurge :-) We have taco seasoning for our ground beef (or we hope it is ground beef...), tortillas, and chips and salsa. Yes! We also picked up some German Doritos...they're yummy too. The real Doritos imported from the U.S. are too expensive. We also picked up our imported cheese (I like cheese a lot), more cereal, brownies, more Bisquick, and a few other necessities.

Carrefor is one of my favorite trips to make. The product selection is head and shoulders about Trust-Mart (speaking of Head and Shoulders...they have that shampoo too). I also enjoy seeing a lot of other foreign people. Some acting just as excited about the product selection as I am.

While Aric was at his soccer game this weekend, I took a trip to the wet market (this is where you buy all of your fruit and veggies). Mmm...I picked up a few apples, and they were really tasty; we're going to get more this week. I also picked up some oranges. I'm not really sure what kind they are. I call them Mandarin oranges, but they might not be. They're little, orange, and green. I'm not usually a big orange fan, but these are good. I purchased this large "honey pomelo," which, after a bit of Googling, I found out is like a really big grapefruit. Seriously...it is about the size of a Honeydew melon. I'm interested in cutting into it, but also a little afraid. I did ask the man at the wet market to pick out the best one for me. That is...I asked him in very broken Chinese, so I think that's what he did. Hopefully not the worst one! For veggies, I picked up some fresh green beans and a few carrots (really big carrots). We'll expand our selection later.

Today we're having some groceries delivered from "My Local Store." This store has a lot of organic and imported products, and they deliver to your house. Wonderful! They will be bringing us some cucumbers and potatoes, along with our new fruit/veggie wash from Japan. I'm thrilled about the fruit/veggie wash!

On Sunday, Aric and I went to the Fabric Market to pick up our new pants. His turned out well. I didn't pay enough attention to how soft the linen was in his original pants, so the linen in his new pants isn't quite as soft. They are still good though, we'll just have to try again. He saw the lime green linen, so I think he might be forming some ideas...

The two pairs of pants that I had made for me are awesome! I brought in a pair of my own pants that I really like for them to copy. I think that this is the best way to go, have them copy things. My pants fit perfectly; I'm thrilled! I've never been able to find pants that I'm really happy with, and now I can have lots and lots! I'm planning on getting a few more pairs in different colors (right now I have gray and dark jean and my original pair was brown, I think that I'll pick up a khaki pair, and maybe a lighter jean, along with some purple and rose colored...the possibilities are endless!).

After our very successful trip to the Fabric Market, we came back and had Kraft Mac and Cheese and apples. YUM! Could my day have gotten any better?

We have a three day weekend coming up (Nov. 14-16), and we're planning on hiking Yellow Mountain:
( http://www.china-travel-tour-guide.com/attractions/yellow-mountain.shtml ). Hopefully the weather is good :-)

Halloween at School: In China, Halloween isn't widely celebrated. The younger generation is starting to celebrate it a lot more. At school (especially in the primary school), the kids dressed up and wore their costumes all day. During break time between classes, they cluttered the office saying, "Trick or Treat." All day they were collecting candy. I was given candy by a few kids, and I even had some 6th graders dress up. Two of my 6th grade boys came dressed as girls.

We walked by a Pizza Hut on our way to "Munchies" on Halloween, and saw that all of the wait staff was dress up. A lot of the western restaurants get into the Halloween spirit. Munchies is a restaurant that serves western food that we heard about in a lot of the Expat magazines, so we decided to give it a try. It was pretty good. The chili cheese fries rocked :-) The burgers we only decent; we'd rather go to Applebee's for a burger since it is closer.

We both decided not to get the H1N1 vaccine. Not many foreign teachers are, and only a small handful of Chinese teachers are. We'll see how those who chose to get it fair. I decided that since I've never gotten a flu shot before, now was not the time to try it out.

Speaking of medicine: Shanghai is not the friendliest place to people with asthma, but I've been fairing pretty well. I've been worried about running out of my inhaler and not being able to get another one. However, I heard from a fellow asthmatic that you can get inhaler refills at any pharmacy. So, I decided to try it out. I didn't need one, but I like to be prepared! I showed the pharmacy employees my inhaler, they read the label (Proventil) and said that they didn't have it. Now, I knew that they had inhalers, so I didn't leave. I stayed at the pharmacy, looking at my inhaler, with a confused look, my eyes hopefully saying, "Look, I know you have this. I don't need Proventil necessarily; I'll take the generic form, Albuterol." I must be very good with eye-language, because one of the nicer pharmacy employees decided to go out on a limb, and show me the inhalers they had. I picked the one that I wanted, Ventolin. It is the same thing as Proventil...they're all really Albuterol.

