A Plethora of Food and an Update

You pick the fruit, they juice it for you. I picked one that was white with
black specs and the girl told me it wasn't good and that I should pick
another one. Hm. This seems to happen a lot here. For example we were
buying lights at the light store and the man assured us that the lights we
wanted would not look good in our home.... he has never been to our
home, but the assurance was sincere. Anyway, I got the watermelon one
because the girl behind the counter assured us it was the best.

A special treat.

Who needs camomile tea with you can buy camomile flowers for cheap.
They are pretty and delicious. I had been looking for a good decaf/nighttime
drink and this is perfect.

A happy French breakfast, yay for Kunming
having a lot of foreigners, you can find some fun
food from all over the world.

Homemade carrot bread from the WickerBasket.

What the butter looks like.

Our favorite lunch spot, the Korean place. That's what we call it, I'm not
sure what the real name is. From this window you can see our 5th floor
apartment. So close!

This says: T, K and L.M. are eating and I am planning to study after lunch.

Wood tables, appetizers and tea. I can walk away
full without paying more than $3.

This is for Stephen S. S., Grandma Potatoes!! Yum! From our favorite Muslim
food restaurant.

My personal favorite dish. Black beans fried with mint and celery and
peppers (which you don't eat).

The household favorite, sizzling beef.

This is what REAL sweet and sour chicken looks like. Also you can see that
there are 2 pairs of chopsticks. This is because here everyone usually eats
family style. This means that all the food is put on a lazy susan in the middle
of the table and everyone shares everything. You can turn dishes to
yourself. It's fun and gives you the opportunity to have quite a variety.

When eating DUMPLINGS (yum!!!) one must first prepare the
dipping sauce. Here are the ingredients provided: soy sauce, vinegar, garlic,
a spicy seasoning which I don't know how to say in English, and green
onions. 

Here is the end result, ready for the dumplings!

Dunk!

hmmmmm.

Here are fried dumplings, these are our favorite kind.

They serve them freshly handmade on baskets like this. You can get
all different kinds: veggie, shrimp, chicken, etc.

Sizzling tofu. I don't like tofu in the States, but here....it's a whole
different story, so good!

I almost forgot. This is another option they have at every table. 4 different
kinds of salt and...MSG. You just scoop it into your dipping sauce
or over your meal. I tell you the truth, I watched one man put 11 scoops
into his soup. 11! I won't even try one.

Giant bowls of noodles.

This noodle shop is small, but my word is it popular. I call it the
Cafe Du Monde of China because the chaos is really similar. Chair and tables
 all over the place, people standing and waiting, borrowing chairs, etc. I don't
like going here because it is so crowded that I knocked an old man carrying
2 bowls of broth with my backpack, I didn't even feel it! Luckily the soup
only spilled a little on the guy behind him (he was mad) and only a few people
gave me dirty looks. I felt really bad. I prob won't be going back.

Before I give you a proper update I must say that if you have only had Chinese food in America, it really isn't the real deal. If you are not a big fan, I urge you to give it a second chance. Chinese food is incredibly flavorful and diverse. If you ever get a chance to have a native cook for you, definitely take them up on it.


Ok, a semi-proper update. I haven't been posting because my computer completely crashed : ( My friends are going to Hong Kong this week and offered to take it to the Apple Store for me. I had it looked at by a former Apple Tech and he said it was the motherboard....so it might cost a pretty penny. It is literally a MIRACLE that I happened to upload all my photos into draft form on blogger to save time. I am so glad I did because none of my photos from China were backed up on my external hardrive and I had already deleted them from my computer. So please enjoy these! I am using a friends computer until I am able to get one of my own, but won't be able to edit photos so they might be pretty raw. Anyway, let me fill you in on what's been happening:

1. Yes, I have an Asian haircut (this is something that is practically unavoidable...I was getting a mullet). I pretty much look like an Asian version of Amelie (yikes!). But I will let you be the judge in some posts to come. All I'll say is that I have very short bangs, all across, short in the back with flippy things in the front. Interesting, I know.

