God bless Ikea

This morning we went to Ikea to stock up on some household stuff. We took a taxi as there's no subway station close to Ikea. As a Saffer I was pretty excited about going, but quite a lot less excited once I saw how many people there were.

But not nearly as many people as in Carre Four yesterday... I had thought that the French supermarket would be my home away from home - stocked with French cheeses, good coffee and excellent French wine. How wrong was I? To be fair, there was French cheese and wine and I'm sure if I had the stamina I would have found the good coffee, but because it was the day before a week-long public holiday, everybody and their dog were at the shops, buying food. So, it was a little crowded - like going food shopping on the 24th of December at 5pm. And the products were decidedly more Chinese than French. Nothing like Carre Four in France. Nothing. But the prawns were cheep, cheep. And the check-out queques weren't long. Although the Carre won't see me again for a while it wasn't a complete disaster - I found some Fleur de Cap Chardonnay. Nothing like the comforts of home when you get down to it.

Ikea this morning was fun. Full of people but fun. Had breakfast there and then hit the shopping. There were some funny moments in the kitchen department - people were trying to figure out what to do with the potato mashers and the cup flour sieves. Potatoes aren't that popular here and baking isn't exactly the national sport.

Tomorrow we're off to the Temple of Heaven - I think.

The good, the bad, the missing

The good news is that I got here in one piece. The bad news is that both our cameras are on the blink. So all you're getting for now are words.

The flight from OR Tambo to Dubai was fine. Got to catch up on all the movies I miss out on living with a boy :-) This included Horton hears a Who.

But the highlight of the flight was bumping into Lianda's parents Tommy and Elsabe.

Arriving in Dubai around midnight was slightly surreal - I don't think I've ever seen so many people shopping in the middle of the night. By the time I got onto my flight to Beijing at about 3am I was completely spaced out cause I was so tired.

Not my finest moment but I shouted at the air hosted who woke me up an hour into the flight to offer me food. And I didn't really sleep after that.

Frikkie picked me up from the airport with the biggest bunch of lilies. Got to love that man.

The apartment we'll be staying in for the next 2 months is spacious and fairly new. Last night we went for a walk around the complex which consist of quite a couple of apartment blocks and I have to say, I'm very impressed. There is a little supermarket downstairs and it has everything from French cheese to Twining Earl Gray tea.

We took the subway to the Sanlitun district for dinner. It's where all the embassies are and by default loads of Westerners hang out. But not just Westerners, we also came across 2 beggars - Frikkie said it was the first beggars he's seen. The famous China Doll club is there, but after a long debate we decided to rather head for a restaurant. (there was no debate, I was way too tired to even contemplate going clubbing)

We ended up at a Greek restaurant, the Anthena Club. Good food, great bread - which is apparently hard to come by cause the locals like their bread to be slightly sweet...

Although it's Saturday Frikkie is at the office, putting in a full day's work. Next week everybody has the week off for, and don't quote me on this, the Mid-Autumn Festival. So he's working cause technically you only get 3 days off, which means everybody works today and tomorrow to have the whole of next week off - as per government instructions.

I also get to spend the day on my own. Already I can see that I'm going to have to get a job asa bloody P cause I'm already going batty with boredom.

I have however been keeping busy. Here are a few universal truths I can confirm after my morning's activities:

• cleaning toilets anywhere in the world is unpleasant - especially if said toilets were used by others. When I was waitressing in Greece it was part of my job to clean the restaurant loos every night. This sucked more than I can ever tell you. Cleaning the loo this morning was only slightly less sucky. It wasn't so much the loo as the stuff I found behind the loo. This included: A comb, still in it's packaging, several hair clips (with hair attached) a pink incense stick, a post card from Toni's hair salon and several layers of grubbiness.
  


• mosquitos will find you, where ever you go - even on the 25th floor.


• daytime television around the world is rubbish.

Here's my thoughts on the Chinese and Beijing so far:

• the people really helpful


• the city is clean


• there are loads of westerners - more than I expected


• looks like you can find all the comforts from home at the supermarket


• the subway is cheap (2RMB per journey)

I want to say thank you to all my friends who came to my farewell picnic on Wednesday - it was really great seeing everybody and I had such an amazing day. Which leads me to A MASSIVE THANK YOU to everybody who contributed to buy me the most stunning going away present in the world, ever! I love those earrings!

If anybody has some pics - pls send them to me.

And now for the not so good news. I lost one of the earrings at the airport. I know, I know - i was beside myself. We looked everywhere, but didn't find it. However, I'm going to get a jeweler here to change the one that I have left into a pendant, so all is not lost.

Right, the bedroom awaits - I wonder what I'll find under the bed...

Two weeks to go

Frikkie has been in China for 2 weeks and 1 day. Boo-hoo. I will land in Beijing in exactly 2 weeks' time. Yeah! It may not sound like it, but it seems like a life time. I think we're doing ok for a couple who, before this seperation has not been apart for more than 3 days.
Queenie, from Hassell's Shanghai office, is trying to sort out my visa and my flights. Neither is going particularly well and I've resigned myself to the fact that I will probably travel to China on a tourist visa and then we try and sort out my residency permit once I'm there. I can't believe the Chinese government is SO hung-up on us not being married, but hey, they're the boss, so I guess they can do whatever they please.
Frikkie and I have settled into a contact routine. I call him at about 6am SA time when I've just woken up and we have a little chat (which must be costly me a fortune cause I haven't gotten my arse into gear enough to buy an international calling card). We sometimes email during the day and I try and send him a photo a day about random things in my life - so mostly the cats feature extensively. We then skype when I get home from work - not so much these days cause Frikkie is too pooped from long days at the office to chat till midnight.
On the very sweet and completely unexpected front: I had a phone call from Frikkie's parents this morning. They're on holiday near Cape Vidal on the KZN North Coast.