Wuhan By Night

Okay, so as promised, here are some pictures of Wuhan by night. I went out again tonight and bought some more presents for some special people (their names might rhyme with brachel, shmellie, and babby). If your name doesn't rhyme with any of these and you are related to me either by blood or by marriage, don't worry you'll get yours :) Anyways.....here is Wuhan by night.

The boats are all lit up at night, this one is going under the bridge that goes to downtown Hankuo

Another boat all lit up

Dancing ladies with fans!

Some traditional Chinese dancing. This is a more fast-paced dance.

Running

Anybody who knows me at all knows that I loathe exercising unless it is in the form of an organized, full-contact sport. Any other form of exercising such as running, lifting, walking up stairs, carrying groceries, walking to the car, etc., as my boyfriend will tell you, I avoid like the plague and resist any invitation to participate in. That being said, I also am no dummy and I know that exercising boosts your endorphin levels dramatically.....and lately I have been in desperate need of a boost. So on Thursday I went for a run after work. I ran down to the river and along the path that ran next to it until I got to snack street. It was a decent distance and by the time I got there, the heat and humidity combined with how out of shape I am meant I was sweating from every surface on my body. Even my kneecaps and shins were sweating. Well I grabbed some water and a snacky from the snack street and sat and watched people playing in the water. Regardless of the time of day, there are always people in the water. I did this again yesterday and I just feel better having some human contact, even if it is just people staring at me or trying to speak to me in Chinese to which I just respond "bu gee dao" (phonetic of course) which mean I don't know. I have also found that while I love getting myself little trinkets, I love even more buying things for other people and anticipating how much they will like them. Soooo I bought a couple presents for somebody who has given me much more than I will ever be able to give her. That's right mama, get ready for some good stuff coming your way :) My dad is a little more difficult to shop for because I never know what he will want or use, so I'm gonna see what I can find for him (hint hint DAD ). Well, I was out past dark and decided to go back and walk along the river to see what it was like at night. I didn't bring my camera and I seriously should have, I will take it with me next time I go. I won't ruin the future pictures by telling you all that I saw, but it was pretty awesome. I headed home and started compiling a list of the random little noteworthy things that happened on my adventure and here they are:
*A man gave me a newspaper to sit on at the river, only asking that I give him my water bottle when I was done with it in exchange.
*I discovered some delicious bread balls on snack street.
*I saw one of my students (I only consider my Oral English kids to be my real students, the rest of the kiddos are just kids I get paid to play with haha) as I was walking home and said hi to him and his mom.
*The lady at snack street at my favorite stand now recognizes me and knows what I want. She even gave me a bag to carry my little box and wallet in.
*I saw 2 gorgeous golden retrievers fetching water bottles that people threw for them into the river.
*After the dark in most popular public places you can find groups of women doing a dance led by one woman. It's kind of funny that these women just stop and dance for a while, and last night I watched for a while and it was actually really beautiful. Traditional Chinese dancing is very fluid and feminine and I enjoyed watching the women dance.
*When somebody said thank you to me, my brain processed it quickly enough for me to respond with you're welcome in Chinese: bu yao xie (I don't want thanks). First time this has happened! haha, little victories

***I will post pictures later tonight or tomorrow after I go back!!

Perspective

I haven't felt much like blogging lately and that is quite simply because I did not want to burden you, my loyal readers, with my unhappiness. I have been fighting the loneliness but there are times when I just can't help but feel like it is consuming me. I am the kind of person who needs people in my life. I love people. I rely on the companionship that comes with having a loved one near by. And that is just something that doesn't exist here in Wuhan. I don't like to complain because nobody likes to hear anybody else whine, and that's why I haven't written about being so lonely. I have immersed myself in one of my favorite TV shows, Grey's Anatomy, because Chelsie left season 6 and 7 with me and it has occupied my time fairly well. Today, though, I watched the season finale of season 7 and it left me with a feeling of "now what?" I tried to take a nap but I wasn't tired because, obviously, I hadn't done anything all day. So I cried a little, took a shower, and headed out to the river/snack street. It was good to be around people. I sat at the river and watched people dive in the dirty water, wash their dogs, and play with their babies. A couple people even motioned for me to get in the water, as though I was clearly missing the point of being at the river. Then I walked through snack street and got something that tasted similar to an egg roll and some watermelon juice. I was still feeling pretty bummed but a little better, and I decided it was time to head home.