2. My diet has changed drastically. Because I was struggling so much with my digestion T recommended focusing on nutrition instead of medicine. Basically I cannot eat sugar, anything with yeast (which is a lot!) and most diary. Here is some details if you're interested:

When Candida proliferates, it changes form, morphing from a simple, relatively harmless one into one that is capable of penetrating the intestinal lining. This elicits low-grade inflammation in the gut and causes breakdown of the boundary between the intestinal tract and the circulatory system. Known as leaky gut, increased intestinal permeability allows incompletely digested food particles and yeast cells to pass through and enter the blood stream. The immune system soon identifies these large particles as foreign, and ramps itself up to deal with them.

In part, food sensitivities and allergies are thought to develop as a result of this process — the invaders that make it across the gut into the blood get labeled as dangerous, and the immune system remembers them the next time it encounters them, and reacts accordingly. People with candidiasis may need to avoid foods containing other yeasts and fungi from their diets because of this cross-sensitivity — the molecular subcomponents they contain are similar or identical to those found in Candida, so the immune system cannot distinguish between them and responds accordingly.

Uncomfortable digestive symptoms like bloating, gas, and bubbling in the gut arise because an overgrowth of yeast leads to the fermentation of foods instead of the digestion of foods. Along with these unpleasant symptoms, yeasts ferment sugars into alcohol, which destabilizes blood sugar and leads to intense cravings for more sugar. I find it fascinating that these tiny organisms can get us to do exactly what they want us to do — eat more carbs and sugar! (http://www.womentowomen.com/digestionandgihealth/candida.aspx)

Anyway, I figure that even if this is not what I have, cutting out carbs and sugar for awhile can only be good for me. Since I've started this (last week) I have felt about 98%! So, I think it is working. T helps me a lot. She cooks and buys food that I can eat and teaches me all she knows about eating and cooking. If she wasn't helping me I probably wouldn't be able to stick it out. I am so thankful I am feeling better these days and that I am starting an eating life style change that was much needed. (Obviously the pictures above are from before I began this).

3. I got a bicycle!! It's a beauty, I named it Katmandu. I can't wait to blog about biking in China and about all the places I've biked and the adventures I've had.

4. I have an address in Pinyin (so America can read it) and Characters (so China can read it), if your interested I'll send it to you in jpg. form and you can print it out.

5. I slept in my new room for the first time last night!!! It was wonderful. I have been sharing K's bed (which has been extremely comical) and just got some foam for mine (they don't really have mattresses here, you have to have large pieces of foam cut to size). K is a wild talker/mover/pincher, all in her sleep. Every morning I had a new story to tell. As much as I'll miss her, being in my own space is so calming and I really feel at home.

6. There are a group of very special people from Texas who are here and will be here the next 7 weeks! It's so refreshing to see friendly and familiar faces around town and over dinner. It is also nice that people I know can see what I'm doing and where I'm living and can take all the details home with them and share them with friends who couldn't make it.

To be continued, I need to go to bed so I can get up at 630 to study!!!

Moving Day

We finally finished cleaning everything from
top to bottom. It looked great!

The floors gave us a bit of trouble, but slowly
we are conquering the dust. Here is a view from
the hallway outside my room. The colors are really
neat, they look different in the day and at night.

We started packing up the other house. I packed
 the night before moving day : ) So did L. M.

K's mannequin dismantled and her bed gone.

They only left dust behind. A moving company called Ants (aptly) moved
everything, sometimes unconventional, but oh, so worth it. You can have
an entire apartment moved for under $300. They even brought everything
up the 5 flights of stairs and put it, with some direction, the new place.

Here is a pic I took from K's room. These men took everything down the
elevator and up a flight of stairs and carried/used dollies everything to
a truck, a 3 min walk away.

Empty and clean. We made a statement by cleaning the apartment, normally,
they never leave an apartment clean. T said that her friends cleaned their's
and when their landlord saw it he cried! What a statement. 

After many hours of moving, and waiting for the movers to move,
wack-a-mole could not be resisted!

A fond farewell to the old home.

AHHH! Stuff. We had to tape the lights out of the way because they movers
have somewhat of a reputation of chipping paint, breaking legs off tables, etc.
Here the 'Ants' are putting together our old pantry shelves for our new one.

We covered the freshly painted steps because we did not have time to put
a coat of polyurethane on them.

From the 2nd floor.

We all pretty much felt like this.

He made it!

So did she, and her bed. 

As soon as we finished wack-a-mole and made
it to the new place, I went to bed because I was
sick. BUT, I got to sleep in my room! In my window
seat! It was exciting. Later, when I felt better I
was able to help unpack.

