Chuck teaches & we go to the zoo

April 21, 2007 Saturday

Today is our first day in our new home and we have a problem. No hot water! Hongfang and I had checked to see that it was working when we did our walk through, but now nothing. We took sponge baths so didn’t have to worry that the shower curtain won’t stay up. Every once in awhile, I would turn on the hot water to see if it would come on, tap the water heater, swear, you know the drill.

We had tea and a sweet roll for breakfast. Chuck went off to teach his first class. He has 10 students. I put on a load of laundry and type a bibliography for him. When the laundry was done, I managed to hang it up (the poles are near the ceiling and there is a lifting pole to get hangers there.)

We had lunch with Jian at another restaurant near the gate by the physics building. (1 flight) This is another good one for us. It has a display of the food. Now, the reality is that we don’t always recognize what the food is – but at least we have some clue. We had spicy frogs legs, shrimp wrapped in cabbage and beef with the green tops of scallions. We had enough of the beef and the frogs legs to take some home. (4 flights)

We went to the zoo in the afternoon. I had been there with the ladies, but it is a nice way of spending an afternoon, and Chuck hadn’t been there. (1 flight and lots of walking)

This sign as you start walking through the zoo gives one pause:

TO TOURSIT: BEWARE WILD ANIMAL ATTACK

The poor elephant was in a tiny cage.

There was the sweetest baby camel. We always decide if a zoo has a particularly good animal and this zoo has great camels.

Mama was a bit concerned. And no, I wasn’t using a zoom.

We walked on to the panda, which really moves around a lot. He went inside his house, and then came out again. Ate a snack. Dragged his bamboo up the hill and then sat and very systematically ate it.

On the way out we stopped by the camels again. The baby was galloping around and trying to climb on his mother’s back. (She was on the ground.)

We had leftovers for dinner. The beef mixed with the bok choy and the lotus root. For dessert we had popsicles. (4 flights)

This was a Mung Bean popsicle and surprisingly tasty.

Good News!!! We have water. By accident I turned on the cold water and heard the heater turn on. It turns out that both the bathroom and kitchen sinks are reversed. The tub is normal. Life is good, because today was very hot and muggy and it was nice to be able to take a shower and wash my hair.

A word of explanation about the water heater. It heats the water as you use it, so there is an unlimited supply. Turning on the hot water at the tap (in our case, the cold) causes the gas to turn on and heat the water running through it. We had this system in Japan, but because of their fear of fire, I had to ignite the pilot with a match whenever we wanted to use the hot water.

10 flights today