This is the point in my story when my title, perspective, comes into play. As I was walking home I glanced in all shops that I passed. Many stocked the equivalent of a gas station: beverages, ice cream bars, and some snacks. Most of them were about as big as my bathroom: about 5 feet by 5 feet. Then in the back of one of these tiny shops I saw a bed. I started looking more closely and realized that in the back of most of these poorly-lit shops there was narrow, 1-foot long hallway that led to the back of the shop that was probably where most of these people lived. In one I could see a woman cooking something in a wok. I could see a small bed through another. I looked at the people who sat outside these shops and kept seeing babies in nothing but a t-shirt and dirty shoes just tottering around with an adult nearby. I realized then how silly my lamenting has been. These people live in a space that is hardly bigger than my bathroom and I am sitting here feeling sorry for myself. I probably make more money in a month than they do in several months, maybe even a year. I scolded myself for being so small-minded. Does this realization make it easier to be alone? Not really. Does it make me miss my family or my friends or Cody any less? Nope. But it does slap me in the face with the reality that things could be much much more difficult and I should be grateful that they are not. And it definitely makes me appreciate the fact that the Chinese people as a whole have been incredibly kind to me even though they probably know that as a foreigner I have much more than they do and if they reacted the way many Americans do towards foreigners I would be looked at as a nuisance. Instead they try to understand me when I butcher the small attempts at speaking their language, and they use hand gestures and smile at me when I get a couple words right. It is difficult to not be able to speak the language and to have that giant form of communication taken away from me, and it does leave me rather lonely. But things could be worse. So I'm accepting my loneliness and not expecting it to go away, but I now have a new appreciation for how much I actually do have. 

Full Belly

Last night I went to bed with a full belly for the first time since I got to Wuhan. After work Candy, Lisa, and I went to snack street. I thought it would be a good idea to go with people who actually spoke the language and could tell me what things were! It turned out to be one of the best ideas I have ever had. I kept asking Candy what things were and I was delighted to know that a lot of things weren't as scary as they looked! I got one of Wuhan's signature breakfast items: a couple pieces of fried bread wrapped in sticky rice with sugar and some other sweet spice. I also got some delicious dumpling soup, some ice cream (that really tasted like a snow cone), and some yummy watermelon. I will have to go back and try some of the other things now that I know what they are! After snack street we moseyed on down to the night market. It was shop after shop of anything you could imagine and it seemed to go on FOREVER! I ended up making a few purchases that I am very excited about:

An ADORABLE skirt, and some seriously stylish Chinese pants

Very cute hair bows for all my nieces except Allie b/c she's too little for these! Sisters quick, don't let your girls see, it's a surprise!

At one of the shops, this random girl was talking to Candy and kept motioning towards me so afterwards I asked Candy what that was all about. She said the girl told Candy she lives close to us and had seen me at the supermarket a few times. I thought to myself, how strange that she remembers me out of all the people she sees at the market.......and then I thought DUH dummy, you're literally the only foreigner here of course she remembers you. Haha.
Candy was also asking me what my Chinese name was and I informed her that I didn't have one and I would like to come up with one for myself. My new Chinese name is: Zhìnéng and in characters it looks like this 智能   it means "smart". Humility is one of my strongest attributes, clearly.

