China Post #2 Getting Settled In

Well, today I went with Dylan to check out a school at the other area we could have stayed during our time in China. It is far more rural and you can't walk to anywhere really. We caught a ride with a family that has a 3 and 5 year old that attend the school. They have been in Dalian for a year and a half and have another year to go. The school seemed really nice but they did not have space for Dylan. They are however planning on opening a school in May much closer to us, perhaps within walking distance, I have to see the exact location first, some people say walking would be OK and other say it would be too far. The mother, Heidi also had some very useful information, having been out here for so long. First and foremost she gave me info on a way to be able to log onto the web sites that I normally do and it seems to work!

I was also able to have their family driver take me to a shop where I was able to pick up a sim card for the phone we are being loaned by one of Linda's co-workers. I also put minutes on it and got a calling card. Then Lou, the driver, helped me change the settings on the phone so I could read it, pretty hard to function with a phone displaying a bunch of Chinese characters.

Anyway, some interesting things that I've noticed. In shopping malls there are not really different stores. It is more of a large open area with lines drawn on the floor to separate shops, it makes it hard to remember that the people don't work together and don't know what the other "shops" have. It is weird to see dog poop on the sidewalk and no dogs, I finally did see a dog today. Our car seat with a GoGoKids stroller attachment seems to be a huge curiosity, though maybe it is just the sight of the stroller in general. I've seen strollers in stores, but again not out on the street. I don't if people are thinking I'm lazy for not carrying Dylan when he gets tired, Dylan is lazy for not walking or that we pamper him too much. In some of the bigger cities (Dalian is about 2 million, so we are talking really big cities) plastic bags are apparently outlawed, but here they want to put everything in a bag for you. It seems like soda cans are thicker and bottles are thinner.

Apparently there is a local lady that works at Intel that is a climber and so Linda is trying to grill her for info on local climbing and how to travel to different locations. OK, I'll try to get photos up next time.