Day 1 in Xiamen! September 7, 2014

The flight from Hong Kong to Xiamen on Dragon Air was uneventful… That's good news! We were served pork buns, and although we weren’t really hungry, we all ate them because we weren’t really clear on where our next meal was coming from. Tasted kind of like Thanksgiving stuffing in a bun—not bad!

We arrived in Xiamen, collected our 7 bags between us, and had no problems getting through immigration control. Christine said the lady smiled at her and seemed pleased that she was coming to stay.

The next venture was to get a taxi to our apartment. Having no notions of Chinese makes it a bit dicey… The taxis were clearly not big enough to take us and all of our luggage, so we wanted to get two, and have one follow the other. Christine who knows her way around here a bit and could show the taxi where to go, and Kynza and I would go in the taxi that followed. So the first taxi driver wanted to put all of our luggage in his taxi—it was clearly half hanging out of the trunk, and there was no place for us to sit! He wanted to bargain for the price with Christine, using hand signals. The police who monitors the taxi line saw that and gave him a bit of a slap, since negotiating taxi prices is illegal. Christine kept saying, ‘Two taxis!’ All this happening while the people behind us in line were also trying to get around us and into taxis – feeling a bit conspicuous, like we were holding up progress. I believe we will be getting used to this feeling. Finally the taxi driver relented, and let another taxi take Kynza and me and part of our luggage. We told him multiple times to follow the first taxi. I had the address of our apartment printed out in Chinese characters, and I gave that to him so he would have some notion of where he was going. As he studied it, sweet Kynza kept repeating, ‘Follow, follow, follow,” as she saw her mom veering in and out of sight. I think our taxi driver had every intention of following, and I think perhaps he understood that English word, but I’m guessing he didn’t really want to be told what to do. So at one point he acted like he was following a different taxi, at one point he got ahead of the one he was following, but he did follow, and we arrived at our destination unscathed, with our 7 bags, and not really the worse for wear!

Sunni, one of the girls who works in Christine’s officer here, was waiting for us at the apartment. So lovely to see her face! She speaks good English, and has already been such a help to Christine. The apartment is amazingly wonderful, and in such a nice setting, but more on that later.  Just to say especially Kynza was so thrilled that the apartment was way better than what her mom had built her up for.

Sunni took us up and gave us the key and showed us basics like using the interphone. She brought Christine a SIM card for her phone, and they tried to make that work, but  being able to make phone calls is something we still haven’t mastered. 

Sunni left us some mooncakes and a great big pomelo, as today is the autumn festival, and those are the foods they use to celebrate the holiday. Before she left she said she would call a taxi to take us to a Costco-type grocery store (Metro) so we could get food. Aside from the moon cakes and pomelo, the only items of food in the house were some tea, soy sauce vinegar, and something that looks like corn starch. So—a bit of shopping seemed pretty essential.

We all took a short nap, then had a cup of tea to give us some energy. As we were drinking, we made a shopping list, knowing full well that it would be hit and miss as to whether we could find the things we wanted. The challenge was that we had a 30 minute limit. That is how long a taxi who takes you somewhere is allowed to wait for you. It’s hard to get a taxi, especially since we can’t speak Chinese to call a taxi, so we didn’t want to come out of the store and have lost our driver! So this was destined to be a shopping spree like you see on TV where they fill the cart as fast as they can. 

Over our tea and mooncakes, we developed a strategy  -- two copies of a list organized into categories like dairy, pasta and rice, vegetables and fruit, etc. Both Christine and I would have a copy of the list, and we would fan out to different sections of the store and get stuff and bring it back to the cart.  

The taxi came for us as planned, and when we got to the store, the driver pointed to where we should meet him when we came out. And then we were off to the races. My first assignment was vinegar and oil – took me awhile to find vinegar that didn’t have soy sauce in it! Found some corn oil that looked like it would be okay for cooking (our only pan so far is a wok), and then Bingo – a special display of olive oil! We were in such a hurry there was no time to compare costs or consult with each other --- just make split second decisions. When I got back to the cart, Kynza was very proud of the Gold Medal flour she had found – at least good for pancakes and crepes. I went off to look for milk and butter. Found a 10-pack of UHT (boxed) milk from Australia, butter from France, and good looking yogurts – yea! Back at the cart, C and K had found Nutella, Skippy, honey, beans, rice, pasta – we were loading up! Then off to the fruits and vegetables… Cauliflower, red peppers, kiwis, bananas, cucumber, a few onions. When we finally decided we needed to proceed to checkout we had everything we really wanted except bread, which is not big in China. We decided to pass on meat until we figure out what's what. 

We made it through checkout with only a few glitches... Christine thought she had the card number for her company to be able to buy at the store, but the clerk couldn't get it to work. Was fairly comical when Christine didn't understand her Chinese, so she started writing out the words in Chinese characters, thinking that might be easier to understand. Finally she threw up her hands and found a way to check us through. The line was getting very backed up behind us, and since we had already emptied our very full cart onto the checkout counter, it would have been hard for her to send us away! Next issue was that we hadn't weighed the produce in the produce department, and again, we couldn't understand what the problem was. Finally the cashier called for someone to come and get our produce and go weigh it. We were definitely  making a scene. Christine followed him back to the produce department, and Kynza and I stayed with the checker. The guy came back with our weighed produce, but no Christine! I was getting a bit concerned, because she had the money to pay, and we really couldn't hold up this line any longer. I asked Kynza in probably to loud of voice, "Where's your mom?" And someone in the next line over answered in good American English, "She's getting bread." Good find! She's met this guy while weighing the vegetables, and he told her where to get bread. She came rushing up just in time with two loaves of what turned out to be not-so-good bread. We paid, and off we went to find our taxi driver calmly waiting for us. Can't remember how much the taxi ride was, but definitely not much for all the bother!

Home, and unpacked the groceries, and beyond dead tired. Top Ramen soup for dinner -- not sure whether the Chinese eat this or not! Actually tasted good. Crashed on our very, very hard Chinese mattresses... Great way to end a Chinese day!