Our first morning in the new apartment! L. M. made us a delicious breakfast
of pancakes and eggs with WELCHES grape juice! Yum!! It was a good start.

Home Improvements

This wouldn't be a legit China blog with out Mickey Mouse scattered
throughout. This is the local, over-priced "Home Depot" called B&Q
(I think it is British). One can of paint cost about $60.00 or more. You see,
if you buy the $15.00 can it will come off on your clothes as you walk by and
brush up against it. So what choice did we have other than get ripped off by
Mickey-Mouse-loving, uneducated-about-paint (but very nice) , B&Q sales people?

Here we chose our colors. For some reason they have a very hard time making
truly deep colors. They had to redo my grey several times. They only had one
can of the paint we wanted so this process took several days and trips to
different places.

PAINT! We had someone paint, then spend several days re-edging and
cleaning paint off the floors, but we were happy to help out a village guy
in his endeavor to become a painter to get through university. I have found
that most normal things here you can do while helping someone at the same
time. Like buying coffee for example, I can buy great coffee while at the same
time helping women receive fair treatment, etc.

LIGHTS! What to choose?

Resting from our decision making.

The light I chose, no those are not fish, they are modern ribbons.
This does not give off all the light I will need so I am going to get a really
neat lamp I saw (pictures to come) and a bedside reading lamp too.

Measuring the Sun Room/Great room for lights.
They ended up looking perfect. They, of course,
were installed for free : )

Now this is funny. Of course China would have what the local-foreigners (oxymoron)
have wisely dubbed "fak-kea". This is Furniture 11 and it is
basically an over priced Ikea, they even had
the infamous Swedish dala horses.

We didn't buy any furniture, we just got ideas and planned our cheaper solutions. 

I did, however, buy some neat jars for a tea corner I am making in my room(!!!!),
Also a neat loofah and some wooden flower pot holders sewn together. I think
I might paint them and hang them in a pattern on my wall, or something.
Pictures to come.

Fabric market. Seriously, they have huge markets for
EVERYTHING! Here L. M. picks out her fabric.
She really likes pink : )

K reads.

Here is my fabric! Well, the back of it...

This is a really poor picture, but the only one I was
able to get at Hearts and Hands. It is a carpentry
shop where they teach deaf people the skills of
carpentry. They came and installed my newly,
handmade bed yesterday. I can't wait to share it
with you. They did a great job and were very kind.

I am very excited about this! I designed this cabinet
to hide some ugly pipes in the bathroom (see below).
I told the guy what I wanted through an interpreter
(K) and I wasn't sure how he understood my idea.

Ugly corner pipes.

The solution! He understood pretty well, put a
Chinese twist to it, and here we go! No more pipes!

We had new counter tops installed, but there was the problem of the pipes
again... SO, we had another cabinet built.

The color doesn't match, mind you, but it is better than the alternative.
We just pretend it is a dishwasher : ) The counters turned out great.
No more white counters and white tiled floor.

This guy was awesome and funny (but I don't think
he knows it). He installed our clothes racks, they don't
have dryers here (why???). This is a pretty great invention.
They are racks on a pulley system, so when you are done
hanging or using them, you just reel them out of
 sight. Sort of hard to explain. I will try to get a picture soon.

Thought I should mention the brand name of this great contraption...
'Good Wife'. We were thinking of writing the company and asking them
if they would consider calling it 'Good Husband'...

I began the arduous task of cleaning the terrance... I only got half way by
the end of the day, but what a difference! I scrubbed all the green off
the green and yellow sponge.

Ah, the curtain maker. What an adventure this was. Here everyone tries
to talk at once : )

No, he didn't hit us with that.

Lah-ronda (that's what I've dubbed her). She matched her fabric.

Here is a sneak peak at the fabric I chose.

Mostly black and white with hints of muted yellow/mustard and purple/grey.

Which one of these ugly ones would you chose?

I decided on one of these...you'll have to wait for my room post to find out.
Oh, the suspense! 

Too many numbers and people and rooms and measurements.
Alas, I was not the one burdened with this task... Thank heavens.

Well, all you fine folks, I hope you had quite a feast for your eyes. I am sure I have been taking photos non stop for you to get a visual tour of all of our happenings. Hope you're enjoying. There are more posts to come THIS WEEK: A rainy day, food, and moving. Once my room is semi-unpacked, I will show it to you.

Until Next Time,

Lindsay