The Sick

Last night I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. I've lived ever since I can remember with exercise-induced asthma and never had an actual asthma attack. I've simply taken my inhaler before any exercising and been just fine and dandy. Yesterday was no different: I took my inhaler before exercising and did an insanity workout. Unfortunately my legs were so weak from the little food I've been eating here that I couldn't even finish the workout. The only thing that is different here from any other place I've exercised is the insane amount of dust gathered between the floorboards. Well, turns out house dust is a trigger for an asthma attack. At about 11pm I noticed that when I laid down it felt like a giant brick was laying on my chest and a huge hand was gripping my airway. This has happened before so I just took  my inhaler and thought it would subside. Subside, it did not. I tried to sleep sitting up because that seemed to make it slightly easier to breathe, but by 3am I had to come to terms with the fact that I would not be sleeping because I had to concentrate so entirely on breathing that I was afraid if I fell asleep I would stop breathing and die. No exaggeration, those were my thoughts. I was so tired and frustrated and scared. At 5am I remembered I had filled an emergency prescription before coming to China for a respiratory-tract infection, so I researched it on the internet to make sure it would be okay to take and it was so I took that. While I was on the internet I looked up the signs of an asthma attack because honestly I wasn't sure. They include: accelerated heart rate, coughing, wheezing, a tightness in the chest, headache, and an inability to sleep. Bingo, I was having an asthma attack and that terrified me. I also read that if you are having a severe asthma attack your lips will turn blue or gray because you are not getting enough oxygen in your blood and will soon pass out and most likely die. I checked to make sure my lips were still pink and thankfully they were. Taking the medicine helped a little, but not before I called Candy my wonderful Chinese friend and assistant here in Wuhan and she and our boss came to get me to go to the hospital. By the time they got here the medicine had kicked in and I decided to try and sleep it off. Well I had taken my inhaler about 8 times by now and the steroids wouldn't let me sleep. By noon I gave up, walked to work, and begged them to tote me off to the hospital. Candy and I spent all day there. They monitored my heart rate, which was incredibly fast; took blood and discovered that my white blood cell count was about double the normal amount, but when they took a chest x-ray they determined that it was "no big problem". They stuck me with an IV and plopped me in a room with 2 other sickly Chinese people. The biggest difference I noticed between American hospitals and Chinese hospitals (at least this one) is this: you know how American hospitals are strangely yet comfortingly quiet and calm and a person gets their own room so they can sleep? Not so here. It was like the Grand Hotel with people coming and going and shouting and babies crying, not to mention that sanitary was not the first word that came to mind. I made sure every time they stuck a needle in me that it came from it own individual sealed, sanitary-seeming little bag. I got zero rest, which intensified my already-prominent headache, and was told after all the IV fluids had dripped through me that I would be staying the night. I was not pleased by this. All I could think of were the two times in high school when I had to go to the hospital in the middle of the night and how comforting it was to have my mom sitting by my bed reading a book. I'll admit it folks: I wanted my mommy. This was not going to happen here and it scared me to death. Not to mention Candy told me to give her all my valuables and sleep with my purse by my head because it was not very safe at night. Wonderful! While Candy was out getting me some food, my doctor came back and brought 2 other prestigious-looking men with her, one of whom listened to my chest and (according to the guy in the bed next to me) said it was not a big problem and I would recover quickly. Thank goodness for China and their ambition to have many of their citizens learn English. I was relieved, but still sad that I was going to have to stay the night. Then Candy came back and soon Snow, our boss, joined us. She somehow managed to talk the doctors out of making me stay the night for observation and just have me come back in the morning so they could check on me. By this time my chest was no longer tight and I was just terribly fatigued and grossed out by the cough medicine I was having to take. I am now sitting at home in bed writing this, and while my pulse is still a bit fast I am not worried. I can breathe and with the help of the cough medicine I hopefully won't cough my way through the night. It is time, as the Chinese say it, to "have a good rest". I'll be returning in the morning and hopefully my heart will have slowed by then. I have to say that Candy was incredible through all this. She stayed by my side all day and literally held my hand through the whole process. She was the closest thing I could have gotten to my mom being there and I am so grateful for her and the overall kindness of the Chinese people. I got a couple souvenirs from this whole experience:

My very own chest x-ray, to have and to hold

A gnarly needle-stick bruise

Yellow Crane Tower

On Tuesday, Chelsie and I went to the Yellow Crane Tower. Being myself, I was a little pessimistic about going to see some silly tower and I was simply going to humor my dear roommate. Fortunately, and much to my happy surprise, it turned out to be beautiful; it wasn't just a stupid giant tower like I had expected. I obviously had not done my research, but now that I have, I can tell you that there are 2 legends associated with the Yellow Crane Tower. 1: An Immortal named Wang Zi'an rode off on a yellow crane from Snake Mountain and a tower was later built in commemoration. 2: After becoming an Immortal, Fei Wenyi would ride a yellow crane and often stop on Snake Hill for a rest. Because we were pretty high up, it was breezy and beautiful and we could look down on the city as well as the Yangtze River. It is considered one of the 4 great towers of China. There were several beautiful areas to be seen and Chelsie and I were in awe at all the beauty surrounding us. It is, by far, the most beautiful place I have seen in China.

At the Goose Pond

Entering the most beautiful place I have seen in China

Those stairs got harder to climb the higher up you got

Stairs of mystery....Chelsie took a video of us going up them haha

This statue was really cool. I guess the cute Chinese couple kinda adds to the picture too :)

In the Falling Plum Blossoms Pavilion

Chelsie kept talking about how so many of the plants looked like Dr. Seuss creations. Upon spotting these, she said "I'm telling you, soon we are going to start seeing truffula trees" haha

The pine needles smelled like home :)

Here it is: the Yellow Crane Tower

The statue of the cranes

The Street in Ancient Style

There is a famous poem about the Yellow Crane Tower by Li Bai called "Seeing off Meng Haoran for Guangling at Yellow Crane Tower", and in Chinese it looks like this:
故人西辞黄鹤楼，
烟花三月下扬州。
孤帆远影碧空尽，
唯见长江天际流
A modern English translation goes something like this:
My old friends said goodbye to the west, here at Yellow Crane Tower,
In the third month's cloud of willow blossoms, he's going down to Yangzhou.
The lonely sail is a distant shadow, on the edge of a blue emptiness,
All I see is the Yangtze River flow to the far horizon.

Those of you who are coming to visit me here in China are going to be well supplied with my knowledge of basic survival Chinese. I now know my numbers 1-100. I can also say things like: too expensive, no good, I don't like, I DO like, fried dumplings, you're welcome, American, hello - how are you, excuse me/I'm sorry, puppy/dog, fruit, I'm coming (I learned this from doing a puppet show where I was a dog and I was being called to help my friends pull a giant carrot out of the ground haha) and I like fruit (my first complete sentence! - Thank you Bella!) I don't know yet if I am going to do a language exchange or take classes to learn Chinese, but I am encouraged by how quickly I am learning little things!

Since we do not have classes on Wednesday, Chelsie helped me get acquainted with the Wuhan center and we occupied ourselves by doing things like this:

It is, after all, pirate week at Romp n' Roll.

Also

I wanted this to be a surprise for Cody, but it's just so stinking adorable that I had to post pictures of it. As we were coming out of the snack street, we happened upon the night market. We stumbled across a man selling couples keychains and they were so cute I had to get one for me and Cody. Also, the man handed me a piece of paper and a pen and gestured for me to write something. I was confused and then he flipped one of the keychains over and showed me that they were engraved! I decided to keep it simple and just got a C on the boy and a T on the girl. The little boy is kissing the little girl on the cheek and it's magnetized so they stay together. A-DOR-A-BLE.

Love you babe :)

Meet Wuhan

Fried bananas with chocolate sauce!