Cooking: One discovery I've made about myself is that I'm not a good chef. I was pretty pleased with my cooking skills in the States. I would have categorized myself as a little bit above average. With the right ingredients, I could follow a recipe well, change it up a bit, and create new things. However, in Asia, I am a lousy cook. I've come to the realization that it is very difficult to cook when you have no idea what the ingredients are, how to measure them, or if you don’t have the right tools. I miss being able to run to the grocery store, know exactly what I want, buy it, and then throw it together for dinner. I also miss having the correct measuring cups with familiar labels. I really don't like cooking with the metric system. I also don't enjoy cooking on our small gas stove. I'm getting better though. The internet is my cooking friend.

A lot of my stories revolve around food. I think that adjusting to the food is the hardest thing. Adjusting in two ways…eating it and having it digest properly. I’ve found some probiotics called Yakult. These little drinks help keep the digestive system working properly…even in China. I have a new appreciation for digestion and all that goes with it.

Happy November!

Melanie (& Aric)
11/2/09 9:31 AM

Photos of our success at the Fabric Market:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008979&id=177700216&l=e651142009

written by  AricMelanie on November 2 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

3 comments...

Charity Fair: Yesterday was the biannual Primary School Charity Fair. They hold it once each semester. The middle school also holds a Charity Fair, but it is on a much smaller scale. Last year, the primary school earned 35,000 RMB for charity. The kids and parents set up booths and sell different trinkets. Some, the kids have made themselves (jewelry), some books, some school supplies, and other little knick-knacks that kids go crazy for. The highlight for most of the foreign teachers is the homemade food. Yum! Some parents make really tasty brownies and cookies (western style). Other parents make traditional Taiwanese, Indonesian, Korean, or Chinese foods (to name a few). I was more than pleased to donate some money and get delicious baked good in return. One 3rd grade student's mom makes extremely good no-bake cookies and peanut butter balls. Mmmm! Another student's mom makes fantastic brownies. I bought yummy treats for myself and Aric. We each have a stash of goodies now.

H1N1: The government has notified the school about the H1N1 vaccine. It is free and optional for all students and teachers (even foreign). All of the students must have their parents fill out a consent form. If they choose not to have the vaccine, they must list why they made that choice. I haven't decided yet if I will get the vaccine. I go back and forth between the benefits and draw backs. Some of the foreign teachers are very skeptical. Some are skeptical of the U.S. vaccines as well. Others don't want to be a guinea pig for the Chinese government. Everyone has their reasons, I just haven't decided on mine yet.

Halloween: Friday is the Halloween celebration at the primary school. I have no idea what I'm going to dress up as! I asked my students about Trick-or-Treating, and the majority of them said that they do.

Ovens: I was curious as to how many people had ovens in their homes here in China. I don't think that they are a standard appliance. A few students from my home room said that they have an oven in their house. One boy replied, "I do at my U.S. house."

That's all from me this evening. Aric has been busy playing soccer and American football, as well as watching NFL and college football games. The games that play here on TV are streamed in from West Africa. They go from the U.S. to Africa, then to Shanghai.

Goodnight!

Melanie (& Aric)
10/28/09 9:45 PM

written by  AricMelanie on October 28 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...

Before our yummy dessert, we went to Applebee's and City Shop. My favorite Applebee's meal is the Asian Chicken Wrap. Sadly, I can't get it here in Asia. I had the Teriyaki Chicken Wrap instead. Aric got the Cowboy Burger, which is what both of us usually get. Both of the meals were decent. We were flattered that our waitress tried to speak Chinese with us---that means that we must look like we fit in now.

After Applebee's, we walked to City Shop and picked up a few necessary imported items (including the brownies that we baked). We bought some Pam so our brownies wouldn't stick, and Lysol spray (not for the brownies).

