Regularly Scheduled Life - In China!

Well now.

Its been an interesting couple of weeks.

First off, school has started. Mikaela is in full swing with the first graders, with about 14 40 minute classes a week, with the remainder filled with ESL small groups. The first graders in China are actually Kindergarteners, because they usually don't start school earlier than that. So, they are working on phonics, introductory conversation, simple words, vocabulary regarding our senses and body, etc. Mikaela has never really wanted to teach Kindergarten, and probably would not have taken the job if she knew. But, she is awesome with these kids, much more than she realizes.

The day lasts from 7:45am to 4:30pm, every day, including after school activities. Mikaela is starting a craft club, which will allow the kids to make crafts for an hour and 30 minutes every day. I (Zach) am going to be involved in either the mock UN club (woohoo!) or the Lower Secondary (grades 6-9) yearbook.

On the weekends, twice a month on Saturday a school bus takes the teachers to Jusco (a mall) or to Walmart/Metro. Metro is basically a German Costco, and has lots of Western type foods such as: cheese (Australian and German), bread, sausage (lots of Bratwurst!), chocolate (surprisingly hard to find here), expensive pasteurized shelf-stable German Milk (Chinese milk is NOT good), amazing beef from Mongolia (huge primal cuts), and many more things. The beef in the stores in not good, which is why Metro is so nice. We bought a beautiful 5lb sirloin roast for 120RMB, about 17 dollars. They also sell beef tenderloin primals (uncut filet mignon) for about 300RMB, about $40. We bought a large toaster over at Metro because Chinese apartments do not have ovens, and we have been baking in there.

Our small washing machine is really nice, because it washes clothes well, and quickly, and makes a cool jingle when it is done! We have gotten used to hanging up clothes, and once we worked out how much soap and fabric softener to put in each load, the clothes started drying quickly, and without a musty smell. Mostly, they don't wrinkle too much, and since we only wash with cold water (as it is the only option available), we never have to worry too much about sorting, or bleeding of colors. It is interesting, that when we were looking at apartments we put a large area to hang dry our clothes on the top of the list! More on our apartment search in our next blog post.