After three months, I have figured out how to get most of the essential bits –for my conception of “living well”– in place. I can buy food; I can buy office supplies; I can mail things; I have a Western gym; I can re-charge my subway card. I’ve decided to record some of this in case it might be of use…I wish I could have found another silly American girl’s record on this ahead of time, but given that I didn’t want to inconvenience my Chinese hosts too much, I figured it all out myself–so maybe my record can help the next silly one.

So! There is a chain of food stores called “Dia”–they have their own house brands for things like peanut butter and yogurt, and they are cheap and frequented by locals. The total price is usually visible on the monitor at check-out. There is a produce market in front of the Dia I go to, behind Gulou on Doufuchi Hutong, where you can buy enough vegetables to fill your backpack for 20 kuai or so. Until I got enough Chinese to express myself more properly, I pointed and gave hand signals for “more” and “less”; they have no monitor for the total but are friendly and happy to repeat numbers. You can get eggs, fish, tofu and seaweed at the produce market too (same deal as the veggies, just different vendors).

For office supplies, there are a variety of markets up and down Di’anmen. You go in the front door of what amounts to a multi-story flea market, and each individual vendor has an individual stand wherein they display their wares. No prices are marked, but if you get really lost they’ll use a calculator to display prices. So far I’ve bought Christmas cards, hand weights, a thermos, suit hangers, and fingernail care supplies here. Better prices than a more Western-style store–at least some of the time. Those with actual bargaining skillz will doubtless make out more like bandits–my situation more probably resembled a deputy sheriff’s.

There are post offices, and there are international post offices. I failed to find an actual address for the international one, so I went to one near the Qianmen subway. China Post has a green logo, and the term “EMS” is often associated with it on signs. I just lugged all my Christmas/New Year’s cards and other mail over to one, walked in, didn’t take a ticket, went to a “comprehensive mailing service” counter, paid the 6-10 kuai per envelope (was it the best price? No idea.) and saw each one weighed and stamped while I stood there. All without Chinese–nay, without talking, except for them telling me the price–also visible on the monitor–and a “bye-bye” at the end. I would have called a friend to help with the “mailing options–can I do this cheaper? issue–but I had left my cell phone at home. D’oh.

Back in the day, I needed to find places to run: now that the weather and the ridiculously hard park paving stones have taken their toll on my outside running, a gym was in order. I searched far and wide and determined that there were no reasonably accessible gyms near Houhai. However, I am taking Chinese class near the Dongzhimen subway, and decided to look there for gyms. I found two: Hokay/Hosa, a large, dark, basic gym; and Powerhouse, of US provenance and decent reputation but completely unfindable. I went to Hokay first, since I happened to walk past on my way to somewhere else. With my dinky bit of Chinese and a sales guy’s dinky bit of English, I arranged a tour and concluded it was spacious and serviceable. It’s in the basement of the East Gate Mall near the Dongzhimen subway, exit C. They offered me 1699 kuai/2 years and a free yoga suit, but only if I would sign up on that day. I hate pressure. A couple days later, after still failing to locate Powerhouse, I called and was fortunate to find they had a guy who could speak some English. He picked me up from the subway and led me to their gym, which is small but bright and clean. (The locker room is VERY small and sort of decrepit, but the showers are clean and hot.) After trying out everything I thought I might use–a free trial workout, over the course of 2 hours–I agreed it was good and sat down to talk price. 6 mo would put me out 2000 kuai; 1 year would cost 2500. Without too much hard bargaining they offered me the full year for the price of 2009 kuai–good luck as 2009 was on its way out. I said yes, and I have had an excellent three workouts so far. Powerhouse has better hours than Hokay, too: 7 am to 10 pm on weekdays, 10 am to 10 pm on weekends. I am so happy not to have to run in the cold every fricking day, and the weight-lifting machines are really quite excellent too.