Today, after spending a nice morning talking with my parents, Aric and I ate our lunch and went to the sports store, Decathlon. Aric needed some soccer shoes for his upcoming soccer game on Monday. The teachers at the school (both Chinese and foreign) have a soccer team and compete against teachers from other schools in Shanghai. We also found some bungee cords for our bikes (so we can carry things on the back), a headlight for my bike (I think it is scary riding in the dark), and a few new articles of clothing. Oh, and we also picked up new badminton rackets, along with a set of shuttlecocks (with the real feathers), so we can get our game on playing some badminton. We've both been looking forward to it! Tonight, Aric, Cane, Jaime, Ron, and Juni are going to get foot massages. I'm not really into that, so I just relax at home.

Tomorrow, Juni and I (and maybe a few other foreign teachers) are going to the Fabric Market. I'm taking in a pair of pants to get copied. If they turn out well, I'll go back and get several pairs made. It is rare for me to find pants that actually fit right, so if this works out, I'll be super excited!

Today I noticed that our kitchen light was green inside. Strange. Aric took the light cover off and found out that it was filled with water. It looked like there was algae inside. Ewww! We suspect that the water is from the episode when it was raining in our kitchen. There's a picture of the green light in our photo album.

I finally uploaded some of the pictures that Juni took in Beijing. Most of Juni and my pictures were the same (as we saw most of the same things), but we exchanged our pictures that were different. I also uploaded a few pictures from school and around Shanghai.

Updated Shanghai album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2008979&id=177700216&l=e651142009

Updated Great Wall album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009112&id=177700216&l=4cf272c3ff

More photos from Beijing: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009192&id=177700216&l=d2b2129283

Enjoy the weekend!

Melanie (& Aric)
10/24/09 10:30 PM

written by  AricMelanie on October 24 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

4 comments...

I hadn't paid much attention to the leaves until someone asked me if they were changing. Now, after some careful observation, I've noticed some subtle changes in the green deciduous trees. There are some leaves that are yellow, red, and brown, as well as some leaves on the ground. However, most are still green and on the trees. The majority of the trees on our campus are deciduous, but there are conifers and palm trees as well. Yes...palm trees.

At school, I survived my first homework notebook check in the middle school and I passed with flying colors. Each quarter, the administration will collect my students' homework notebooks to make sure that I am assigning quality homework and grading it properly. The students are required to glue or tape any homework worksheet into their notebook and written homework assignments should be in their notebooks as well. The students have two homework notebooks so they can hand one in and still do homework in their other notebook. Along with the two homework notebooks, each student in my class must have a journal notebook and a class work notebook. That makes four notebooks, just for one class! I am required to grade in red pen, put a grade, and date/initial every paper that I grade. At first I was not happy with this procedure, but now that I'm used to it, it really doesn't take up that much time.

On Sunday Aric and I bought a toaster oven. We had to go back to Carrefor to get one; we had planned on going down the road to Trust-Mart, but toaster ovens are not easy to come by in China, and are not carried by many stores. We rode our bikes to the metro station and took the subway to the Carrefor at Zhongshan Park. We took the large box back to the station closest to our apartment, and then we tied it on to Aric's bike and rode back to our apartment. This was not an easy task, but we made it back with the toaster oven in one piece.

Last night we made our first meal with the toaster oven. I found sound garlic coating to put on some of the chicken breasts and we baked them in the oven. Along with a side of noodles, the meal was delicious! We're looking forward to all of the baked/broiled items that we can now cook :-)

Tomorrow I have parent/teacher conferences in the primary school. The middle school only has scheduled conferences twice a year. In the primary school, we meet with the parents more often. We have about an hour and a half to meet with any parents that wish to speak with us about their student. I don't think that I will have too many parents from my English class, but I will have to meet with all of the parents from my homeroom.

Aric is continuing his work in the library. He keeps himself busy. His most recent project was categorizing all of the books that the library has in class sets. He then sent this list around to the foreign teachers requesting them to write down any books that they would like to add to the list. Among his many odd-tasks, sometimes he has to sit in on interviews for the new Chinese teachers. His job is to assess their English speaking abilities.

Our pizza should be delivered any minute...

Have a good day!

Melanie (& Aric)
10/20/09 7:30 PM

written by  AricMelanie on October 20 from Shanghai, China
from the travel blog: China!
Send a Compliment

---

comment on this...