August 3, 2013

Ahhhh….our first real day of rest!!  Today we slept in until 10:45!! It has been such an exhaustingly busy week, it was much needed. After we got up, we had brunch of pancakes and watermelon, then just played around the house for a while. We played several games and had some down time. I read a few of the Beijing magazines that I have collected from the school and other places, finding many really cool things I’d like to do. After we had lunch, we ventured out to find the pool. We walked over to the building near where I thought the pool was and in my very broken Chinese, I attempted to ask where the pool was. They were able to understand me, though I definitely butchered the tones on parts of the words. Then they said a lot to me that I didn’t know…I politely nodded and smiled. Then one of the women walked over to the scale model of the community (it is huge!!! Set up on a circular platform approximately 10 feet in diameter), then with her little laser pointer, she pointed to building 10. We nodded, said thank you “xie xie” (pronounced seeuh seeuh) and were on our way.

As we crossed the street, we saw the man who sells large house plants in nice planters. We decided on one, and paid him (about $30), then he carried it over to the cart next to our gate so we could roll it back to our apartment. We were very excited about this addition to our new home. I feel very fortunate to have been in a position where I had a paycheck come this week still. IN China, everything is “pay up front” where you typically pay for the whole year for things. Though for the electricity, gas, toilet water, hot water, and most cell phones you pre-pay, and with the services, you ‘top off’ by putting the maximum amount on your card. Moving into a new place, where my ideas of what a “furnished” apartment looked like and what it was also required quite a bit of work and money to get it to a comfortable living arrangement. Our apartment is very nice. 

After we took the plant up, found it a place, and took the cart back to the gate, we were off to find the pool in building 10. We asked the security guard at the gate and they directed us to the right spot. We went inside and talked to the receptionists. It took quite a while to get things figured out, usually you cannot go in unless you have a membership, but since we are going to join, they made an exception for us. :) I had to put down a 100 quai (about $17) deposit for the locker bracelet, which is a squiggly rubber bracelet with a magnetic circle on it that is used to open the locker. One of the receptionists, Cici, was very excited when I told her I taught English. She asked for my phone number and wants to learn English. They also said we had to have swim caps to go into the pool. There was a perfect shark one that Lucas picked out, took out of the package, and put on all by himself while I was looking for one. He looked so cute! I picked out a yellow one, then I paid 140 quai for them (about $20!!! For two caps. I don’t recall them being quite so expensive…

Then we went into the pool. Lucas had his circle floaty and we swam and kicked back and forth for about a half hour. Then I gave him a swim lesson for another half hour. He was SO energetic and excited about swimming. His favorite part of the swim lesson was jumping into the pool at the end, which he did about 20 times!  After swimming we headed back home and found a new section of the community.  There was a little outdoor workout area, with a few body powered machines, though there were no pictures, so some of them I have NO IDEA how they work. We played around there for a while, then I noticed there was a small circle track next to the workout area. Lucas, of course, saw this as a racetrack. ;) He ran around it several times and then we headed back to our apartment. I made Lucas pancakes for dinner and I ordered some delivery Chinese from the online food delivery system, JinShiSong.com.  While we were waiting, Cici sent me a text message and said she was really excited to learn more English, and said she wanted to be friends, asking if that was ok. I said of course!  So, I have a new friend, who can help me learn Chinese and I can help her learn English. J My dinner came some time later, the guy had a difficult time finding the correct part of the community, which I completely understand….it’s a big place, and split into 4 different sections. Finally about 9:00, I had my dinner. I had ordered a few different dishes, thinking they were smaller portioned, but now, clearly I have food for about 5 meals…it was absolutely delicious though! Lucas and I watched some Looney Tunes and went to bed.