Unorganized Days

I forget often to mention daily life.  When I first got here everything was so new, that there wasn't enough time to write about everything.  Now, with day to day stuff is not so new it doesn't seem important anymore.  But that doesn't change how different it is from back home, so I can elaborate now.

Most mornings I get up, have instant oatmeal or yogurt for breakfast.  Both are sold at almost all supermarkets and are easy to come by.  I also have instant coffee, which is also incredibly easy to get, lemon tea with honey, which is delicious, or hot cocoa, a recent acquisition from a new shopping center that opened this last week which has imported foods.  If I have class, I then load up my bag with the relevant text book, my homework folder, lesson plan or notes, and a thermos of lemon tea.  I place the bag in my bicycle basket then ride about three minutes to get to the building my first class is in.  During that three minute ride I might pass any of the following: people taking wedding photos in a rented suite and dress, people playing 'gate ball' something similar to croquet, someone with a trash collection cart with a large straw broom attached, cars, bikes, electric bikes, students walking.  For the last five, you may think these things happen adjacent to each other, but in fact, they all happen in the same place - on the road/side walk where I am riding.

I then teach class.  If I am in the North Foreign Language Building, during breaks if I stand on the balcony I can hear someone playing a flute.  I have yet to figure out where exactly the mysterious flute player is, only that he/she is there most mornings I am there.  Though the individual rooms are heated, the inside courtyard is not, so if I leave the classroom I must make sure I'm bundled up.  If I am in the Comprehensive Building, during breaks I often go to the stairwell where the sound of students reciting lessons, speeches, and practicing pronunciations in Chinese, English, German, and Japanese, creates a dull roar that almost cannot be heard from outside.  The bathrooms in both buildings are similar.  They are squatting toilets that are open, so that all five other occupants plus those waiting for their turn, could potentially see you at work.  There is a trough that is flushed every so often - at least once an hour.  The Foreign Language Building has a mirror by the sink, but otherwise the two buildings are the same in this respect.  There is a blue sheet with the character 女, for woman, or 男, for man, blocking the inside from view by the opposite sex.

Lunch and dinner tend to be very similar and are based entirely on my mood at the time.  Outside South Gate, there are a variety of restaurants that serve a variety of dishes on rice or noodles.  Outside East Gate are most restaurants, though perhaps owing to the fact I usually go there with students, the restaurants seem to be more specialized in specific kinds of noodle dishes.  Outside West Gate are a few restaurants, but the main appeal is the variety of stalls that sell a wide selection of foods - Korean sushi, egg and ham in steamed bread, egg vegetables and sausage in a piece of bread that looks like a tortilla, fried chicken, stinky tofu, fried balls of pumpkin dough, choose your own noodle soup.

Some days if I have time and am feeling adventurous, I go out from the campus area.  Sometimes I am with other people and we show each other stuff we have heard about.  Sometimes I am by myself, usually on my bicycle testing myself to go farther than I've been before.  Traffic is crazy, but I have come to feel no longer controlled by my fear of it.

And then at the end of the day I sleep, but depending on the time I can still hear people walking around outside, old people exercising, or fireworks at Millennium park.