Happy 100 Everyone!

This marks my 100th post since I started this lovely blog of mine. Remember when I told all of you fine folks about my decision to move to China? I was pretty nervous back then. I had this skewed perception of what China was going to be. I stepped off the plane and into this new culture a little over three months ago. I wish I could say every day here has been a good one, but it has simply not been that way. As a matter of fact, there have been many, many bad days. I try not to blog about all of the bad things. You know, I like to stay positive on here.

Theresa and I have had a bit of an annoying weekend but we seem to be handling the stress pretty well. We tried for the third time today to get our Inner Mongolia tickets without success. We have decided to postpone the trip until we can get a Chinese coworker to help us buy the tickets. Basically China makes sure everything is as difficult as possible, especially if you are a foreigner. We should have known buying train tickets was going to be an unpleasant ordeal. So instead of going on a mini vacation for my birthday we are going to go out to a Blue's Bar and hope for some live music. The good news is that my mom is coming in 11 days. I can't believe how fast time flies. I can't wait for her to come because there are so many things I have been wanting to do but have not had the opportunity.

Today my roomie and I spent some time reading on the couch, ate our leftover Mexican food, and then headed out to get our train tickets (which did not happen) and grab a coffee at Central Perk. Yes, Central Perk, from Friends. We even sat on the big, orange couch. We had tried going there yesterday but it was closed, basically because that is how our weekend has been. It was really cool sitting inside the cafe. I was really praying for Ross and Rachel to walk through the door. That would have been something, huh?

I was very excited to find Central Perk

I was very sad to see it was closed.

Day 2 gave us a little more luck. Here we are on the famous orange couch. Also, check out the Chinese Phoebe in the background. I wanted her to start singing Smelly Cat soooo badly!

This post is kind of all over the place...

Basically since T has been back we have been enjoying a lot of good food. We actually found our favorite dumpling place is right down the street from us. We found a delicious Middle Eastern restaurant a couple of nights ago, ate some yummy Mexican, Indian goodness, and even ate some pretty delicious Chinese food last night. Who would have thought? Good Chinese food in China... We went grocery shopping today and now our fridge is full again. Maybe next weekend we will find some more tourist sites and actually explore some of this country that we are living in.

Yesterday, during our second trip to buy our unsuccessful train tickets, we met some travelers from Israel. They were trying to buy tickets to Inner Mongolia, as well. The crazy lady behind counter 16 (the designated foreigner counter) tried telling them to go to The International Hotel to buy their tickets. She told us this exact same thing last Friday. When we found The International Hotel the train ticket office was closed. We went back to the hotel yesterday morning to learn they (no duh) only sell international tickets. We were told to go back to the train station to buy our tickets. While waiting in line for the second time, the travelers from Israel asked us where we were going. We told them about Hohhot and that we wanted to ride horses and camels. When I heard the lady behind the counter telling them about The International Hotel I decided to interject and explain that they were not traveling internationally but instead would still be in China (i.e. they were traveling nationally to another province in China). Then the lady said they did not have train tickets to the city they were going to. That was basically all the help I could offer. When it came to Theresa and I buying our tickets the lady told us to come back today at 9am because we could not purchase our tickets for the 28th until 5 days before leaving. So today we went to a different ticket office that was near Central Perk and we were told there were no sleeper carts available. We decided we did not want to sit on a train for 10 hours overnight and that the vacation would not end up being as much fun because we would be too tired to enjoy it. So, in China, the third time is not a charm.

Even though all of that was a bummer... I have still been having a relatively enjoyable time lately. We are currently watching season one of Friends and we made the decision to add some very special four-legged friends to our Chinese home soon. More on that later.

Basically, I want to tell all of you reading this- Thank you for your love and support! I am happy you have been here along for the ride with me this whole time. Stay tuned for my next 100 posts.

Mandarin lesson:
Yī bǎi 百 (one hundred)