First day in my temporary residence
Photos of the temporary residence prove that I now have peace of mind. Come visit! I mean it. I purchased kitchen and bathroom supplies already. I intend to get the local experience more than in times past.
I just made the walk from my apartment to the Village in about 7 minutes. There is a fruit cart right outside my building. I think I’ll even hang things on the wall…. I thought the jet lag skipped me but I have just noticed that after sleeping through the night I am ready to sleep again at about 11pm Texas time. That’s 30 minutes ago. I am working through it by staying up and active.
I ate a most wonderful local dinner last night. I got my own subway pass. I spent two hours in a cab today going what seemed like about 10 km. That’s enough to make me sick. NO more cabs for awhile. I love to walk and I love the subway. I’ll call Tracy (my connector friend) this evening. I also need to see Steven, my new bowling buddy. They are both courtesy of Lucy.
I am GLAD to have my own place. It’s walking distance from all the social stuff for days and nights. I walk to a grocery store too. I am attending a Strawberry music festival this weekend in Beijing. You can google it. There is also a car show that I may pass on.
As usual there have been some road bumps and I take them in stride:
cell phone was locked and not working; I tried the back-up phone- no battery- paid $5 and got a replacement battery- no charger- got a charger- free – now the original phone got “unlocked” so it works fine now – the old sim card expired – I had to get a new one- no big deal – I spent 2 hours today in a cab going about 5 miles – That drives me CRAZY and I get car sick. It’s a strange culture here- It’s cool to ride in the car. The subway is so much quicker- I got a subway pass. I’ll be using that when I am not walking from now on. With my slick apple computer it is nearly impossible to get it hooked to the internet. It’s a bit frustrating. I’ll get it corrected to have internet in my apartment- otherwise I’ll spend days in Starbucks- that’s right – all the way to Beijing to spend hours each day at a coffee shop- I don’t even drink $5/cup coffee or free coffee.
In the grand scheme of things- I am getting settled in Beijing. I know my way around – I have cash in pocket- I am all good. As soon as I figure the Apple computer/ internet thing I’ll need a new challenge- maybe I’ll leave it as it is.
That’s it for this very moment. I am also finishing up a (potentially) very large project. All good things.
Right now I am down in the lobby using a cable out of another computer that I plugged into my laptop. I already purchased soap, shampoo, a knife, cutting board, fry/ boil pot/ pan and a few cleaning supplies from the supermarket. I also bought towels
Are you buying stuff at Carrefour?