Blech!

Ate at the school "canteen" (i.e. cafeteria) tonight for dinner. Most everything was tasty. (Mmm...eggplant braised in soy sauce!) However, I can now objectively say that pig intestines are NOT good. (Ha ha...objective opinion...)
I pushed past the "egg balls" with my chopsticks and retrieved a delicious-looking piece of pork. It was indeed delicious. :-) I grabbed another piece of what I thought was pork MEAT, and popped it into my mouth. After one chew I realized that this wasn't meat. After a couple more chews, I was suspecting it wasn't a large piece of fat, either. And the taste...the taste...forgive my frankness,(skip to the next paragraph if you are grossed out easily), but it tasted the way old poop smells.

Yep, that piece of whatever was deposited into my napkin...politely, of course. Although I was told by a recent Chinese acquaintance that many Chinese people will--in the presence of closer friends--spit out whatever it is they don't care for with great gusto.
At the end of the meal, while conversing with my coworkers, a Chinese coworker at the table told us that it was pig intestines. He added that he didn't care to eat it because it was stinky!

Span-ese and Cell Phones

(Little bit of background for you: Besides yer' standard taxi cabs, many people also register their personal vehicles as taxis so that they may make more money through a second job as a driver. Rather than having a metered rate, you negotiate the fare with the driver before climbing in.)
Well, the first cab to pull up was a private driver. Usually we would shoo these away, but with our new-found power of knowing our numbers (up to 99), we decided to try negotiating. I showed the driver the destination, and asked him how much it would be. He said one number, which I initially translated as 60. I told him 50, and he agreed. I proudly climbed into the taxi with Zach, mentally patting myself on the back for being so capable. This feeling lasted for two blocks, when I began recalling what number the driver had said. Oh no! I thought, a fuzzy memory of him saying "s--shi." Had he said si shi? I was now pretty sure he had. And I instantly thought, upon hearing the first "s" sound, "seis," which is 6 in Spanish. With "seis" unconsciously rolling around my mind, I translated what he said as 60, instead of 40. I sat there in the cab, my sense of pride lost and replaced with the embarrassment of talking the driver UP instead of down. Oy vey! However, I did not lament after what happened next...

Shortly after stepping out of the cab at our destination, Zach's face fell. "I forgot my cell phone!"
"Where?"
"In the cab!"
The cab was out of sight. Zach quickly grabbed my cell phone out of my purse, and called his number again and again. Our friends (who had followed in another cab) showed up to our distressed faces craning left and right looking to see if the driver was anywhere to be seen. After three tense, long minutes we saw a familiar black Hyundai, and the driver smiling and waving at us on the other side of the street. Our driver's smile melted away the tension, and the busy intersection suddenly felt more friendly. Thankfully, there was enough of a break in traffic to allow me to dash across and retrieve the cell phone which our cab driver had heard ringing, and turned around to return it to us.
After a lovely day of not losing a cell phone, seeing the Museum, tasting Changyu wines, and walking along the shore, I can just chuckle at myself now. Just got to keep working on those numbers, I guess! And thanks a million to our driver today!

The Steps of Adventuring Out Futher

Inspired by the length of time granted to us for this month's national holiday, Zach and I decided to venture out further. Further into Yantai, that is! (We still are gathering up the courage [and know-how!] to travel outside of our beautiful seaside city.) After a lengthy internet search, "What to do in Yantai," we decided upon the Changyu Wine Cultural Museum. (Changyu is a very famous winery here in China, and was established in 1892!)
Step One--decide where to go--done.
Step Two: figure out how to get there. Okay, we can go by cab...but how to communicate how to get there? This is where the real footwork comes in. In Pinyin, the address is 56 Dama Lu in the Zhifu District. But which "dama"? (In Mandarin, most words have several varients based upon differing "tones" that will change the meaning. For example, if you use an upward tone on "ma," the meaning of "dama" can change to "marijuana.") We then searched an online Chinese/English word dictionary. 5 damas. Next, thanks to Google Maps, we found out what we thought to be the correct Chinese characters for Dama Lu, matched those with the characters in the online dictionary, and carefully wrote down the characters and practiced the correct pronunciation that we might convey our destination to the cab driver. Phew. Step Two...complete. Onward ho!
Step Three: Catch a cab...

Quick Update

I looked out of my classroom window the other day, and with great surprise noticed that the leaves on the (maple?) trees had suddenly changed from green to a muddled canvas of orange, brown, and yellow. Did it happen that quickly, or had I not looked--really looked--at the trees in a while? The air is now much colder, and the wind blows all day long. The weather has now officially taken a turn. Zach and I are on the lookout for a better comforter that will keep us warm at night until they turn on the heating in November. Thankfully, until then, Zach also knows how to switch our AC unit onto the heating setting. :-)
We signed the contract for the previously mentioned apartment on Thursday this last week. It feels good to have that all finished up. We were able to negotiate with the landlords for them to purchase a water "cooler" (that's what we in the US call it, but these actually have a tap for hot water and room temperature water), a small computer desk/table, 1 AC unit for the living room, a flat screen TV, larger stove, a microwave, and that we would repay the landlords for our monthly bills (much easier to repay one entity than worry about several bills in Chinese!) We will hopefully start moving this upcoming Thursday. The apartment is only about a block further away from the school than our current apartment, so walking to work is still an option. The thought of our new apartment is a bittersweet one. We are moving into a nicer place, but Yew Wah's teacher apartments will be no more. Bygone is an entire era for the expats here. We have heard stories of glorious barbeques and get-togethers at the "teacher apartments"...back when everyone lived close by. I hope that we will continue to develop our sense of community, even though we will be living in all different directions. We will see. Please pray that Zach and I will be able to develop some close friendships with others while we are here.