My Chinese Life

11.16.2008

A little glimpse of the day-to-day Chinese life I have now grown quite accustomed to...





This is where I live:

The building wasn't always pink and white. But one day it just was. So pink. And so white. So, so pink.


























This is where I work:

I work on the 11th floor. The elevators in my building are never available and when they are they are always crammed with a million people. I usually take the stairs. My co-workers think I'm crazy.


Speaking of the elevator, there is a small room in front of the elevator.
For some reason, someone decided that this room in front of the elevator
needed a sign to indicate to people that this was, indeed, the room in front of the elevator:

This is how I get to work every day:



Yup, that's her. The sweet blue one on the end. I paid 150 kuai ($21) for that baby. It's only about 5 months old... and it's about at the end of its sweet little bike life.











This is what I eat on the days I work, which is a company provided lunch:





On this day I had a little fruit, some spicy noodles, some eggplant, some rice, some green beans, some mystery veggies, some tofu with a mystery sauce...

[This lunch was one of the better days. I usually have no idea what I'm eating.]





This is where I go to grab something to eat if I am tired of the company lunch:

7-11! It is on the other side of my work building and it is more or less like one you'd find in America, but they have a lot more 'fresh' food choices. But don't worry, they also have 5 day old hot dogs complete with random hairs and used band-aids, just like in the States.

This is my coffee cup that I drink out of:

The cup was taken from my last employer, ABC school. [I added a bit to the design myself ;o) ]






















Most days in China I learn a valuable lesson from the Chinese people:





The lesson of this day was, "If a light switch isn't working right, the WRONG solution is to stick a piece of paper in it."










The locals here tend to always try for the cheapest, quickest fix the first time. Luckily they always learn from their mistakes and opt for the correct solution in the end:

Much better.

At the end of the day, it is always nice to have a nice warm cup of tea:

This is a very special tea. [Get it? Special-tea?]








Only special people like me drink
this very special Chinese tea:



















And, just like my mother, I love to have a little bit of chocolate every day. While I drink my special tea, I like to munch on a few of these:



Mmmm...nothing like a small, brown, cylindrical, crispy chocolate Collon to snack on before bed.

Hao chi! (Delicious!)











And finally, at the end of my long Chinese day, I snuggle into bed next to this guy:

Wan an! (Goodnight!)

-T