Let me start by saying I lost my iPhone. Well, I didn’t actually lose it, but I left it in a taxi in Beijing. We were on our way from the hotel to the airport, and I had the phone sitting under my leg. I jumped out of the taxi so fast that I forgot it. By time I realized my phone was missing, we were checking in our bags. We had an airport attendant helping us, who spoke very little English. I managed to explain to him how I left my phone in the taxi. We had a receipt with the phone number of the business and taxi number. The attendant called the taxi company. While waiting for the company to contact the taxi driver, we were still checking in our bags. For domestic flights in China, we were only allowed one check bag of 20 kg, which is less than 50 lbs. We had to pay for a second check bag and for each bag weighing more than 20 kg. Alyssa and I had to pay 800 Yuan CASH. Well, I only had about 80 Yuan cash. Oh no worries, the airport attendant walked us over to the ATM, and waited for us to withdraw cash. I didn’t have money in my Capital One account, which doesn’t charge ATM fees. I only had money in my Chase account. The ATM charged 4.95 US and Chase charged 5.00 US to withdraw the money. The money really wasn’t an issue, but I wanted to use my credit card because we are supposed to get reimbursed for our checked luggage. I couldn’t believe that a major airport would not take a credit card. On top of all this, I was still freaking out about my phone. AND, it was so frustrating dealing with the airport attendants, who spoke very little English. I am not upset that they don’t speak English well; in fact, we are in their country. In the US, we become upset when people don’t speak English, so I could only imagine how they felt about us. Thankfully, they were very patient, and we were able to communicate with them the best way possible. After all the time the attendant spent on the phone with the taxi company, they were unable to find my phone. The taxi driver believes the next passenger picked it up. After looking on the bright side, I have my aunt’s T-mobile phone, and I transferred all my pictures to my computer the night before. In all, I really didn’t lose much. It will cost to replace the phone, but I can worry about it when I return to the US. At this moment, I’m still not feeling homesick, but keep reading.
We arrived in Chongqing (CQ), about 9:30pm Thursday night. We had already spent most of the day at Beijing airport, so we were exhausted. One of our connections in CQ, Shirley, picked us up from the airport. Actually, Shirley and the university’s driver picked us up. They were driving a small SUV. Remind you, we had five large suitcases, three carry-on suitcases, and three backpacks. We managed to fit everything in the car, but it left us very little room to squeeze everybody in. Come to find out, we had to drive an hour to the university. Alyssa, Shirley, and I squeezed in half of the back seat. It was not the best hour of my life, but sometimes we have to do what we have to. During the car ride to the university, we found out we were moving into our apartments that night. We were under the impression we were staying in a hotel the first night. We didn’t have towels to shower, and they weren’t taking us to the supermarket until the next day. To make matters worse, Shirley told us we had to pay a 500 Yuan deposit and 200 Yuan for prepaid utilities bill. We were unaware of this expense, and we were told our housing was completely paid for. We didn’t have the cash, and they couldn’t take us to an ATM. I immediately contacted Sherry, our contact back in the US, questioning why we were not told about this expense. After going back and forth for a while, Sherry said she was take care of everything the next day since it was so late. At this time, it was already passed 11:30pm.
Before this experience, I have never lived in a high-rise. Luckily, they placed us on the second floor. We have a great view of the complex, and mountains in the back drop. We are located right across the street from campus, no more than a five minute walk. It’s a two-bedroom apartment with fairly sized rooms. There are no closet spaces like what we are used to, but we have a closet cabinet. We have a desk, night stand, and a bed. The bed is hard as a rock, but I have to find a way to deal with it. We have a wooden sofa with no cushion. A wooden chair with no cushion. A coffee table, dining room table with six chairs, a TV stand and a TV with no cable. The kitchen has a two-burner stove, but no oven. A small refrigerator and freezer. The kitchen leads to the balcony with a washer and no dryer. We have to hang dry all of our clothes, which will be fun. The bathroom is pretty much the shower, toilet, and small sink all in one. There is no divider! You have to see it, so I will include a picture when I can.