Well folks, the time has come. I am in Wuhan. Chelsie picked me up from the airport and escorted me to the new apartment, which is actually pretty cute. I think it won't be bad at all to live here for a month and a half, except for the alone part and the squat toilet part. Those might be rough. After we got dumplings for lunch we went to snack street and the Yangtze River. This was quite the experience. I am accumulating several little presents to send home because they are so dang cheap and awesome. Along the street that is, in fact, snack street there were numerous goodies to be had......

Chuan (sounds like chwar)...meat on a stick = spicy

I took this picture mostly because I think Cody will appreciate tiger tattoo man :)

After perusing snack street for a little bit, we walked down to the river. Although the water pretty much looked like watery mud, it was a pretty view of the city across the river. People were swimming in the water and people were bathing their dogs in it too. Babies and old people alike were enjoying their time in this filthy water. An old man pointed at my watch and said a whole lot of Chinese that I didn't understand. He was very persistent in pointing at it, so I assumed he wanted to know what time it was. I told (actually signed) to him that it was 6. After that he kept looking at it rather intently so I'm not sure if he was asking what time it was, or if he could buy it......

All those people were either swimming or wading in the water

Happy baby splashing!

I particularly appreciate the confidence with which this rotund, speedo-clad gentleman stands, don't you?

Another thing that Chelsie informed me of that I simply love is that if a dog here has white fur, you can pretty much count on it being dyed some color. I found this hard to believe until I saw it with my very own eyes:

Also, toy poodles are the dog of choice here in China. I can not respect that, but I can appreciate pink paws and ears. Keepin' it classy, China. 

Today was a good day. I think Chelsie and I both really enjoyed having somebody to talk to, since we've both been living alone for a while now - Chelsie much longer than me. It's nice just to know that there's another living breathing human being in the other room, even if we aren't talking and we're both just updating our blogs. It's a nice feeling.

Therapy

As I have so done in the past, but not at all recently, I gathered and unburdened all my thoughts tonight into written expression. And this is what came of it:

zhega ma

From loneliness you learn how to be alone
From laughter you learn how to smile
From the poor you learn how to give
and from children you learn how to grow

The time has come, sir wiggles said,
to talk of many things -
of tears and noise and rhythm bands,
of why the shower sings,
and how does hope expand itself
and lusting after rings

To the lips belong the sounding board
to the eyes belong imagined things
and to hands belong the mysteries
that brought you here and now
shaping, dreaming, always weaving on the loom
for hands, you see, are intimate
and contain more than this room

choose blue for his eyes and a mustache to frame
choose yellow for the shirt and her giggle kept in a jar
choose sand to walk on and green grass for naps
choose hearts that beat and need and hurt
take nothing more than you'll give back

you ask for a connection, between these wand'ring musings
"there's no more here than betwixt scallywags and kings!"
you'd cry
but i do quite wonder,
were you to relax your white-knuckled grip on that imagination you bridle
couldn't we, kind madam, dear sir, be slightly more than similar?

Exercise-Induced Confusion

Tonight I went for a little jog after work around the park near my apartment. Something to know about China is this: exercise here means walking...maybe pushing a stroller...but usually not jogging. Simply put, I made a spectacle of myself, yet again. As I ran by one boy, he said to his mother "jega ma?" (What's that?) hahahaha and I really laughed. Most of the people I passed greeted me with a look similar to this:

What are they confused about, you ask? Is it because I'm a foreigner? Could it possibly be because I was wearing some kind of (I guess) short jogging shorts? Perhaps was it because I was running outside instead of in a gym on a treadmill? My guess is a combination of all three. One cute little girl with adorable blue-framed Harry Potter-ish glasses smiled and waved at me, as though what I was doing was the most normal thing she could think of. Then I came across another pair of little girls, one of whom pointed at me, the other said "HI!" and they both giggled.
After my run I went to grab some dinner and passed by this sweet car (yes, I did take a picture of it in broad daylight. The Chinese people just chalk it up to my being a foreigner and, I assume, they assume I'm just a dumb tourist taking dumb pictures. I let them assume, it helps me get away with stuff like this):

As I was leaving the mall I was walking behind a couple and after watching them interact for my 2-minute walk home, I simply did not believe the claims he made on his shirt:

Tonight, Tonight

Here are just some fun pictures I want to share from this evening. Enjoy!