As for Powerhouse’s location, I knew from my internet searches that it was in the Kenzo Oriental Plaza. It turns out KOP is actually comprised of four buildings surrounding Ginza Mall (each does have a separate outside entrance, marked Apartment A, Apartment B, etc, but I don’t recommend going outside to get to Powerhouse). If you get out at Dongzhimen C, and take the Ginza mall exit, you can go through the mall–don’t go back outside– past the ZD Nail Salon inside Ginza Mall and find the elevators–take it to floor 3, and then wind through a series of signs and corridors and another wooden staircase just past the Hong Kong Cafe–and then there is Powerhouse. NEVER would have found it myself. Dude.

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Posted by maria j. g. on December 30th, 2009 - 8:39 pm
Filed Under :: china

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So there’s been some progress, as can be noted by my and our general absence from this blog.

First, my IFC (International Festival Chorus) Messiah concert has been postponed until the 19th of December. Apparently they’ve been having more and more problems getting government approval to perform Handel’s Messiah in a public venue, and it was going to be a GREAT venue (sorry, Chinese site only, but it does illustrate just how weird Chinese web URLs are: www.zxyyt.com, it’s the first letter of the each Chinese character as written using English letters). So what they’re going to have to do now is perform it on the sly, at an independent location, specifically the International School of Beijing. Apparently it’s a big deal, the Messiah I mean, and subject to lots of government scrutiny before it’s allowed to be performed. Either way. This just means it pushes off my performances and rehearsals a bit.

Secondly, thanks to my connection with the IFC, I am also performing at the British Embassador’s Residence, singing Christmas carols. We’re also “performing”/”rehearsing” at the Bookworm, a coffee shop in Sanlitun, the bar area of Beijing, this coming Thursday for either “Beethoven Basics” or “Basic Beethoven” or something like that, for their classical music open mic night. Who knew such things existed huh? Sanlitun itself is weird, and not quite my cup of tea. There’s this huge “Village” complex they’re building, basically a tricked out shopping promenade, with massive numbers of massive stores. We’re talking three stories of Nike and the world’s largest Apple store; completely out of the locals price range, but trendy, I guess. Um, what was my point?

Right, thirdly, I’ve actually signed a contract with Connections. I am their full time manager now, for the next year, unless terminated in writing with 45 days notice. The restaurant is for most intents and purposes ready. We’re just missing staff and suppliers. There’s still a big part of me that’s unsure of whether or not I should really be continuing with this, but that’s all part of some much larger general concerns of mine regarding my relative success or actually lack there of since we’ve been in China and the almost irrational and unreasonable way that I am treated or considered by my parents and extended family that I will not get into here.

Fourthly, we saw 2012 in theaters. This is Maria’s first time, and only my second. So in China, apparently, the movies are expensive as hell by local standards (35 RMB/5 USD on a weeknight, 75 RMB/11 USD on a weekend), you pick out your seats before hand and they’re assigned, if there are any English subtitles in the original movie you can kiss those good bye (which actually means we’ll need to watch 2012 again since there were lots of time when people were speaking other languages that we have no idea what was going on because there’s only the Chinese subtitles), and before the credits even begin rolling, the lights come on, the movie is over, and the theater empties. No staying for the credits in this town.

Fifthly, and related to the “Fourthly,” we wandered around Wanfujing a good bit. It’s about 5 miles from our apartment, and we wanted a walk, and I hadn’t been there in a while and I remembered that there was a movie theater there, so we headed out. We passed what the internet is apparently calling the “night market” which is this long city block of nothing but street food, most prevalent of which were things on skewers, with an emphasis on the weird and gross, like still moving scorpions, starfish, sea urchins, bug “pods,” various internal organs, etc. The place has really gussied up since last I was there. A couple of new shopping malls have opened, all selling high end durable goods. What we’ve come to realize is that brands that in the stores one would find only in department stores, for some reason have their own massive stores. They definitely like their things big.

And lastly, construction at the apartment should be finishing up relatively soon, within the week actually. Which means that for once, and finally, we will have a place that is all our own, livable and clean. Thank god for small favors.

And as a side note, we’ll be revisiting some of these things and hopefully that means there’ll be pictures!

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Posted by sean x. l. on December 6th, 2009 - 9:57 pm
Filed Under :: china
Tags :: apartment, Connections Bar & Grill, family, movies, rambling

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