Friday, April 22, 2011

Class over...

I know that my blog postings have been lax, but it has been for good reason. My school work was taking a lot of my time. I turned in my PowerPoint presentation and my last paper for my class. Thank goodness my wonderful husband is a "PowerPoint Whiz" because I wouldn't have been able to create such a cool presentation without his help doing all the work with the graphics and placement. Now, for a much needed week break. The next class starts May 4th. (we have access April 28th for reading and checking for assignments). I am in need of this break.
It rained all day yesterday, and today doesn't look like it's going to be much better. It's very cloudy and hazy out. I am supposed to meet my friend Celeste for coffee later this afternoon, let's hope I don't have to walk in the rain!
I was looking out the apartment window yesterday....and took a shot of something that is common here, but you don't see people carry things like this at home:
It must have been heavy because he set the load down in the middle between crossing the street. I am still amazed at the loads these people carry like that, or on bikes. It's a sight to see that's for sure!

On Monday, I had to deal with Mark's bag being delivered from the airline. He made it back from Germany (through Rome) but his bag did not. So, around 3:00 in the afternoon, doorbell. I go to the door, and the man starts speaking Chinese and has a paper in his hand, shows me ...so I figure ok...I'll sign for it. More speaking of Chinese and I am standing there shaking my head saying "I don't speak Chinese" (in English)...oh and as a side note I can count from 1 to 99 and tell time in Chinese...Thank you very much! Too bad he didn't want to know the time or quiz me on my excellent counting skills! :) Ok,this is getting me no where...so what do I do? Well, I call Mr. Shen of course! I have spoken of Mr. Shen before, he is our driver, fixer, problem solver, speaker of Chinese...and quite frankly our savior on many, many occasions! I do not think I would have survived (sanely) without Mr. Shen. So I call him and tell him I need him to speak to this man about,....hmmm...I don't know but I hand the phone to the nice Chinese gentleman and he speaks to Mr. Shen. So, after a few minutes I get back on the phone and Mr. Shen informs me he needs Mark's passport number. Oh, I know where that is..go to get it..NOT THERE! So, call my wonderful husband to inform him that this gentleman has been her for over 10 minutes and I need his passport but it's not where it should be. Mark has it with him...great! So, I get the number from him go to write it on the paper...no ...more speaking Chinese at me and obviously this has still not solved our dilemma of what I need to do to get this man to be on his way and take possession of the bag! So, call Mark again...the man needs something else...Mark hands the phone to one of his colleagues who speaks to the gentleman for a few extended minutes and then... ok here's my phone being handed back to me, he writes down the passport number hand me one of the carbon copies of his quadrupled copies (I don't know what it is over here, but this country LOVES carbon copies and they love to stamp things with a red stamp!!) So, I have the bag, my lovely carbon copy, red-stamped receipt, and off he goes. I get back on the phone with Mark, who is chuckling and he asks "do you know what he wanted?" Ummmm... NO! That is why I've made phone calls to get this resolved. He explains to me that the man was trying to let me know Mark's shaving gel got confiscated on the train because it was pressurized! Really?? The same can that got transported on 4 different pressurized planes...got confiscated on the unpressurized train from Shanghai to Suzhou? Seriously? Well, welcome to China...and if you want to know what time it is ...I can tell you in both English and Chinese!!

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