Skip to main content

Odds and Ends

It seems that every day we see something new, (although not new--just twists on things we've already seen). Here are a few of these things just from the last few weeks.  

Yesterday Wang Jian took us grocery shopping.  At a very busy intersection an old lady full-on jay walked--opposite corner to opposite corner-- while traffic was coming and going both ways.  Wang Jian didn't think anything of it and apparently other drivers didn't either as no one honked at her and everyone just slowed down to avoid hitting her.

On the same shopping trip, while stopped at another busy intersection, I saw a tricycle type vehicle stopped in the middle of the intersection while the light was green and vehicles were going both ways.  Okay! 


I found some watermelon toothpaste.  It says: "Contains high power watermelon, cream active ingredient +, Honeysuckle + Snowgrass, anti inflammatory and clear fire,  Clean the fire, protect your gums, reduce plaque and strengthen your teeth." Let me know if you would like to pick you up a tube or two. I'm sure it's a life-changer.

Food is very inexpensive here, which we don't complain about at all.  I got all of this for $5.29. 1/2 lb of shrimp, and 5 types of vegetables.

I made these pot stickers.  I bought the handmade wrappers at the local store.  They cost me 29¢.  That can't cover the cost of ingredients, let alone labor. (I have got to learn to make them for myself because homemade is WAY better than purchased and I'll want to serve them to you when we get home.)

Signs like this aren't new, but they still crack me up.  And it is evidence of how difficult it is to learn Chinese.  It really does not translate well.  
They don't have car seats in the car, but here is one on a scooter.
A handmade trailer.  For what?  I don't know. Very inventive!
I found this cute little chickie in my fridge one morning. Greta had put it in the shopping cart I guess.  Sadly though, when I cut into it, I started smelling a strange chemical smell.  When I sniffed the mango, it was the culprit.  I tasted a sliver and it tasted like it smelled.  I'm not sure whether it was the eye sticker on it that caused the distorted flavor or something else, but we will not be buying any other produce with eye stickers on them just in case. (They like to put eye stickers on fruit.)
This kind of matching job is very common in China. It cracks me up.
This packaging made me laugh:  "Don't eat even though you are starving."  "If you got the idea do it yourself." "Stay away from fire."  "Fear of Robble glm."  The warnings are not even related!  What in the world is the intention of this text?
This was a gift from the company:  Skin vape.  It's insect repellent.  
This seems like a fine idea for home, but not so much in public.
Out of the tap, 10:48pm our water is 86∘. It's even warmer during the day.  Cold showers are not too cold!  

And that's it for this time. I'm sure I'll be back with more... (I actually should go through all my photos because there are SO many things that haven't found a home here yet, but I'm so behind on so many things it may not happen.😔) 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mountains and Merry Christmas!

As we approach our second Christmas here, even though our hearts yearn for home and family, we're thankful for this 'assignment' to serve here in China.  We have learned much, experienced much, gained greater perspectives and learned for ourselves the reality of walking with Jesus Christ.  At this season we're extraordinarily thankful for Him.  He is our Savior.  He is our strength. He is our Friend.  We can only hope to be a light to others here.  This year we've had some mountains to climb--both physically and symbolically.   Purple mountain in Nanjing Language acquisition is an ongoing challenge.  Even Tom, who speaks quite well feels stretched at times, which should give you an idea of the struggle of the rest of us.  I spend several hours a week learning and I'm still not speaking much and unable to understand responses when I am able to muster a few words.  But, Jesus Christ has been with us on this mountain.  Language acquisition is a process, not an even

Christmas 2023--A Wonderful Surprise!

Per our contract for living in China, our unmarried children get a free flight to come and visit us.  Chandler is the only one who qualifies for that, but for quite some time, getting a visa to visit wasn't even a possibility.  And when it did become a possibility, it was very expensive and required a 4 day stay in Washington DC or paying a whole lot of money for someone to go into the embassy to do that process for us.  It was not really in consideration.  But when Cache offered to do it for us while he was in DC for Thanksgiving, we decided to go to all of the effort to make it happen.  We decided to keep it a secret from the girls so it would be an amazing Christmas surprise. We did mostly well on the surprise.  Greta did hear me talking to Cache about the visa process one day back in November, but didn't think too much about it or ask further questions so we hoped that she hadn't really heard as I supposed.  I also had up the map of the Seattle airport on my computer so

Dinner Guests

Before we moved to China, my dream life was to stay home and make dinner for my neighbors.  If asked of a place I'd like to travel, I would usually comment that I would rather have a kitchen remodel than seeing far away places.  That is because I have come to really enjoy having people over for dinner and a kitchen remodel would make that much easier on me--which I cared more about than seeing the world. (It also illustrates my extremely low need for adventure to be happy.) Thankfully I have been able to continue that hobby in China. It is a bit more of a challenge here because of an even smaller kitchen capacity, lack of ingredients and my concern about feeding Chinese people food they might actually like.  For my personal records here are dinners I have photos of. Tina and James (our liaison for our landlady) Sherry, Talia & Stella (Tom's co workers; and Stella tutors me in Chinese) Penny (one of my Chinese teachers) Melissa's cousin (someone from CCID branch asked us