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onewomaninaricefield
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Name: Erin Renee
Country: China
Metro: Hangzhou
Birthday: 5/14/1983
Gender: Female
Interests: Starting things, Writing, Reading, Literature, China, my students, Chinese, learning languages, making and eating soup, the smell of new books, traveling, balconies, coffee, tea, EFL, publishing, editing, the television show "Sex and the City," Asian babies, window seats, my family and friends, cooking, history, candles and incense, rollerblading, scarves, backpacking, translations, libraries and bookstores, NPR, the television show "Family Guy," opening a new toothbrush, PBS, gazing at the moon with English major friends, stained glass windows, the television show "History Detectives," umbrellas, finishing things, etc. etc.
Expertise: English, Writing, Literature, EFL.
Occupation: Education/training
Industry: Education/Research
Message: message me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
8/29/2005
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| Yesterday was my "little" brother's birthday (or rather "today" as I still haven't gone to bed). My "little" brother is 23 yrs old now. Wow. Time flies.
Anyone who has talked to me in the past 3 days knows that I have been having some insane craziness going on here in China. I had to dodge through the insanity at the train station to change my ticket to leave a day earlier. I finally finished and sent out two graduate school applications. I mailed a bunch of New Years cards. I bought New Years presents. I cleaned my home. I stayed up till 3am watching my favorite guy, Barack Obama, get sworn in as the President of the United States. I had dinner with a couple of Germans. And now it's 4:18am and I'm still awake. "Why?" you might ask.
Well I knew that my day today was going to be completely insane because of all the things I had to get done in a short amount of time, but I was bound and determined to see all of Obama's speech and by the time the Inauguration was over I was hooked on the live coverage on CNN. Good luck pulling yourself away from that once it starts. So I had about 5 hours of sleep last night. I had my crazy day of crazy errand-running. And finally decided to stay up all night packing and doing stuff around my apartment because I was afraid if I went to sleep I would just sleep right through my alarm and miss my trains. You see, I have to leave my apartment at 5am today in order to make it into the city to catch my train to Shanghai at 7:40am to make it there in time to meet my ex-student and fab Chinese friend Sarah and catch our train at 11:30am to go to stay with her family for the Spring Festival. Her family invited me to stay with them and I said yes because Spring Festival with a real family is usually fun. At the very least I know I'll be eating better food than the rest of you this week. Haha!
So in a half hour I'm locking up the apartment and beginning my long journey to Changsha (长沙). I am not sure if I'll get to post anything while I'm there but I will try if I get the opportunity. The train from Shanghai South Railway Station (mom and dad'll remember that place since they were there) to Zhuzhou (a city near Changsha where we'll get off the train) should take from 11:30am to about 10:30am the next day, according to Sarah. Yea, an overnight train, which will be something new for me since usually I fly because the train stations are absolutely INSANE during the Spring Festival.
Anyway, my journey begins soon. And now I must attend to a few last minute details before I shoulder my pack and ride off.
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| Today was SUCH a good day.
The day dawned clear and semi-warm (warm for a winter in Hangzhou, at least). I was up relatively early and left around 10:30am to go to METRO and purchase a new coffee press. I got to METRO and couldn't find an actual coffee press that wasn't glass (my last glass coffee press that I bought in China shattered in my hands out of the blue one day). I started looking around at other containers. I finally found a metal coffee pot that had a basket that sat on the rim of the coffee pot reaching down towards the bottom. Usually you brew tea in them. Some of them do well with coffee, but it just depends on how well they're made. It was 156 RMB for this thing but it ended up being the best coffee press-like thing I could find that wasn't glass or a coffeemaker (after working at Starbucks I really prefer coffee press coffee). So I purchased it, brought it home and washed it. Before I came home I took a walk down a side street by METRO and found a tiny restaurant selling pork dumplings with carrot (YUM!) so I had lunch. Then I walked around for another 45 min before heading back to the bus stop to get on the bus and come home.
Around 5pm I decided to try out my new coffee pot. I put some Starbucks Christmas blend in the basket, heated water in my water kettle and poured it in over the grounds. Surprisingly my whole water kettle went into the pot and there was still room. "Wow," I thought and went to heat more water. I poured about 4/5 of the second pot into the coffee pot before it was full. I couldn't believe it held that much water. I was ecstatic. I believe there was some celebration in the form of me jumping up and down. The coffee was fabulous. My 156 RMB gamble turned out to be a gem. I was in love. Around 6pm I got a call from Carol. She and Hamia were going to Wumei to get a few things (Carol wanted to ask Hamia to help her pick out a good brand of cooking oil, vinegar and soy sauce since not all of them have English on the bottles and some of the best ones are only in Chinese) and then they were going to dinner. She asked if I wanted to come along. I looked at my still-rather-full coffee pot, shrugged and said yes. I figured it would be a good test to see how long my insulated metal pot kept my coffee warm. The evening passed pleasantly as both Carol and Hamia are super fun people to be around. And then I headed home to my coffee pot test....
At approximately 9:05pm I poured a cup of coffee. It was piping hot. As if I had never left it. I was amazed. From 5pm when I first brewed the coffee to 9pm and it was still hot! WOW! Actually it's 10pm now and the coffee is STILL hot. That's it. I am totally in love. I am currently planning exactly how I will get this coffee pot safely home to the US with me when I go back.
Ah. I love this day. It was pretty close to perfect. | | |
| Today was a good day.