I just thought it was a cool/artsy image of the setting sun with the Chinese flag blowing in the wind.

This was my dinner: steamed buns with beef and onions inside. They were okay, but not necessarily my first choice. Everything I kept asking for, the girl kept saying "mayo" (who knows if I'm spelling that right), but it basically means they don't have it, or they've run out of it for the time being. Bummer. Also, fun fact for all you "Chinese food" loving Americans: they don't really use soy sauce over here; most places give you vinegar to dip things in. Some give you soy sauce, but not many.

As I was walking home from Walmart, the trees along the road were all lit up like it was Christmas time. It was beautiful.

They changed colors too! This really made me smile.

Why yes, China, I think this is exactly what I would like for dessert tonight, thank you. Hahahahahaha. If you don't understand why I'm laughing, take a close look at the label. If you still don't understand, don't worry - there is somebody somewhere laughing for you. (because I could smell it, I knew it was banana bread, don't worry)

The Boss Lady

As you all know, I recently moved to Wangjing and am working at the new center here. I have had an interesting time getting to know the area in the week that I've been here. I've also enjoyed getting to know my co-workers. Unlike the center I was working in, where only the "education staff" was in the office, at this center I share the office with the marketing consultants. I have enjoyed getting to know them - they're all incredibly nice people. My new boss, Echo, doesn't speak very much English and I have had a hard time really getting to know her, but the other girls in the office seem to like her and she seems pretty laid-back. I can tell she likes to laugh - that's something that has no language barrier :) Today she pointed to my desk drawer and motioned for me to open it, and when I did I found two magnets. She said they were a present for me, and asked me how to say it and I told her magnet. This made me smile. It's not like it was a big deal, but it was very sweet of her and I was touched. I think I like my new boss lady :)

The building on the left is Tian Tan, which is the Temple of Heaven, and the one on the right is the Forbidden City, which is the Imperial Palace. I think my fridge just got its first accessories!

A (Normal) Day

Today is the 4th of July, and I am very sad about missing fireworks and hot dogs and the smell of every grill on the block being fired up, not to mention I could be spending the extended weekend in California with Cody. Despite all this, I managed to have a pretty good day here in China. I was looking to see if there was anything going on here in Beijing on a website called the Beijinger, and I found a place that was celebrating the 4th with hot dogs and fireworks and burgers and beer - American style. Why am I not there, you ask? Because the description said "The 4th of July is yet another American holiday celebrated by eating." YET ANOTHER?! I was insulted, and although I had to kind of admit it was true, I decided not to go, simply on principle.
Today I did the most American thing I could think of: I went shopping. Since I will be in Wuhan in exactly one week, I had to get proper supplies. Today I bought: tank tops for the sweltering heat, several DVDs for all those nights I will be flying solo, and rain boots for the reported monsoon-like rains that hit Wuhan regularly. I got told twice today that I was a hard bargainer and while they may have been joking, it still made me feel good. I think there are many different kinds of negotiators, and I put myself into the category that I call the "let's-have-a-good-time"ers. By this I mean simply that both the seller and I know that the original price is NOT what I will be paying because we both know it is way too much. My first offering is always far too low because it's just fun to see their reaction and because we also both know that I won't be paying MY first offer. Then we go back and forth and talk about "no-joking" price, always keeping a smile on both our faces, usually ending up somewhere in the middle - usually closer to my price. I quite enjoy it. After some serious shopping it was time for lunch and I headed to a place where I could get a cheese steak sandwich which was pretty delicious and even had a festive toothpick with shiny stuff stuck in it.   

