Saturday, 09/13/2014
As our class duties ramp up, we can’t keep one day straight from another. On the 13th we took a bus excursion around the first ring road to see what we could learn about getting around. We have bus cards and you have to put money on them every month. What’s left over is forfeited. The first ring road is kind of like FM 1960 in Houston; stop go, stop go, lots of traffic. We ended up at a big, five-floor bookstore where we hoped to find anything that was printed in English, but no luck. Books and magazines were piled waist high everywhere. We had to climb over piles just to get around.
As our class duties ramp up, we can’t keep one day straight from another. On the 13th we took a bus excursion around the first ring road to see what we could learn about getting around. We have bus cards and you have to put money on them every month. What’s left over is forfeited. The first ring road is kind of like FM 1960 in Houston; stop go, stop go, lots of traffic. We ended up at a big, five-floor bookstore where we hoped to find anything that was printed in English, but no luck. Books and magazines were piled waist high everywhere. We had to climb over piles just to get around.
On the way back we saw an interesting looking park and
hopped off the bus to investigate. It
was called the Chengdu Cultural Park. It
had a war memorial and several pagodas and wall carvings. Next door was the Qing Taoist Temple. It cost 10 yuan ($1.60 US) to enter. There are actually several buildings, all
very old, in the complex. Each one
ornate and some filled with huge religious statues. We watched one man painting wall hangings
(calligraphy?) I am not sure what to
call them yet, but he signed them with his “chop” – a red stamp. It seems everything here needs to be stamped
with red ink or it’s not valid.
Sunday, 09/14/2014
Lucky us, we were again invited to dinner after church. This time it was the Busby family. They have four high-energy kids and he works at the US consulate. She is the Primary president. The food was so good and it was so nice to eat on matching dishes. We had ice cream for dessert! Wednesday Anne returned to the Busby’s for a Primary presidency meeting. She did not want to take a taxi but chose to learn something new. She walked to a bus stop, took a bus to the metro station, and took the metro to the Busby’s stop. From door to door, it took one hour each way.
Lucky us, we were again invited to dinner after church. This time it was the Busby family. They have four high-energy kids and he works at the US consulate. She is the Primary president. The food was so good and it was so nice to eat on matching dishes. We had ice cream for dessert! Wednesday Anne returned to the Busby’s for a Primary presidency meeting. She did not want to take a taxi but chose to learn something new. She walked to a bus stop, took a bus to the metro station, and took the metro to the Busby’s stop. From door to door, it took one hour each way.
Friday, 09/19/2014
We all had the day off and planned to go see the giant panda preserve. We (ourselves and the Hadds) got up early and headed out the door at 7AM. Before we could decend the stairs, the building boss, Miss Li, handed Marilyn a note saying that she needed to be in the director’s office at 9AM for a ride to the police station to complete her resident visa permit. Oh so typical. No previous notice, just a demand appearance. So that canceled our panda plans. Marilyn sadly went back inside the apartment and the three of us took a bus to the zoo. We needed the practice of getting there to the zoo on a bus, since the zoo is on the way to the panda place.
We all had the day off and planned to go see the giant panda preserve. We (ourselves and the Hadds) got up early and headed out the door at 7AM. Before we could decend the stairs, the building boss, Miss Li, handed Marilyn a note saying that she needed to be in the director’s office at 9AM for a ride to the police station to complete her resident visa permit. Oh so typical. No previous notice, just a demand appearance. So that canceled our panda plans. Marilyn sadly went back inside the apartment and the three of us took a bus to the zoo. We needed the practice of getting there to the zoo on a bus, since the zoo is on the way to the panda place.
Some walking at both ends and
two buses later we arrived at the zoo.
We weren’t expecting much, so we were pleasantly surprised. We had the place to ourselves at the beginning
but it never got crowded. We are used to
bus loads of day care center and school children everywhere in the US, but not
so here. We did get to see one giant
panda in a cage and many other wonderful animals like white tigers, and grizzly
bears. The weather has turned a bit
cooler, so the animals were more active.