We have an air conditioner in every room, but no heat. Well, let me tell you that story. The night we arrived, it was freezing in the apartment. It was colder in here than it was outside. We kept asking about heat, but they said there was no heat. On the other hand, we were told there would be heat by our US contact. After freaking out about no heat, the property manager handed us a remote to control the air conditioners. Come to find out, we could increase the temperature in the room to 30 degree Celsius maximum. I don’t know what the Chinese believe, but that is heat for the Americans. We cranked each “air conditioner” in the apartment up to 30 degree Celsius. It felt amazing after a couple of hours. We were so worried that we would not have heat. We were also advised we did not have internet, and wouldn’t be able to get it until Saturday. I was too tired to stress about internet, but I was sad that I wouldn’t be able to blog for a few days. After the long day of losing my phone and everything else that came with our journey to Chongqing, we were finally able to get to bed.
If you still think I am over exaggerating about getting home sick, keep reading.
On Friday morning, I woke up to use the restroom. I went to wash my hands, and discovered we did not have hot water. No worries! I contacted Brandon to see if he had hot water so Alyssa and I could shower, but he didn’t either. Remember I said we didn’t have towels, and we weren’t going to the supermarket until 11am Friday. Our Chinese contact gave us two brand new kitchen towels to clean with. Alyssa and I were going to improvise by using the towels to dry off with, but we were definitely not taking a cold shower. I had to find a way, so I washed up in the sink. I will not act brand new; I know I have washed up in the sink plenty of times in my day. It is not the same as a shower, but it had to work. We were getting ready to meet the other professors and our Chinese contacts at 11 am to head to Campus A of Chongqing University. We will be working at Campus D, which is further up in the mountains. Our campus houses freshman, sophomores, and some graduate students. We were heading to Campus A to have lunch with Dean Chen, who is the dean of the joint institute between UC and CQU. Alyssa, Brandon and I didn’t eat dinner the previous day, and we didn’t eat breakfast. It’s safe to say we were starving. Especially after we had fairly large breakfasts during our stay in Beijing. We were riding a shuttle from Campus D to Campus A, which come to find out is about an hour long ride. It wasn’t until about 12:30 pm that we had lunch. After you hear about this lunch, it was worth the wait.
Dean Chen was treating us to a traditional style Chinese lunch in a hotel near Campus A. There were nine of us sitting at a round table. In the middle of the table was a rotating glass. There were already four dishes sitting in the middle when we arrived. We were informed not to sit before we were instructed. We waited until Shirley said we can sit down. Traditional Chinese sit in order with the eldest first. Since we were informal, we all sat down at the same time. At first sight, I knew there wouldn’t be anything for me to eat. One dish was pigeon with the head still on. It was hard for me to look at the head, let alone eat it. I asked Dean Chen if they had any vegetarian food. He told me it would be very hard for me to make it in China as a vegetarian, and I would have to venture out. Still looking at the pigeon head on the table, I was not venturing out that day. I ate some type of soup, rice cakes, white rice, seaweed, and another cooked veggie dish. I was still hungry, and started to worry that maybe
Dean Chen was right. How would I make it in China as a vegetarian? At that very moment, the waitress brought in steamed eggs. They were absolutely delicious. It reminded me of egg soufflé. I had a very big portion of the steamed eggs. The waitress also brought out a spicy noodle dish, and it was also delicious. Very spicy, but very good. Chongqing is well known for its spicy food, so I look forward to trying more spicy dishes. The lunch turned out to be great. The waitress brought out food for days. Dr. Walker joked asking if we can box the food up and take it home, but no one responded. Guess that means they don’t take food home. The food left on the table was enough to feed another nine people, so it’s sad if they had to throw the food away. One thing is for sure, I don’t know how the Chinese stay so small. Dr. Walker and his wife asked our Chinese contacts what’s their secret, but they didn’t respond to that question either.
