Sunday, August 2, 2009

I awoke after sleeping from 10:15 p.m. straight through to 5:45 a.m. That’s 7.5 hours! I’ve spent the last interminable almost 3 hours straightening up the place, finding the right spot for stuff, journaling, beginning reading Remembering Simplified Hanzi, showering, making the beds, reading to the kids, playing my-body-as-train-for-heavy-Zekey-and-Ysa, watching a bit of t.v., discovering that the viewfinder on the camera seems to be malfunctioning, etc. We grazed on Kashi granola bars, Ritz crackers, Kathi’s banana bread, apple and peach slices, and plum. Dave had been up from 2:30 – 5:30 a.m., so it was his turn to sleep. I’m getting sort-of anal about where things go, but I need order somewhere in my life. Also trying to keep in mind that each moment that ticks by is a moment my kids won’t be at this same age anymore.

Television in the name of language acquisition? Xander is playing a video game where he’s “transforming” some little moving boxes into something else (ah, Dave later informed me this is Tetrus, should’ve known that). In the background is the noise from whatever station is one behind the game. Now they’re watching a cartoon with heroic princes and villainous animals. Hmmm…

Today’s a “free” day, and we’re scheduled to meet Eric at 10:30. I have nothing really on the agenda. Keeping the kids happy, I guess. Wanting to get on the internet! Small errands: need to scrub inside of my SIGG, get Xander his own floss, purchase maps of China and Asia. Get converter for kids’ noise machine.

New goal: keep track of expenses. Find replacement camera battery.

Sunday PM update on the day: I did go to the Internet café from 10:30 – 11:30. Eric stopped by for a sec there, and we tried phoning Greg Dale-Huang. Tina Huang had happened to be on the ‘net same time as I, so we chatted, and she give me Greg’s # - handy!

We met for lunch at a Muslim noodle restaurant in the indoor-outdoor mall we supped at last night. Tasty, non-spicy noodles, first flat, then skinny and short, then skinny and long. Xander loved them. Ysa slept on Dave’s lap, so I filled her sippy cup with noodles and meat. The meat was very tender, fresh-off-the-grill skewers of little lamb chunks, I believe. The waiter/proprietor had a nicely-patterned round hat atop his head. Didn’t look Asian, rather, Arabic, so it was interesting to think he’s speaking Chinese. Shelley’s guess is that he speaks with an Arabic accent.

Dave exchanged money, and for $200 we obtained over 1,300 yuen. We promptly then spent 340 of them in the basement level of the ginormous supermarket Ito Yokado. We got milks, yogurts, juices, granola, oatmeal, crackers, treats, nuts, tea, dried fruit, even peanut butter and 2 Kellog’s honey-oats. Biggest splurge was the Swiss Muesli, for 60 yuen, or about $9!

Four flights of escalators later, we looked for tricycles, finding them too expensive (minimum 400 yuen each!). We cabbed it back, trying to keep the boys awake. Zekey had been trying to fall asleep ever since we were waiting for the money exchanging. (His brown bag of candy got him through the walk over to the bus, through the wait, through the ride, and even into the first part of the supermarket.)

We returned shortly after 5:00, and were to meet back at 6:00 at the “South Gate” (the entrance to the university) for dinner. We ended up at a fancy restaurant with the family-style concept (i.e. big spinning platter-disc in the middle of the table), cloth tablecloths (even though there was a hole in front of Zekey’s place and a hole in front of Shelley’s; hey, more power to them that they’re still using it!) Enough food came out plate by plate to feed an army. Xander was proud to have a dish ordered that he spotted a picture of in the menu (“4 pages from the back,” mind you): tofu soup. Zekeky was literally walking out the door of the restaurant with lids half-closed and very cranky, so Dave took him back, then I backpacked with Ysa and holding hands with Xander (he’s acquiesced to this as standard practice now) shortly thereafter.

Talked this night with Eric about obtaining more babysitting, so we can take 2 more hours of language instruction for a total of 3 in the morning daily (everyone gets 3), and 2 hours for the T and Th afternoon sessions, and the T Th evening sessions for something to work out.