This morning, as I was checking out, I had a sudden realization about the guesthouse I had been staying in. Putting two and two together, this IS the foreign students' dorm where I would be staying (with another person!) if I had opted for that option. I partly realized this by putting two and two together as far as building numbers are concerned, and partly by glancing in through an open door and seeing a VERY FULL, lived in looking room. Laundry hung on a clothesline across! Books! Papers!
As a hotel room, by myself, it was okay I guess. A bit cramped. But living there for a year with another person would be absolute hell. I know I'm really spoiled! But my apartment is about twice as big as that room, and half the cost. A much better view, and I don't have to share! Of course there's no maid service, but that may be for the best. I think the only thing I will really miss about the guesthouse is the tall ewers of hot water which the maids were supposed to replace every day (sometimes they only replaced one). The insulation on them was fantastic. Even half a day later, the water stayed hot enough to make tea.
I decided I should be able to get everything in two trips. First trip: backpack full of books and box of grapes. Second trip: backpack full of toiletries and shoes, suitcase full of clothes. That made the suitcase much lighter and solved the problem of the grapes. I mean, I actually could have taken everything in one trip, but it would have been a stressful and comical-looking trip. Things were going according to plan up until I crossed the first street on the first trip. Halfway across, the bottom of the grape box suddenly gave way! Grapes everywhere! But I was in the middle of the street, and there was nothing for it. Many were past their prime anyway, I could see when they were all suddenly revealed. Not really so much of a loss. All the same, though, it was quite a shock. I didn't see that there was anything for it but to keep on walking. I couldn't exactly stand around picking up grapes in the middle of the street. But I did feel very bad for making such a mess.
Other than that, the move went smoothly enough. I did not enjoy dragging the still-heavy suitcase down the street, as its structural integrity has suffered somewhat from being overstuffed, and kept catching on things. (Stupid cheap suitcase.) But no matter, I made it eventually. By this time, it was a well-known well traveled route and so didn't feel quite as long.
I was all moved in by 8:30 AM. I promptly hooked up to the internet and did several hours worth of stuff I had been putting off, as well as delightful stuff like talking on skype to Colin and my parents.
Around noon, I was getting really hungry and thirsty. The electric kettle provided, however, was coated on the inside with some highly disturbing yellowish-white residue, powdery and weird. I suppose it was harmless but I could really scrape it off very well and I just felt incredibly suspicious of it. So I decided I should go out and buy a new one. In addition, I needed sheets for the bed and a clothesline. (My laundry situation was getting fairly dire, and of course no one here has a dryer.) So I ventured out, first off to get me some bottled water and food, then perhaps to find a supermarket. Supermarkets in the U.S. have everything, all the sorts of stuff I needed. And I wouldn't mind, I thought, buying some food as well. Failing that, perhaps a home furnishings store? I walked around for more than an hour, exploring the neighborhood, but there was nothing like that. Restaurants and banks, restaurants and banks, the occasional hotel or bookstore. What looked like a very promising furniture store was in fact not yet populated by merchants except for one "baby supplies" store on the ground floor. The upper floors were all empty. A promised shopping mall proved to be nothing more than a big hole in the ground (I mean BIG, several blocks), with construction workers wandering about, gazing down into it, or taking naps in the shade. It must be frustrating to live in a place that seems to undertake nothing new unless it is on a grand scale, for as far as the practical necessities of everyday life are concerned, a half-built supermall is totally useless, as is an unpopulated housewares building, however gigantic.
Eventually I did find the so-called "supermarket" associated with our housing complex. The landlady had implied that there was one very near, but it took me a long time to find it. Let me mention that in Chinese the word "supermarket," chaoshi 超市, is a direct translation. Superman, for example, is chaoren 超人. So I was very pleased when I saw the sign for "supermarket," and so close. In the event, it was a perfectly frightful place, set up in a dark awful underlit basement room and sharing space with the bicycle parking. I didn't see any refrigerated goods either. Some weird unfamiliar produce. Some household chemicals. One extra-attentive attendant sitting in the middle of the room and looking askance at me. I confess I didn't take a proper look before I fled. No doubt I will go back in a less expectant frame of mind, and perhaps find something useful there. But I felt very full of protest at the abuse of the term "supermarket." In WHAT sense was that place super!?