Sunday, 09/21/2014
Oh boy, our first day as Primary leaders. But we lived through class and Sharing Time. They started the full block of meetings, but here it only goes 2-1/2 hours. Clyde was the Sacrament Meeting speaker. Members gave him complements on his talk regarding the Book of Mormon.
Oh boy, our first day as Primary leaders. But we lived through class and Sharing Time. They started the full block of meetings, but here it only goes 2-1/2 hours. Clyde was the Sacrament Meeting speaker. Members gave him complements on his talk regarding the Book of Mormon.
Afterwards we were invited to
the MacKay’s for dinner. Carolyn and
Howard ( a non-member) are from Canada.
He works for Shell Oil and they are really treated well here. They live in an ultra-modern high rise with
every available amenity. She put on a
real banquet: roast beef, mashed
potatoes and gravy, several different kinds of veggies, and hearty bread. She served apple cobbler, chocolate cake and
ice cream for dessert. Lowly teachers
like us can’t afford those types of grocery items, nor can we get them on the
side of town we live in.
We received an email saying
that two teachers have not shown up and Marilyn Hadd and Anne were to take a
turn subbing in their classes this week.
That meant two extra classes for Anne and working on her day off. Again, it was typical, very little
notice. It made for a much busier
week.
Thursday, 09/25/2014
During a break between teaching classes on the old campus, Clyde took a walk around some of the tiny shops that line the first ring road. He came to a “hole in the wall” type of store that had some phones on display. Anne is unable to work with the cheap, dumb phone that we got after we first arrived. It has many things in Chinese and we couldn’t get it to work correctly. She wanted a “smarter” phone. He asked to see one of the lower-end smart phones and, surprise – the kid spoke very good English! After trying out the phone, Clyde was able to get the price down from 600 RMB to 400 RMB (around $65). But he didn’t have enough cash at the time, so he said he’d be back. We both went this evening to check out the phone, but we also took our old Verizon phones with us. We thought it was worth a try to see if this kid could figure out why they didn’t work here. (We had called Verizon twice before we left the states to confirm that the phones would work in China, and that the phones were unlocked.) Anyway, the kid (his English name was Scorpion) switched the SIM cards out of our dumb phones, worked his magic, and our Verizon phones now work! WooHoo! They have the Chinese number we use locally. (You would still call our “281 . . .” numbers to talk to us on our WiFi (Republic) phones.) Anyway, we are excited to have working smart phones! (We hope they continue to work!) We offered to pay him for his service, but he declined. He just liked practicing his English on us. We told him we’d recommend him to the Hadd’s because they want to upgrade their phones. On the way back to our apartment, we passed a small guitar store. Three guys were jamming on the sidewalk. We stopped to listen. One of the guys went into the shop and brought out stools for us to sit on as we listened to them play. Very nice!
During a break between teaching classes on the old campus, Clyde took a walk around some of the tiny shops that line the first ring road. He came to a “hole in the wall” type of store that had some phones on display. Anne is unable to work with the cheap, dumb phone that we got after we first arrived. It has many things in Chinese and we couldn’t get it to work correctly. She wanted a “smarter” phone. He asked to see one of the lower-end smart phones and, surprise – the kid spoke very good English! After trying out the phone, Clyde was able to get the price down from 600 RMB to 400 RMB (around $65). But he didn’t have enough cash at the time, so he said he’d be back. We both went this evening to check out the phone, but we also took our old Verizon phones with us. We thought it was worth a try to see if this kid could figure out why they didn’t work here. (We had called Verizon twice before we left the states to confirm that the phones would work in China, and that the phones were unlocked.) Anyway, the kid (his English name was Scorpion) switched the SIM cards out of our dumb phones, worked his magic, and our Verizon phones now work! WooHoo! They have the Chinese number we use locally. (You would still call our “281 . . .” numbers to talk to us on our WiFi (Republic) phones.) Anyway, we are excited to have working smart phones! (We hope they continue to work!) We offered to pay him for his service, but he declined. He just liked practicing his English on us. We told him we’d recommend him to the Hadd’s because they want to upgrade their phones. On the way back to our apartment, we passed a small guitar store. Three guys were jamming on the sidewalk. We stopped to listen. One of the guys went into the shop and brought out stools for us to sit on as we listened to them play. Very nice!
