Exploring

Monday, Septermber 15, 2008-9-16
Today is a national holiday—Mid-Autumn Festival. Most people don't have to work. We don't have school either. I got up early and washed clothes by hand. Then hung them out to dry. It was a scorcher so they dried quickly. Then I took out my maps and tried to figure out where we had walked yesterday. Also, tried to learn the names of streets. Speaking of which, “lu” means street; “qiao” means bridge. That's helpful. I'm picking up a little language here and there. These are pictures of the canal that runs through the Upper East Side. I can see my apartment building if I turn 45 degrees to the right of this shot.

Once I had a pretty good idea of the geography I set out to explore. I began by re-tracing the route we took yesterday, having heard there is great little place where I can get a 2 hour foot and body massage for $15 in that area; finding it becane one of my goals. But before I could do that I stopped in at Ozone Fitness Center in the heart of the Upper East Side and only a few minutes from the school. It is excellent. Has just about everything one could ask for: treadmill with satellite TV so I catch the news from around the world, etc; big rooms full of all kinds of weight machines, elliptical machines, bikes, etc.; swimming pool; aerobics room; personal trainer; classes, massage. The price is pretty spendy, but I think we will be able to get a corporate discount. Either way, though, I think I'm going to have get a membership for both my mental and physical health.

Finding the foot and body massage place was not as easy as I'd expected. Not only did I find one in that location, there were three and they all appeared to be closed. I guessed that everyone was taking the holiday off. I'll have to go back next week. The fresh fruit vendors were not on vacation though, so I bought a backpack full of apples, tangerines, kiwi, and grapes. I have learned enough Chinese to understand the woman who sold me the tangerines and kiwi when she told me that they had gone to the US before being shipped to China. I could tell from her gestures and facial expressions th at she thought that was ironic.

No good walk through unchartered territory would be complete without getting lost at least once, so I made sure I did that too. Actually, when we were exploring yesterday, Patty pointed down a street and said, “If you follow that street, it takes you to Jingkelong.” Jingkelong is a supermarket where you can also buy all kinds of stuff including food. It's in the basement of a small mall. The other levels are department stores and a Super 8. I needed to go to Jingkelong and I knew how to get home from there, so I set out in that direction with 5-6 pounds of fruit on my back.

The route took me along a residentiral street, maybe 6 blocks long, pretty much like the hutongs we saw in Hohai--all one-story brick dwellings, most of which had a little shop of one kind or another fronting the street. As it was a holiday, the streets were full of people having a good time. I was the only foreigner in the bunch, and I suppose people wondered what that was all about, but they were very friendly, and I enjoyed being a part of their day for a few minutes.

I came out on Liangmaqiao Lu, or something like that, but Jingkelong was nowhere in sight. Straight ahead was a MacDonald's and a big local market called Sunny Something. I took this to be the famous (in my mind) MacDonald's market that I'd heard so much about from other teachers. I was going to explore it, but first I walked a few blocks to my left and found a street that I recognized as leading back to where I had started. That was good to know, so I turned around and went back to "MacDonald's Market".

I was looking for a squeegee. (How the heck to you spell that?) My shower and bathroom are the same room. That is, there is no shower stall, just the four walls. Fortunately, the walls and floor are made of nice clean, bright white tiles, but it sure would be nice to have a squeegee to make short order of cleaning up after a shower, and did I find one! This is not just any ordinary squeegee, by the way. It is two-headed—one side rubber, the other cloth with buttons on it that allow it to be turned and bent every which way for getting into really weird spaces. The handle is adjustable; it can be long for washing window and floors, medium length for smaller spaces, or very short-handled for the shower.

I had been assured by the sales girl at MacDonald's Market that I'd find Jingkelong 3 hundred meters down the road, so I started out in that direction. A long time later, when I was just about to give up, I spied it. When I got there, the "guard" wouldn't let me take my fancy squeegee past the turnstile. He pointed to Customer Service where they gave me a tag, like a hat check, which I put around my wrist in case I should forget to pick it up when I left.

I had been searching unsuccessfully all over Chao Yang Distsrict for a small kitchen knife; apparently many stores had pulled them off the shelves during the Olympics and Paralympics--maybe this was due to the death of Mr. Bachman. I don't know. I didn't expect to find a knife at Jingkelong because there weren't any there last week, but this time I had a choice of three. I picked the multi-purpose one. It also is two-side, one serrated, the other not, and it is the best cheese slicer I've ever owned. To top it all off, the blade end nearest the handle is bottle opener. I'll add a picture when I get a chance.

I'd been out for over nearly four hours and was ready to rest when I finished at Jingkelong. I was hot, tired when I got home a pretty happy camper with a bulging backpack .