Kettle of Worms

Kenzie, the pro photo bomber :)

I'm not going to ramble on about that kettle of worms I alluded to in my last post. In a nutshell, our apartments weren't ready yet so they put us at the hotel next door to the school. We get a nice little walk under the willow every morning on our way to work. We also get our daily dose of air toxins as well.

The first day in Beijing was hazy and so icky outside. You were covered in sweat after just being outdoors for five minutes. We met Alicia's host teacher who was a little Godsend for those first couple days. She gave us breakfast. And coffee. And tea. It was grand.

We went to the school and the head of the school gave us a tour and then we went for lunch at Subway. Our first "full" meal in China! You'd think that it would be hard to get by without much knowledge of the language but in this district people are fairly understanding and we just have to put all pride aside as we gesture frantically for what we need.

Then Pauline took us out for supper at Matsuko which is a Japanese restaurant not far from the school. I am becoming accustomed to sushi slowly, very slowly.

Front gate (on one of the icky days)

The next day I got up and went to the window, preparing myself for a wall of hazy grey. I was preparing myself for disappointment. I was ready for it. I looked out: BLUE SKIES. I was in awe. I had always heard and read that you just had to get used to not seeing blue skies or the sun in Beijing. Later we found out that this kind of day is a rarity but it definitely lifted our spirits. We went to Carrefour (groceries) and then to the largest Ikea in the world.

Here in China people don't just shop at Ikea. They treat it like home. There were families lounging around watching TV, couples fast asleep on the couches, parents changing their children. It was odd to see this. Shopping at Ikea in Beijing on one of the nicest days in August was ridiculous. I felt like at any given moment I could get tossed into a bin by a rushed shopper. It was overwhelming. We picked up a few things for our apartment-to-be and then got out of there.

That evening we went for supper at Matsuko again with a bunch of the new teachers. You'll find that I'm going to write a lot about food in the next couple posts because our down-time revolves around where we'll get food next and how to get more bottled water. We're living very simply.

On Sunday, we got up and I pulled back the curtains with trepidation. Blue skies and sunshine again. Sunday was such a good day that I want to give it the proper attention so that will have to be later in my next post.

This is the Midde/High library. There is an entire other library for Elementary. Do you think I was excited?