Carrefour and Pet Market

Sunday, August 24. Today, Ashley, Kelly, Tiffany, David, Suzanne and I take on Carrefour, the large French chain store that seems to be in most large cities in China (Zhuzhou has 6 million people, according to JuJu.) Carrefour has lots of housewares, kitchen supplies, bedding, electronics, books, tools, and so forth, in addition to having a very large supermarket.

I buy quite a few things for my apartment, having decided that I'm willing to invest a few hundred dollars in "start-up" costs to make my life for the next 10 months more pleasant. Good for mental health, and it's cheaper than psychiatry! New sheets (about $30, the ones on my bed are pretty drab), more cleaning supplies, , a pan to cook in (wok in apartment is rusty), other small kitchen items, and a scale. And some groceries. I can barely carry the stuff!

Ashley & Kelly leave to try to get Kelly's computer fixed, David & Tiffany are still shopping so I schlep everything back to my apartment with Suzanne (whose school is about 45 minutes outside of Zhuzhou). We decide to take a taxi, and do we ever get taken for a ride. Although we are on the other side of the river from our school, it isn't too far and a cab ride should cost about 10-12 rmb (I ususally think of 10 rmb as about $1.50 for simplicity's sake). Well, this taxi driver takes us all the way around the city on an expressway and it costs us almost 50 rmb (about $7.50, not a huge sum, but it's the principle). By the time we realize what he's doing, it's too late, and I'm not sure what we could have done about it since we don't speak enough Chinese. We grudgingly pay the fare and chalk it up to experience. So far, my only bad experience here.

Suzanne helps me carry everything up the three flights of stairs. She leaves all her heavy things in my apartment and we take another taxi ride back downtown - at the normal price. We walk down an alley and up a small hill to the outdoor pet market because Suzanne is thinking about getting a dog. She really misses her animals, and she's all alone at her school on the outskirts of the city so I can understand. She will bring the dog back with her at the end of the year (and she's planning to stay for two years if all goes well). She says there is a big park near her apartment where everyone brings their dogs in the evening so good opportunity to get to know people and practice Chinese. Sounds like fun but I manage to resist the darling little kittens that are calling to me! There are a lot of cute dogs too, and many many colorful birds. In the middle of the whole place is a group of people sitting and standing around a table where four of them are playing mahjong.

We walk over to the Chinese Barnes & Noble (XinHua) as Suzanne is looking for a small textbook on learning Chinese but they don't have it. I would also be interested in getting one too but no luck today. Taxi back to apartment to rest.

This evening, we meet our official liaison, Mr. Zhang (no nice, friendly English name like "JuJu" for him!). He's head of Foreign Affairs at the school (after all, the three of us are nothing if not Foreign Affairs!) and also teaches English. His English is not as fluent as JuJu but then he didn't just spend 3 months in England. He seems very nice. We talk in general terms about teaching this year. (He asks us about teaching extra classes and primary school, both of which we were told during orientation to expect.)

Tiffany and David are having a huge problem with their apartment in that the shower from the apartment above is leaking through their ceiling and into their "living room" and study. There also appears to be mold growing. Mr. Zhang says he will talk to someone about getting it fixed. I'm happy that I have no MAJOR problems in my apartment, other than one of my air conditioners leaks so I can't run it very long and I have no hot water in the shower! But these are small things that can be resolved after Tiff and David's problem is fixed. So far, my bathroom has been so warm that the cool water from shower has felt good!

What I'm doing to stay comfortable in my apartment is basically running the bedroom a/c most of the time. I leave the door to bedroom open, and rest of apartment stays reasonably comfortable (I leave the bathroom door closed since no reason to cool that). I also run a/c in study occasionally but have to turn off when starts leaking. The first day I was here, I closed every one of the windows and sliding doors leading to balconies (I have two, one off the study and one off my bedroom). I hope this will help the air quality in apartment.

Both balconies have clothes lines but I've been hanging my damp clothes in the second wardrobe in my bedroom, leaving the wardrobe doors open, and clothes dry very fast. That way I don't have to put them outside in the very high humidity.