10 April 2010
Greetings all!
I hope this note finds you all well. Rod and I are doing OK here in Shenyang. We went on the city tour on Monday, (it was a holiday, so not much was open) We went to the Forbidden City (a smaller version of the one in Beijing as this was the summer home of the 3rd emperor of the Qing dynasty..like I've heard of him!) and big event of the day, we got a card to join and shop at Metro (similar to Sams Club) and Rod got a cellphone. We had lunch at a restaurant in Shenyang where they specialized in dumplings (not southern dumplings..it's a pasta like a small ravioli, but instead of pillow shaped, it's more like a little pouch with a drawstring- shaped pasta with various stuffings. These are then steamed in bamboo steamers, stacked on top of each other and brought to the table on the steamer. Very tasty. My chopstick usage has improved significantly...otherwise, I wouldn't be eating anything other than breakfast here at the hotel!
The other event of the week was that we made a decision on the apartment we're going to live...and in fact, it's not far away..it's just a few floors away here in the Intercontinental hotel. We decided to get a serviced apartment here in the hotel, meaning that the housekeeping staff does the cleaning and changes the towels and sheets! It's centrally located so Rod can be autonomous during the day and we can both depend on the hotel staff to help us (or write out cards to tell the driver etc). I'll send a pic when we move it...that won't be until around the 1st of May. I still don't have my residence permit yet, and even after that we'll have to wait until the contracts are signed etc. I'm not sure what takes so long, but I'm not in a strong negotiating position, so I'm just going with the flow!
Some of you have asked about the weather...it's still late Winter here...it snowed on Friday (you'll see in the pictures, we both still have on our winter coats)! Not a lot of snow, but it was cold and wet all day. I haven't seen any flowers blooming here yet (unlike some beautiful flowers I saw of KY spring pictures..thank you Jeannine & David!)
Today, we went to Walmart to buy a camera (we packed our charging station for the other camera in the air shipment, and of course it's not here yet, so when the battery finally went down, it was useless. The camera was not cheap (around $150.00)...but I wasn't going to miss any photo opportunities...so we had to buy it!). Walmart is not exactly like home (except everything is made in China here too!) ...but it's not bad, and it's within walking distance of the hotel. The deli there looked like good food and we'll probably do takeout there some times!
The view from the front of Walmart...doesn't quite look like the ones I know in SC or KY...of course neither does the offerings in the store...more about that later!
On the way back from Walmart, we went to the underground market..this place is amazing. There is an entire shopping mall, to include a food court..under the city streets! I took a few pictures and then a security guy came up and said that I couldn't take pictures...and I was sure he was going to confiscate my new camera...but thankfully he didn't. So I put my camera up...then when we were going to another section, he found us, and said he could take a picture of both of us...so we gave him the camera (hoping this wasn't a ploy to get our camera!), and sure enough, he took a picture of the both of us. You would never know, this was an under-the-street shopping center!
The underground shopping center food court in Shenyang...very clean believe it or not!
Sarah & Rod Miller in the underground shopping center in Shenyang, China
So that's all for this week. Thanks for all your emails and notes...it makes doing these updates fun...and reminds me of my great friends at home!
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