Adventures in Guangzhou!

Though we never ordered it, we seem to be getting a subscription to the "China Daily," the English language newspaper sponsored and run by the Chinese government. Needless to say, it's a skewed perspective of current events and poorly edited. So most days our box only gets stuffed with the latest edition of the daily and that's about it. Every once in a while we get someone else's mail by accident. That's sort of an occasion because then we get to give it back to the guards (great guys) and explain that it's not ours.

This week, however, I got a novel in the mail along with a moleskin journal. What a day! Having just finished Pete Hamill's "Snow in August," I was ready for a new read anyway. I've just started Haruki Murakami's "A Wild Sheep Chase," and so far it's a really intriguing read. Good stuff. Besides a book I also got a package of necessities from my parents (hi mom! hi dad!) including duct tape, stain stick, toilet sanitizer, and some cold medicine. They definitely came through in the clutch, given that most of my clothes now have small oil stains from splattering noodles.

The bar has officially ben set though. This morning I got a call from our foreign affairs liason who said I had a package in her office. This was a bit odd to begin with because usually the protocal with packages is as such- I get a package slip in the mailbox, I go get my passport, head across the street to China Post, hand over the slip, wait a random amount of time (it's been anywhere from 45 seconds to about 15 minutes), and then happily tear open my package as I head back across to the school. As I got to the office Lisa, our liason, launched into some apologetic story about how since it was a Fed Ex package they thought it was for the director of the school.

I wish I could have seen the look on the guy's face when he opened it up to discover home-made chocolate chip cookies from my friend Caitlin. I'm just glad he didn't eat any! It's actually incredible to me that you can bake cookies somewhere in Boston, package them up in some tuperware, throw them in a box, and three days later I can eat them in Guangzhou, China. Impressive. Chocolate chip cookies are pretty incredible but there are also rumblings of Murdicks Fudge coming through the international postal system. I think that may even trump home-baked cookies...

Besides packages in the mail, I also bought a whole bunch of packages this week at IKEA. That's right, folks--Guangzhou now has an IKEA and it is all the new rage. From what I've heard, it has had a line out the door since it opened about a month ago. I was a little hesitant to venture over there and fight massive crowds, but I decided it was worth it. Looking around my apartment, I realized that it really wouldn't take too much to make it a much nicer home.

As I walked into the store with my friend Meggie (always good to have female companions when shopping), I was pleased to see that it was only mildly bursting with people. Not exactly empty, but I could breathe so it was fine. Entering the showroom, I also noticed that it was set up in the exact same way as the IKEAs I've been to in America. I've always thought it was sort of weird how they make you walk through these fake living rooms and kitchens before you get to the stuff you actually buy but whatever. I more or less sprinted through and got to the section where you actually pick things up.

One laundry basket, two candles, one picture frame, two pillows, one wok, and one bedside lamp later, I was checking out. The highlight of the entire experience (besides everything still being so cheap) was that they had hot dogs and soft serve ice cream just like in the states! For one kuai, it was far too tempting to pass up. They even had mustard! Mustard!! I may go back just for a meal since it's so inexpensive. Gotta love it...