After lunch, we headed to a supermarket. We asked Shirley to take us to Walmart, but somehow she got confused. She took us to another store that was similar to Walmart, Carrefour. The store was huge, and had everything like a typical Walmart Supercenter. Before heading in, Dr. Walker and Alyssa wanted to get money from the ATM. Dr. Walker was successful, but Alyssa wasn’t. The ATM kept Alyssa’s card, saying it was reported lost. This was only a small occurrence to add to our disastrous start in Chongqing. Shirley contacted the bank, and figured out she could get the card back in three days. Finally, we headed into the store. I bought an iron, towel, two wash rags, skillet, spatula, fork, spoon, knife, plate, cup, shower mat, bottle of all-purpose cleaner, hand soap, two waters, pack of Doublemint, pack of Mentos, and a pack of hooks to hang towels. My total was 240 Yuan, which is 40 US. That’s pretty awesome. I swiped my credit card, and everything was good to go. You know I have some more upsetting news, Alyssa’s other card and Brandon’s card did not work. Dr. Walker had enough to cover each of their supplies. Our luck keeps getting better.
We were trying to get back to Campus D, so we could get our internet early. With our luck, we didn’t make it. We ended up in a cell phone store for almost two hours waiting on Dr. Walker to purchase a SIM card. Afterwards, we headed back to Campus D. We were all very hungry, so we ate at the campus canteen. There were so many restaurants to choose from. Well, as a vegetarian I only have a select few. I was finally able to try the Chinese version of peanut butter and jelly, eggs with tomatoes. It was so good! With every meal in Chinese, it came with white rice. I have to admit, I have been getting some funny looks because I am a vegetarian. I don’t know if they agree with my decision, but they look down on me when I say I don’t eat meat. Oh well! It’s my personal decision, and I wouldn’t change it for anyone. After dinner, we decided to stop in a local supermarket for food. I think we should have waited to go into this store because we had a gift that we weren’t expecting. While Brandon had his hand resting on a shelf, a product fell from it. At least that’s what he thought it was. The product was a mouse. Yep! You read that right, a mouse! It was still alive, but must have hurt himself from falling. A store clerk jetted across the back of the store and placed her foot on it. I thought she was going to smash the life out of it. I couldn’t watch anymore. I was going to buy fresh fruit, but that changed my mind instantly. I grabbed a few waters and a bag of chips, and jetted out of the store.
On Saturday morning, I woke up to no running water. It was bad enough that we didn’t have hot water, but now no water. Our days were literally getting worse. On the upside, we were meeting at 10 am to pick up our internet. Of course, we had to receive some type of unexpected news again. For the internet, we had to pay a 200 yuan deposit, 88 Yuan/month, and three months in advance. Additionally, we found out the modem was not wireless and only had one Ethernet port. We had to purchase a router, but we didn’t know how much that was going to be. After grunting about all of the unknown expenses we had already incurred, our Chinese contact reached out to the Dean. He decided to pay for our routers and have them dropped off at our home. After we handed over the money for our internet and waited over two hours, we found out we had to wait for someone to come install our modem. Another day without internet really increased my unhappiness. At this point, I haven’t ate breakfast or lunch. We just waited two hours for internet, paid more money, and still had to wait. I had enough! I was at my breaking point. I needed to use the restroom and was taken to a hole in the ground. Now, I really miss the US. I really believe that everyone should experience what we had to go through in these few days. You would miss home like never before. The small luxuries that we take for granted on an everyday basis. To have to bring tissue everywhere because public restrooms do not supply toilet paper. To have to pee in the ground and imagine you’re squatting on the side of the road because you couldn’t make it to the next rest stop. To have to carry hand sanitizer because there isn’t any soap to wash your hands.
This experience has been overwhelming, but I am grateful for it. I will begin to cherish the little things that are not a normality for others. In one way or another, I will learn something from every good and bad experience we encounter.
This blog only covers up to Saturday. I will post another blog within the next day or so to catch up. Sorry it has been so long, but these days have not been easy. I know this blog is very long, but I hope it’s worth the read.
Peace!