IKEA

A day without destruction or anything going drastically wrong! Now that I’ve got one of those under my belt, I can breathe a deep sigh of relief. Don’t get me wrong, the day had its share of ridiculousness and adventure…

IKEA.

A Swedish furniture store that’s probably a lot of fun to visit in the States…not so much in China. We were able to pick up a lot of stuff that we needed for the apartment, but what should’ve taken an hour max turned into quite the ordeal.

First off, we get into a taxi outside of our apartment and I proceed to put my seatbelt on…which I’ve done or attempted to do many times in taxis here. The taxi driver proceeds to turn and say, “Oh, no no no,” shaking his hand and laughing.

I’m not sure if I insulted his ability to drive a taxi or what exactly happened. He was wearing his seatbelt. BJ in the front seat was wearing his. But apparently he didn’t want me to wear mine. Turns out he’s one of the better taxi drivers I’ve had and he probably just wanted to assure me I was safe.

On the way there we were talking with him a little bit with the little Chinese that we know when we passed a guy on an electric bike honking his horn like crazy.

Now, I’ve come to learn in the past few days that honking is NOT a rude thing here. It’s actually a courtesy in most cases letting the person in front of you know that you’re behind them. Whether on a bike or driving a car, you’re always responsible for what’s in front of you and letting people know that you’re approaching and people behind you are supposed to watch out for you. Not the most comforting thing when you’re on a bike and there are taxis and cars diving in and out of the bike lanes but they’ve kept their eye out for me so far!

Back to the biker honking his horn – there was absolutely no one in front of him for several blocks, so everything I just said did not apply. I began to laugh to myself but thought in the back of my mind that there was still the possibility that what he was doing actually served some sort of a purpose…

Nope. The taxi driver soon noticed what I was laughing about and also began to laugh hysterically at this crazy biker!

Okay, getting back on track…

IKEA.

Picture Sam’s Club, or maybe Costco. Now add two more levels and 10 times as many people and you have a glimpse into IKEA – China edition.

No one really told us what to expect, but for the first hour or so we walked around the third floor (which I’m pretty sure you HAVE to start at) looking at all kinds of displays of living rooms, offices, bathrooms, and bedrooms, and picking out things that would come in handy. NO IDEA how to buy any of those things…

Eventually we figured out that the 2^nd floor is where you pick up the items that are showcased on the 3^rd floor. Maybe this is entirely normal for any IKEA store but imagine our confusion trying to figure out prices and how to buy things in Mandorin and Swedish (is that a language?).

The 2^nd floor was great. Lots of everything you could ever want or need and then some. Probably should’ve STARTED there in the first place…

Eventually, after another hour, we made our way down to the 1^st floor where you pick up larger furniture items and check out. Now imagine doing all of this over the course of a few hours with other people walking around frantically, SHOULDER TO SHOULDER, some pushing carts through areas that needed to be MUCH wider for them to do so.

Quite the afternoon, but it was kind of fun!

Fun to do one time.

I will never go back to IKEA.

Chinese Bikes Suck

Please note: This email was from two days ago.

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Today’s been a crazy/frustrating/funny/ridiculous day. We FINALLY got to a café after all the ridiculousness this morning but still have to get our power working again. Let me tell you about my day…

Things obviously started on a ridiculous note when our power went out. Then we went to our leaders’ place for breakfast which was great except I gave myself a paper cut and my OJ spilled…not a big deal, but I should’ve known the day was going to go this way right then.

We then went to go get cell phones. Okay there. Next was the bike shop…dun dun dun.

I couldn’t really decide what bike to get but we all eventually just paid a little extra with the intention of being able to go mountain biking a little bit throughout the year. We go to leave the store and we get no more than a block away and the wheel somehow gets broken from driving off the curb onto the road. We walked it back and they tried to blame ME for driving it off the curb. IT’S A MOUNTAIN BIKE!!! It’s not supposed to do that! So we left while they were fixing it…already 30 minutes late for lunch and due to a misunderstanding with our landlord, he had been waiting for us to pay rent and go to the police station to register.

But on the way there, it started pouring…great. And about a block from the restaurant Tom slips on a step and possibly broke his pinky toe. I was already frustrated by this point because of the bike store ordeal and told him, “With all due respect, if that had just happened to me on top of everything else, I would’ve been TICKED!” He didn’t take it personally.