I got up. I finished the 2nd to last part of my grad school applications. I made a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. I went and bought train tickets to Shanghai on the 23rd so I can meet up with my friend there and go on to her hometown of Changsha. I went into Hangzhou and had dinner with Chris at the Subway by the Huanglong bus station. I bought a bag of coffee at Starbucks. Christmas blend. Yum. My favorite. And it won't be around for much longer so I knew I had to get another bag before it is gone. I got a seat on the bus on the way home and slept for the 50 min ride while listening to my Ipod. I walked to my apartment and bought a Coke (my first one in 3 weeks and I didn't even realize it till I bought it cuz I was craving something with sugar!). I made myself a cup of tea and watched a movie. Now I'm going to read for an hour in bed and go to sleep early-ish. Up early tomorrow morning and hopefully finishing my application materials, going to METRO and then planning my class for my stupid private student this Sunday. Speaking (very quickly) of the private student, I don't know how long I am going to be tutoring him. I've only had one class with him and I'm already sick of him and his family. More examples of people in China who have too much money and aren't using it for any real good. But perhaps that's best left for another blog entry.
Now off to my bed and my book! Goodnight and good morning to you all!  | | |
| China's Plastic Bag Crusade
Long long ago when I first returned to China at the end of October I mentioned something about plastic bags. Ever since then I have been reminding myself to post about it and kept forgetting. Tonight is the night I remember.
So China has this thing now where most stores are charging you for plastic bags. The supermarkets all sell light canvas ones for cheap (3.2RMB at Wumei) and charge for each plastic one you want to use if you don't have one (.5 or .3 RMB at Wumei...I can't remember which amount it is). Now that's not a lot to pay for plastic bags, but that adds up after a bit and so purchasing a few canvas bags is actually a really good investment (I have 2 lovely rainbow colored ones).
Anyway, when I came back to China and saw this was going on I was SO PROUD. GOOD FOR YOU CHINA! And SHAME ON YOU AMERICA! America should've adopted this policy LOOOOOOOONG ago. And now look--China has beat you to it and you all look like selfish uncaring environmentally careless idiots. Granted, China still has a LOOOOONG way to go to improve environmental conditions, but the fact that every major supermarket in the country is now following this policy and canvas grocery bags are available everywhere around you.....well, that's just GREAT! Every time I see someone with one of those crazy rainbow Wumei bags or other various canvas grocery bags I feel a sense of pride and satisfaction.
So this is (one of) my annual scolding blog to my family and friends.
STOP USING PLASTIC BAGS! Be cool and invest in some nice sturdy canvas bags. Most women carry large purses nowadays so don't tell me you have nowhere to put them when you go into the store.
When I was back home in the US this past year I did exactly that.....I raided my mom's store of nice heavy canvas bags from various sources (Grandpa's old hardware store made promotional bags, special promotional "Save the Earth" bags, etc.) and kept four of them in the trunk of my car at all times. Then whenever I had to go to the store it was just a quick pop of the trunk to retrieve a bag, fold it up, stuff it into my purse and then I was off to purchase things. I KNOW that many stores in America are selling canvas bags to customers as an alternative to the plastic bags, but right now it's only THAT...an ALTERNATIVE. I don't think it would be a bad idea for stores to start charging for plastic bags. Most people won't make a switch out of the goodness of their heart (sorry folks but it's true and I know a lot of you wouldn't do it even though you say you would), they need to be FORCED to make the change. Nothing puts the pressure on people to make a change like charging for something that was once free.
Come ON people! SERIOUSLY. Do this. Use canvas bags. I'm not joking. I'm dead serious. You will feel super good about yourself if you do and you might just help convince others to do it as well. Every time I exit Wumei with my rainbow Wumei bag (which is twice the size of a normal grocery bag by the way) I feel an intense wave of self satisfaction. Self satisfaction AND helping the environment?!?! It CAN be done!
Now go, my minions! Save the planet! | | |
| Hurrah for discovering new and wonderful foods in Asian countries!
Today I was buying a few apples at my local fruit store and I saw some girls buying some of the bulk snack foods that they have available at this particular place. I've always looked at them and thought: "I should really try some of these" but I never have.
Until today.
They have these small (maybe as long as your thumb) oval-shaped cookie/cracker things. They're swirled and look like mini cinnamon rolls almost and I have always wondered if they actually taste like them too. Honestly I figured that they probably didn't and they were probably fish flavored or something (like the bag of snacks the school gave us for Christmas my 1st year here that were wrapped like chocolate so we all took a huge bite and then realized it was actually fish jerky...UGH!). I wish I could post a picture of these things on here but since I have to post via proxy it won't let me load images on here. Darn.
Okay, anyway, so I asked these girls if they thought those things were really good and they said yes and told me they were sweet. So I paid for my apples and stood there debating if I wanted to try them or not. The guy who owns the store looks at me, laughs and hands me one of these things to try. THEY ARE SO GOOD. AND they ARE like mini cinnamon rolls...actually they're more like that Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal you Americans can buy in the grocery stores. I was immediately hooked. I got 4RMB worth of these things, which was enough to fill one of those small terribly flimsy plastic bags. I took them down to Hylan so he could try some (turns out he had tasted them his first year in China but didn't know where to buy them around here...so I filled him in on the location of this fruit store which is located conveniently near to our apartment...5 min walk). Between Hylan and I the bag is completely gone. Haha! I will have to sparingly purchase these things. I don't need to get any fatter.
Anyway, as I said before, Hurray for new food discoveries! | | |
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