Ni hao! Today is the 1 week anniversary of me touching down in the Red State. Only 7 more to go……. Luckily, things have vastly improved in the expanse of 7 days. 3 hotels and a few bottles of Tums later, we are really enjoying this city and are grateful for this experience of a lifetime (and some laughable situations to last us a lifetime). The harbor that our new and extremely nice hotel sits above is beautiful and was modeled after Sydney’s Darling Harbor- they even have a smaller version of the Opera House (a little cheesy, but very neat nonetheless). It is speckled with lots of different restaurants and shops- all built for the Olympic Village in 2008.
I had high hopes, before coming to China, that I would be a fluent speaker by the time I returned- but after our first week I am starting to realize that Chinese is virtually impossible. Although, my language skills have not greatly improved, Harrison and I have gotten great at pantomiming and we fully intend to challenge you all to a game of charades when we return. In addition to my Chinese skills falling by the wayside, so too has my English. Harrison and I now communicate like cavemen- making strange grunting noises accompanied by exaggerated gestures. At the restaurant last night, we say to the waiter (in a very loud and slow voice): “Me hungry (H pats his belly and nods his head up and down). “Me like rice”. (I bring my hands to my mouth and make loud chomping sound). Ohhhh, if only you could be a fly on our wall……
So, after I wrote my last email, we were headed to Starbucks to meet up with the ExPat group. We threw on our Sunday’s best and eagerly headed towards the harbor with thoughts of new friends dancing in our heads…..We planned to arrive a fashionable 10 minutes late and then make our grand entrance. To our great dismay, however, the constituents at this Starbucks looked like locals- I even offered up a few hellos to ppl at each table- only to be returned by a “ni hao”. Blast…….We decided to set up shop there anyway, hoping to catch a few English speakers who were running late. 2 hours later we spotted a girl in line who looked like she may share my love for freedom fries and Western-styled bathroom facilities. While H and I strategized about what we should say to her, she must have slipped away into the mall. Shoot! I got on my horse and began running through the makeup counters, searching for the potential new bestie, to no avail.
I did, however, come across a high end hair salon that appeared to carry some familiar products. In dire need of some highlights, I entered and asked for an appointment. Hmmm, they didn’t understand me- go figure. That’s when I started pointing at my roots and then at the rest of my hair, making gestures to indicate I needed some help. No less than 4 hairdressers stood over me- picking through my hair and making strange grunting noises I couldn’t understand. (To get a visual image- think about the National Geographic channel where the mother gorillas pick thru the baby gorillas hair looking for bugs.) One of the girls left the shop and returned a few minutes later with a friend who said to me “Hair too yellow- no work.” Who knew a bottle of bleach was so hard to come by...So that was the end of that……However, I woke up today feeling a bit like a daredevil and I have a 3 pm appointment ....stay tuned for pictures of the results……
***On a side note, we were walking around the harbor last night post-dinner and came across another Starbucks- turns out we went to the wrong one for the Ex Pat meet up….rookie mistake.
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