We eventually went back with our leader who is fluent and they still were trying to blame us because they thought we had TWO people on the bike when we drove off the curb (not the case) but he got them to give me my money back anyway since he knows them well and brings them plenty of business. It was so frustrating because I had plotted out in my head all the things I would say in English, like, “It’s a MOUNTAIN bike, it’s not supposed to break when I drive off a curb!” but I obviously don’t know a lick of the language to say any of those things. It just makes me upset even still (a little bit….I’m over it!) because I paid extra for this bike with the hope of being able to take it mountain biking but if someone my size can’t even ride it off of a curb, it’s for sure going to break if I’m riding down a mountain…oh well, it’ll cost me $10 to fix it I guess and I should just expect it to happen.

So that’s it…we pretty much missed lunch and I haven’t eaten anything besides a cookie still left in my bag but at least we’re in an air conditioned café and I got to check my email! All in all I have a pretty good attitude about everything but even though it’s only a matter of $8 or so, that probably wouldn’t be the case had I not gotten my money back!

We still don’t have power or internet but will hopefully be getting power back once we leave from here. Hopefully we’ll have internet within the next few days at our place…I’m excited for that.

We definitely haven’t gotten into a groove yet but things have been so ridiculous that it’s almost been fun. We have a couple weeks before students even get here so we’ll do a lot as a team just hanging out and getting to know each other. I feel bad for Jeff and BJ having to lead us around everywhere and take care of us but he’s been a huge help and so have the other long-termers who are pretty good at Chinese.

Alright, that’s it for now, hope everyone’s doing well and I’ll keep you informed!

We Made It!!!

Sorry it’s taken awhile to contact you, but WE MADE IT! The plane ride was long and I barely slept at all just because it was during the daytime most of the way and I was not feeling good at all toward the end, but I managed and we all got here safely and with all of our luggage. There were times where I thought I was going to have to run to the bathroom on the plane but I made it without any such incidences.

When we got here we got dropped off at our places and then headed to dinner together with everyone from both teams. Our apartment is fairly nice except for the kitchen and the bathroom…both are fine but just older. Both also wreak of the traditional Chinese smell…pollution and mostly, sewage. So that’s lovely. More than anything I just hate the smell here in China!

But today we’re going to get cell phones (hopefully), bikes, apartment furnishings, etc. And I stress hopefully because little has gone as planned so far! We walked in and out of the airport upon arrival several times as we communicated with the bus driver where he was supposed to pick us up and the location kept changing. Our electricity “ran out” halfway through the night last night when I woke up sweating because the air had turned off (electricity, internet, etc run on cards that you charge for a certain amount, and once that amount is up, it just shuts off), and so on. The nice thing about our apartment is that people have been staying here for awhile so there’s already a lot of stuff in here…a TV, dressers and shelves, some furniture, beds (even though mine is extremely hard…I’ll have to do something about that), kitchen table, some kitchen supplies, some sheets and pillows, etc. So we probably won’t have to buy a lot of stuff but can just get some things that’ll make it feel more like home. AIR FRESHNERS for starters, a rug for our living room (hardwood floors), and whatever else might make it feel more like home.

I think it’ll be nicer once we straighten it up a bit and the people who are moving to a different apartment get some of their stuff out of here. It’s just kind of cluttered right now between their stuff still being here and this being the “office” apartment where some stuff gets stored anyway.

Things are okay so far. Dinner was good last night and I actually got full but it probably won’t be like that every day. I didn’t have a lot of expectations coming into this but they haven’t really been met so far mainly because it’s just DIFFERENT than what I experienced last time. We’re smack dab in the middle of everything instead of kind of being isolated on a campus like when I was on SP so everything’s just really BUSY here it seems like. I don’t think I’ve met anyone that speaks English yet (not that we’ve had a ton of interaction with people so far) but hopefully that’s just because a majority of the students aren’t here yet and no one seems to care that we’re here unlike last time when we were the center of attention. The Paralympics will be starting soon (or just started?...) so there’s still stuff on our campus. I think that’s the reason for our late class start but I REALLY HOPE that students are coming sooner than that otherwise it’s going to be a LOONG few weeks before classes. I really need to meet some students and be reminded of why we’re here in the first place.

Well I need to go shower since I just crashed before doing that last night and it’s finally light enough to shower without the lights on, but it’ll hopefully get easier to be in contact within the next few days. Please keep in touch and let me know how you are all doing!

Blessings,

Chris

*Please note: Much of what I post here will probably be copy and pasted from emails I have sent so I apologize if there is ever any content that doesn't seem to make sense or apply to you!