Getting Settled / Learning Chinese

I'm so glad we came about 3 weeks before work started! It has really allowed us time to get settled. Part of the adventure is trying to find the things that we need (or want) when we don't speak the language...yet! We realize how easy living in Hong Kong was as an English speaker as opposed to living now in mainland China. In Hong Kong you didn't need to learn Chinese. English, as an offical language, was prevelant everywhere. If someone didn't speak English, there would be someone right next to them that did. Not so in Qingdao...Gabriel said on our first day here, "We'll have to learn to read Chinese".

So we've had fun trying to learn necessary words quickly, and being the adventerous type we have made great strides in getting decorations and fixtures for the apartment. Tammy found a plant shop and after buying a number of large plants, realized they wouldn't fit in a taxi back to the house. By using a handful of words and playing charades with the vendor, she negotiated for a motorcycle with a small transport bed attached. Of course she had to ride in the back with the plants and she phoned me saying, "I'm coming home in the back of a motorcycle / pick-up thing...run down and bring the camera."

We had a similar situation with the delivery of a couple of chairs for our balcony. Gabriel BEGGED me to ride in the back of the pick up on one of the chairs. Since it was a short distance, I finally gave in and let him do it all the while thinking, "If I was back in Boulder, I would be SO arrested for this," Forget the police, in Boulder I would have been stopped or honked at angrily by other drivers. In China, the Chinese kept passing us laughing, pointing at Gabriel, and giving the "thumbs up" sign. Picture a 10 yr old white boy (in the middle of China), sitting in the back of a pick up on a LAWN CHAIR shooting down the road. All he needed was a can of cheap beer and a shotgun to complete the picture.

I have pictures of Tammy's ride but didn't have a camera for Gabriel's. In this country I need to carry a camera EVERYWHERE because you have NO idea what is going to happen next.