a picture essay sans picture

Ok, I'm not sure if the issue is the roundabout way I'm getting access to my blog or my own incompetence, but I can't figure out how to get pictures into a post-- there are no options available on my edit bar. So I write this as a photo essay last night, but now i'll have to just give you little descriptions of pictures. lame. I'll try to at least set up a photo feed.

So here is the long promised blog post. I’ve been madly syllabusing for the last few days and apologize for the delay. As promised, today’s post will show (with words now!) you guys my apartment, and a trip downtown.

So come on in( first there was a picture of my front door and then a view of the dining room and living room. It's pretty spacious and has hardwood floors and a mahogany-esque couch and chairs...Yes, that furniture is all wood: picture of couch here. heavy dark wood, curved lines, slats, no cusioning. it’s really not as uncomfortable as it might seem and seems to be THE furniture of China (or at least NIT): the foreign affairs office has the exact same set. If you keep going through the living room, you get to my balcony/clothes drying rack: windowed-in (is taht a term?) balcony . Here we are looking down from the balcony: (I’m on the 16th floor you see a long view down to the complex's streets and people walking around) and, here’s the view out: (you would see lots of high rises, some trees and fields and a big highway)those are mountains in the way distance…you can just barely see them most days (well, you can't see them at all). I should take a picture of the view at night—you realize more how big a city Ningbo is (5 million or so—small for China!) when you see all the lights shining from the balcony.

However, I’m too lazy to leave my bedroom, which looks like this: tv (with one channel in English), two bed side tables,m an armoire and a full size low bed (low because there is no matrress-- just a box spring. I have put the two spare duvets i found in the armoire under my sheet for a little padding). The best part? It has this: (picture of an air conditioner)! The rest of the place, I depend on a fan, and while it is apparently strikingly cold for Ningbo—probably low 90s and 70-80%ish humidity, it’s plenty hot for me! Btw, this is the icon on the AC: the picture is two little cartoon kids-- one white and blonde, the other asianish. they're both in diapers/loincloths. I think they’re stripped down and happy, bc they’re cold, though it’s silly to eat the icecream in that case (btw he probably got the soft serve at the 24 hr McDonald’s, pronounced with an equal stress on all syllables (4th tone for those in the know), which seems to be how the Chinese sinify English terms. ))

Speaking of cool iconography, here’s my microwave: ok, no way to describe all the picture functions on it. It’s great that I have settings for dumplings, ramen and bok choy, but I’m somewhat perplexed by the bottom two which seem to suggest I can grill meat and roast turkeys in the microwave. Besides the microwave, I have two burners, one wok, a rice cooker with a steamer inset and a kettle. I’ve gotten pretty creative with them: the other night I boiled noodles in the rice cooker and drained them with the steamer.

Not that there’s any real need to cook. Within 100 feet of our apartment complex there are about 12 restaurants. HEAVEN. The favorite of the old hands (and one I’m very willing to make my favorite) is a Szechuan restaurant. It has the best side dishes I’ve ever had: my favorites so far are the potatoes, cut kind of like hash browns and cooked in lots of oils and lots of hot peppers, and the thin sliced pumpkin, stir fried with what I think is sugar and MSG. There’s also an awesome sizzling tofu with eggs and mushrooms (yes, mushrooms. But the Chinese kind, which I don’t mind). Today, we went with a professor in the English department here and he insisted that we get some “main dishes” too: fried rice with ham and shrimp (the anti-kosher dish) and something he described as “vegetarian main dish,” which was a very dense rice noodle, with egg and greens. He told us that in China, if you had lots of vegetables, but no rice or noodles, then you hadn’t had lunch.

By the way, we have copies of a menu that someone translated into English, so we just point at the dish we want and hope the restaurant has it!

As if this restaurant richness was not enough, about a mile away, outside of campus, there is a big row of street food vendors. I have not yet partaken, but I will. Oh, will I.

If you do want to cook at home, there are 2 fruit stores in the shops near us, as well as guys with carts of vegetables who come every day. Today I bought 4 eggs, a pound of long beans, 2 peppers and 2 potatoes for 8 yuan—that’s about $1.20. A meal out runs about $2. If you want rice, noodles or meat, you have to go to Walmart (well, I’m sure there’s a butcher somewhere, but I don’t think my Chinese is up to it). Unlike the Walmart in Shelbyville, the first thing you see in this one is tanks of live fish, for eating, not pet-making. There is also a big rice stand and one for beans and a huge dried fish section.

This is becoming an epic. One last story and (if I can figure out the formatting) a video. So on our way to Walmart we went downtown. There’s a big open air market, with all sorts of shops: clothes, jewelry, stuff…China has lots of shops filled with just stuff. You can get amazing shirts like this one: I don't want to ruin the visual. I will figure out a way to post this. Anyway, afterwards we went to an area with lots of food stalls. I had a fruit drink with crushed ice and watermelon juice and two buns stuffed with pork. We also had free entertainment. It seems a woman, who had purchased a big stick of fried fish balls, was unhappy: maybe she didn’t like the taste, maybe she saw it for one yuan less somewhere else…anyway, she started screaming at the people in the stall, waving her fish ball stick, while they yelled back. Then EVERYONE in the market started taking sides: initially talking to the girl, but breaking off into splinter groups of their own. Ok, I can’t actually figure out how to format the video, but it was taken at one of the less heated moments, still, about 8 people are talking at once and the girl is yelling at them all, including the security guard and a party official. It was definitely a “I’m in China” kind of moment.

Ok, if you’ve read all of this, you need a hobby. My next post will probably be about my first few days of classes and my students: I got to meet one of my assistants, Nina, tonight, and she seems lovely. She’s originally from Xian, the home of the terra-cotta warriors, and was an English language and culture student at the University here and, since she graduated, has taught English language courses for the Univeristy—all the students have to take two years of English. She, like most of the Chinese people I’ve met who were not screaming about fishballs, is incredibly nice and incredibly helpful: she’s offered to take me shopping and around campus.

Btw, because of the internet-blocker-blocker I’m using, I can’t respond to comments, but I’m reading them with interest. Carolyn and Emily-not-my-sister, I’ll definitely do a fast food carbs and taste survey while I’m here, and Mary, I have found the cheese at metro! And on that food-centric note I’ll end this food-centric post.