The landlady's daughter had sent me a text message telling me how to get to the Ikea. At first I rejected the idea, but then it kind of grew on me. It would be interesting to see what was sold at a Chinese Ikea. I popped back up to my room to get my backpack, also map and camera. I thought it would be easier to carry things with the backpack, and was looking forward to taking some pictures for purposes of comparison with the Ikea I had seen in Chicago (that was the first one I'd ever seen, by the way). However, when I got to the bus-stop I began to have serious second thoughts. I really should have just pressed on with this plan, in hindsight, but my goodness. Not only was the bus was utterly packed, but traffic was at a total standstill. The weather was really hot. Horns honking, the smell of everything… it was only 2:30 in the afternoon, but maybe people go home early on Friday. I don't know. So instead I decided to go back to the little store on campus, the approximate equivalent of the U-Store at Princeton (or anywhere really) that sold dorm set-up supplies. It was no Ikea, but enough for starters. The streets were mobbed with people. Reminder to self--stay in on Friday afternoons. I was also full of accumulated exhaustion from so much walking around, crossing so many streets, breathing so much car-scented air. All of these are my excuses for the fact that it took me all the way until I got to the little store on campus to realize that the outer pocket of my backpack was open. Perhaps I should say "opened." It was a zipper pocket, and I'm not sure how I didn't notice it getting unzipped, since I'm usually really aware of even innocent jostlings against my backpack, but some bold thief had managed it. So, alas, no photos on this post, and I shall have to visit the computer city and hope that cameras are cheaper here as well.
This incident made me feel very gloomy. I resolved to buy a messenger bag instead, that you can carry on the front and keep under your eyes. Most people walking around do carry them, and not backpacks. I guess this must be why.
I managed to find most of the things I needed at the little university store. Had a bit of a tustle with the over-attentive salesperson about sheets. Yes, I REALLY do want a double bed sheet, not a single bed sheet. She looked at me as if I were a bad woman. The double-bed sheet came in a package with a silhouette logo of a couple passionately embracing. There weren't many choices in the university store, though single-bed sheets were available in all varieties. Yeah, oh well. Now I have an impressively ugly lavendar sheet with weird big bunches of some weedy looking flower on it.
Back at my apartment I did some laundry in the "Double Strength Spirit" washing machine. Spirit as in "ghosts and". A cute name. I lay about. Started making a crocheted hat. When the wash was done, I strung up a clothesline in the bathroom and hung it up. I was very clumsy with that. It has been a long time! I suppose I had to use a clothesline in Taiwan (I remember it was outside and all my clothes ended up with an odd "Asian city" smell). But before that, I hadn't really used a clothesline since we had one in Jasper, when I was a little kid. I suppose it was to save money on electricity that we did that in summer. In winter, we did use the drier.
Then I just lay around feeling gloomy and did some sleeping also. It was dark when I woke up, around 8. I decided I should get up and have some dinner. I didn't really feel like having dinner, but my 7-11 lunch (two dumplings, one vegetarian) and Quikmart breakfast (some little cake-rolls and yoghurt) were hardly very substantial. I had just been too busy dashing around all day to eat properly. Not feeling up for much walking, I decided to go down to the Meimei Xiaochi, which is right next door to my building. It proved to be a substantial basement food-court, and looked about the level of your average mall food-court. I wandered around, trying to decide what to eat. I have finally become dissatisfied with the all-baozi diet, and was up for something different. Following the "I'll have what he's having" strategy of dealing with unfamiliar culinary choices, I picked out a guy who was receiving a nice steaming bowl of noodles. "Are those beef-noodles?" I asked the guy behind the counter. "Beef pulled noodles," he said. I wasn't sure what that meant, but I ordered one. Rigamarole with paying: the restaurant rings up your order and gives you a ticket. You go to the central cashier and pay. The cashier gives you a receipt and you give it back to the food-people, and they make your food. I have not got used to the system yet, as there are all kinds of variations. Well anyway, I finally did that and sat down near the noodle place.
Then I saw something amazing, which was the meaning of pulled noodles. The guy who had taken my order was banging and stretching a lump of dough. Suddenly, he started pulling it out long, then bringing his hands together in a quick, loose fold, and pulling it out long again. He did this very quickly and very stretchingly, and in a short time he had…noodles. MY noodles, in fact. He tossed them in a vat of boiling water and pulled them out soon after. He ladled broth over, and then another counter-person added some thin slices of beef and turnip, a spoonful of cilantro, then invited me to add my own hot-pepper oil and vinegar. I took the steaming production back to my table. It was quite good, though I will say that a little hot-pepper oil goes a long way. The noodle--or rather, noodle: it was completely unbroken until I bit it--were slightly irregular in width and slightly chewy in a very good way.
I confess, I was totally fascinated. It cheered me up a lot, watching the noodle chef bang and stretch the dough while I ate my noodle. The noodle chef had an interesting face. It was thin and peaky, and looked especially small and sprite-like under tall white paper chef-hat he wore. The hat was probably three or four times the height of his little head. He noticed I was watching him, and grinned at me once, stretching the noodles with extra panache.
The big bowl of noodles was really too much for me, but I ate it all anyway because I didn't want him to think I lacked appreciation!
After this pleasant interlude, I made my way home. I had a brief chat with Colin, which also cheered me up a lot too. I told him about the noodle chef, and he was very anxious to try some. I told him about the camera and he suggested that maybe someone was just borrowing it to take some pictures and would be giving it back soon. Ha ha. No need to detail all the sad feelings I have about that incident, but in the long run the loss of good times is worse than the loss of a replaceable material object, so the important thing is not to be too sad, I think.
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