China - Day 103, Sunday

Sorry I haven't written in a couple of days, but a lot has been happening and I have been very busy.

On Thursday, the Elementary school had a Music concert and Art show. Each grade performed a couple of songs. Daniel's grade (all 100 of them) performed a song called "I need a waiter." They also performed a song where they did all the music using their body. They did a very nice job. Daniel played the Xylophone during the "I need a waiter" song

This is a picture of the song where they made all the music using their bodies.
 Daniel is in the front center. (second from left)

This was from the Art gallery. One of Daniel's pictures. I believe it was a Halloween picture.

If you would like to watch the video, it is on Daniel's teacher's blog (I tried to download my video, but it won't download). You will need to turn up the volume because it is not very loud. The video runs about 13 minutes)

http://teachers.saschina.org/elau/

After the concert, Veronica and I went to the Fake Market to do some Christmas shopping.


On Friday, I got my first haircut since moving to China. Before our October vacation I gave myself a haircut. I decided I needed to bite the bullet and just do it. I went to the same place Randy went. A place called Head to Toe. Veronica told me to make sure that I experienced the shampoo. They do not wet your hair before the shampoo. The woman who washed my hair started with a handful of shampoo, which she massaged a small portion into my hair. As she did this, she used a squirt bottle and slowly added water to start making a lather. She continued to add shampoo and water until my head had a full lather. Once she had a full lather, she massaged my head. The entire shampoo lasted about 10 minutes. When she was done, we went to the sink to rinse. Jeffery, the hairdresser, cut my hair. He sat on a stool to cut my hair. I was amazed how well he spoke English. I only hope that I will be able to speak Chinese half as well as Richard and Jeffrey. He did a very nice job cutting my hair for the first time.

After my haircut, I went to the Hotel Equipment store to buy some Christmas gifts. Richard (our driver) and I also went to a store called Media Mart to look for a waffle maker. I can not find any in China!

We had lunch in a Chinese cafeteria. You go through the line and order what you want. They give you a small dish of the food. So you have to order multiple dishes. I ordered what I thought was green beans, they turned out to be like jalapeno peppers! Richard told me he would eat them. I tried them, they weren't too bad - only some were spicy. I also ordered real green beans and sweet and sour pork. These were very good. Richard ordered squid a with salty vegetables. This is a typical Shanghainese dish. The vegetables are very salty and the squid was a little chewy. He also ordered another Shanghainese dish of egg and tomato. This was very good. Overall I liked the meal very much. The total meal cost 55 RMB (about $9 for 2 of us to eat - not bad!)

Friday night Randy went out with the people from the Cement division of his office. They went to dinner and then to Karaoke. Karaoke is very big here in China. There are lots of Karaoke buildings (called KTV) all over the city. The buildings have many rooms to rent. Each room has a sound system, microphones, a screen and all kinds of songs to sing to. that are projected onto the screen so you can sing along with. The Chinese spend hours in these rooms singing with their friends.

Saturday morning we had people come and clean our heating ducts out and turn the heating system on. Although it is not cold enough yet to turn the heat on. With all the pollution here, we felt it was necessary to have them cleaned. Maybe it will help cut down the dust.

The men took down all the vents to wash. I laughed because the vents are the width of the room. I thought that the ducts were the length of the room that the heat/air come out of. Actually the air duct itself is only about 2-3 feet wide, most of the area is wall, painted black, that they cover up with the vents - I am not sure why they have such large vent cover for such a small area!

The men took the vents into my laundry room to wash. They used a hose and proceeded to drown the entire room. They cleaned up a little before they left - but not to my satisfaction. After they left I had to wash everything down and throw out the bags I had in there. My dust mop was in there as well, so I had to take the cloth off and wash it. Had I known that they were going to do that I would have prepared for it and taken everything out of the room. I will know better for next time.

The cost wasn't too bad. Because it was not done last year it cost 800 RMB ($127). If we do it every 6 months it will only be 500 RMB ($80). In the States it is over $1000 to have the ductwork cleaned.

Saturday night our driver, Richard, wanted us to get together for dinner with his wife, Jessica. He wanted us to try sushi from a restaurant that he likes. So he went to the restaurant and waited an hour and a half in line to buy the sushi. This is a very small shop that only has take out. They make each order fresh as it is ordered. The sushi was amazing. (Can't wait for you to try it, Jennifer) It was nice to meet Richard's wife. We had a very nice evening.