The One Where Andre’ Gets Totally Addicted to Milk Tea

This is a Chinese Restaurant.  All the other ones may or may not be.

This is a Chinese Restaurant. All the other ones may or may not be.

Freshly made noodles!  Sorry, we'd already eaten most of the veggies when it occurred to me to take the picture.

We stayed in a hostel the first few nights we were here.  This kitty lived there.  How cute!  It took all my powers not to pet it.We’ve been here for a week now.  We are loving it!  It hasn’t snowed once, or been below 80 degrees for that matter.  It stays very warm and muggy all night and only cools off when it rains.  We had a brief thunderstorm this afternoon which was fabulous.  It started when we were up in our apartment signing our lease.  And let me tell you, the view from our apartment is great!  I can’t wait to enjoy the next summer storm whilst relaxing in our living room.  We are on the 19th floor of our building and ours is the tallest of many mostly identical apartment buildings in the neighborhood, so we can see right over all the other buildings and watch the storms come in.  We got our keys today, but we won’t really have time to move in until Friday.  I’ll take some before & after pictures to post.  The apartment is quite nice, but very dirty.  It’s got a huge balcony and a laundry room with a washer right off the kitchen…so it’s basically the nicest place we’ve had in 10 years.  But it’s going to take a substantial amount of elbow grease to get it presentable.  The landlord was there today whilst we got the paperwork in order and I swear he smoked an entire pack of cigarettes!  Surprisingly/thankfully, it doesn’t actually stink of cigarettes.  When we’re done, it’s going to smell like bleach and fresh paint.  It’s fully furnished…with HUGE, HIDEOUS furniture in EVERY room!  Well, at least we don’t have to buy furniture and figure out how to get it from the store to our apartment.  Sarah basically begged the landlady to let her dispose of the crazy bunk-bed situation in her room and replace it with a new bed at her own cost.  The landlady replied, “But then you’ll move out and I’ll be stuck with ugly furniture.”  Okaaaay?  I guess she really likes the peeling laminate.  Strange.  Well, the room for improvement is vast, so I really hope Pinterest is up for the challenge!

In other news:  We are both connected now.  I finally got a cell phone.  So yesterday I ventured across the city to meet a friend all by myself!  When I arrived back home safely and without getting lost, I enjoyed a coconut bubble tea as a reward.  It only cost $1 (US)!  We spent 11 yuan for lunch today, which means we both ate to satisfaction for about $1.85(US)!  We splurged for dinner and ate at this little Muslim place that makes their own fresh noodles (soooo good).  We love it because the spices they use are a bit different from all the other Chinese food (the variety is very welcome).  We’ve eaten dinner there three out of the last four nights.  We spent 26 yuan ($4.20 total) for dinner and two bottled drinks tonight.  One of the drinks was my water and the other was a milk tea for Andre’.  He is totally addicted to that stuff!  And he hates paying more than 4 yuan for it.  He feels like he’s actually paying $4 US, but really it’s just about 75 cents!  HAHA!  Remember when we drank Starbucks all the time!?  And now we only want to pay less than a dollar for our fancy drinks.  Starbucks is CRAZY expensive here!  Plus, they don’t have my favorite flavor of iced coffee, so there is very little temptation.  We split a regular Starbucks coffee the second day we were here.  We were sitting there for a couple hours and we felt guilty not buying anything.  It cost 28 yuan (OVER 4$) for black coffee and it was weak and not piping hot (sad face)!!!  Of course, then we were told that if you’re American, apparently they don’t care if you sit there for a long time and never buy anything.  Oh well.  (Also, it’s socially acceptable to sleep at a Starbucks here.  Interesting, I guess you have a nap, THEN you order your caffeine.  It’s a win-win situation…if you can afford it.)

So that’s it for now.  We’ve seen some pretty hilarious stuff.  Some of the signs are translated crazily.  But thanks to my handy-dandy Pleco dictionary I’m able to figure most of them out.  “Decline Oneself Food” means you can’t bring your own food to the restaurant and eat it there.  Is that a big problem?  I don’t know.  We also saw a restaurant with a big sign that said “Chinese Restaurant” (as opposed to all the other ones, I guess)?

I finally figured out how to add more pictures to my post.  The cat lived at the hostel that we stayed at for the first few days when we got here.  It took all of my powers not to pet him/her.

 

Next on Chilling In China…Andre’ & Ginger try to figure out how to carry a queen size foam mattress topper 20 minutes from the store to their apartment in 90 degree heat without looking like total idiots.