Kites!

After lunch I decided to head back to Wangjing and go to the park that is down the street from my apartment. This turned out to be the best decision of the day. It was simply beautiful. Tree-lined paths, flowers, little benches, and a path that led to the top of a hill that overlooked the whole park. I was pleasantly surprised to find some people flying kites! I was mesmerized and sat and watched for at least an hour. Turns out flying a kite is not as easy as you might think (I've never actually done it), but the hardest part seems to be actually getting the kite up in the air.

The kite-flyers

Just like a lot of places in China, there were several statues in the park. In case you didn't know this about me, I love any art that portrays the human body. While some people may think it's inappropriate and may shy away from it, I just find it beautiful. The dolphins are for my mama, because she likes them :)

As the afternoon became early evening, the park became a more popular place. It seems parents were getting off work and bringing their kids to the park for some family time and a nice walk. I discovered that the giant concrete circle in the middle of the park was a very popular place with the kids. There were roller skating and dance lessons going on, as well as other kids just playing. I even had a lady come and sit down next to me on the bench with her little baby. I really enjoyed watching a cute couple playing badminton and I had to laugh at how, in some ways, relationships are the same no matter where you are. She was horrible at badminton and kept laughing at herself and her boyfriend clearly adored her and thought it was the cutest thing ever. Love.

 

A smoggy yet beautiful setting sun

 On my walk home I was making a list of the unremarkable, every-day, average, and yet smile-inducing things that happened to me today: I ordered a smoothie in Chinese, I bought rain boots, I found my way through China via bus and subway, a teenage boy fell asleep slumped against my shoulder on the subway, a little baby smiled a cooed at me, I walked through a park and saw a dad helping his little girl learn to walk.........about the time I got to this thought I was home and decided to take the trash out. I figured I would just close the door but leave it unlocked since the big trash can where I empty my little trash cans is just down the hall. I didn't grab my keys or my cellphone. Mistake. On my way to the trash can, I swear, I was thinking this: "oh man wouldn't that suck if I ever got locked out of the apartment. I mean I'm in China, I have no idea where the "front office" of this place is, and if I didn't have my cellphone I would be seriously screwed......." Premonitions: I have them. I got back to my apartment and was horrified to find that I was LOCKED OUT. Turns out the doors in this building lock when they close, regardless of whether you lock them with a key or not. I had to laugh sadly at the incredibly irony of my thought not even 60 seconds before this. I tried to break into the apartment with my bobby pin which turns out to be much harder than they make it seem in the movies. I was thinking I would have to sleep curled up outside my apartment until Wednesday and then go to work at ask Peter, my boss's husband who has the spare key, to help me get in to my apartment (remember, I didn't have my cell phone). Just as I was surrendering to the deep dark sad place I had the bright idea to knock on my neighbor's door and see what happened. This is how I met my neighbors Wendy and Jen, two Chinese ladies who both speak remarkable English and were more than happy to help this dumb American who locked herself out. She called the owner of their place who somehow got a hold of Peter. While I waited I talked to my neighbors who gave me suggestions on places to travel in China. Wendy told me she had been to Scottsdale - what a small world! About 20 minutes later I heard Peter yelling my name through the hallway haha and I thanked them profusely and went to get let into my apartment. He laughed at me and told me next time to be verrrrrryyyyyyy careful. Will do. I am so grateful to have English-speaking and kind neighbors! Jen was even talking about having me come over sometimes to give her English lessons because she has an accent that makes it hard/impossible for her to say the /r/ sound. I will have to be sure and get them a present and write them a thank-you note. As I walked back into my apartment I had to add to my list: got locked out of apartment. (In China).

Me being sad and locked out with my stupid trash can. (re-enactment of course)