I was so happy to find things like an iron, hair dryer there (different plugs here burn up those kinds of things from home unless you have a really awesome converter, not to be confused with a transformer which will help plug your plugs in but will burn some things out as well). I was also happy to find all kinds of food to fill up my empty cabinets.
Here’s the back:
I love how much people can cram into any type of transportation here. It’s fascinating.
We went to one other tiny market that had all kinds of familiar things if you’re willing to pay the price…which sometimes you are when you’re fresh in a new country and trying to feed your hungry family.
This was our load on the way home.
Oh man was I ever grateful for these guys that day!
I bought this yellow bowl at IKEA because I fell in love with how cheery it is.
I know, weird, but I love it.
We tried waffles for the first time the other day.
(We brought that sucker with us from the states.)
I was worried it wouldn’t make it through the first batch since it was smoking like crazy (no power converter):
See all that smoke?
But that trusty little thing made it through a whole breakfast and held up like a champ. We’ll see if it still works next time we try…
We branched out and tried Ocean Pancakes this morning (recipe HERE).
Our oven is small and the highest temperature it gets up to is 350 so it took an hour to cook those puppies.
Still, they were gobbled down pretty quick.
As far as dinners go we have tried to do pasta and a couple Mexican things, but our main standbys so far are the three recipes back in this post back HERE (Thai, stir fry and Japanese curry).
We have our very sweet “housekeeper” at least for the first couple months who helps make the evening meals and it is heaven I tell you!
The kids help set up the table and family dinners here have been pretty great.
She’s helped me gather some of the ingredients for whatever I want to make and it’s been kind of fun to work together in the kitchen.
This was our little trip to the “wet market” to get some potatoes:
She bargained those guys down like nobody’s business.
There are a few little “wet markets” right on the way home from school which is kind of nice.
We were delighted when we found enough ingredients for a really good green salad.
My kids thought they had died and gone to Heaven.
For reals.
Our house came with this fancy rice cooker we’ve used a ton:
There are all kinds of cool fruits here. My personal favorite to look at is the dragon fruit.
It’s the most creative fruit I’ve ever seen and makes me appreciate God’s art more than ever.
The outside looks like this:
Not the best picture but you get the idea.
Oh my word it’s cool. It tastes kind of like kiwi.
And here’s a pomelo:
That one was really dry but the pink ones are really good. There are some really great melons too, and all kinds of different apples. So much more to explore in that realm.
I had some other friends take me on a little field trip to Sam’s Club last week. Yes, low and behold, there is a Sam’s Club here!
It was really weird because as much as it had a Sam’s Club feel it was very Chinese (of course, we are in China). But it was almost like I was in this parallel universe or something. These ladies were here giving samples of some kind of seaweed treat just like the ladies do in the states (except without the seaweed 🙂
The produce section has stuff like this:
I love family dinner.
Always have, always will.
But there’s just something extra special about it here. Maybe it’s just that we have found a way to make things everyone likes and that’s rewarding. But even more, I believe it’s because we get to be together with so few interruptions.
We’re taking advantage of it while it lasts!!
p.s. I am doing an experiment taking off comments at least for a little while. I’m sad because I love comments, I actually even like the controversial comments although I know they make some people uncomfortable. I’ve had the sweetest notes from people sticking up for me and emails asking if I’m ok which I appreciate so much! But most comments I’m fine with because they make for really interesting discussions and I really enjoy knowing where people are coming from and trying to put myself in their shoes.
But there have been a few lately that went over the line of “interesting” and that’s not what I want this blog to be about. So I’m just seeing how this goes for a little while. I still have a bunch of questions I’ll get to some day on a Q & A but please send any other thoughts or questions to my email for the time being at sepphotography at gmail dot com. I cannot promise I can get back to you because I’m horrible with emails (as anyone knows who has tried emailing me before!) but I do read all my emails and love to hear your thoughts.