Surprise Call

Received a call from a friend from another city whom I last met many months ago. Someone called him saying 'I' met with a car accident on way to visit him this weekend. 'I' was 'supposedly' hospialised, needing certain amount of money as deposit for an emergency surgery. My friend was supposed to remit the money immediately. He called my mobile to check. Of course once I answered the call, he knew it was someone's cute way to cheat some money off him.

People who know about the two of us wont do that sort of things, so he boiled it down to his yahoo mail being infiltrated.

I get about 1 text sms per week saying "Just deposit the money into so-and-so account at so-and-so bank". 1 in a million chance of hitting someone somewhere waiting for phone instruction to deposit some money, but these guys never stop trying.

Kimberley Kinder

Kimberley is slowly, very slowly blending into her kinder class. Even now, when asked 'who did you play with today in kinder?', she would reply 'noone' or if she did play with someone, her reply would be :'someone'. Once she replied 'I played with laoshi (kinder teacher)'. She is not into group activities, preferring to stick to her laoshi most times. She knows of just two names from her class, one of whom she likes. Da Shan is a boy. Kimmie is not close to him but she knows the name. The one she likes a lot and apparently plays with is Yu Xia. Yu Xia is a Russian girl.
Kinder laoshi now get all the boys and girls to fold their winter coats and stacked outside of classroom. Kimmie is a very keen 'folder', esepcially at home.
Grace was away in Manila last few days and Kimmie has been good at night. She can now go to bed on her own without long ceremonies. Just a kiss and a hug will do. Kristine read books to kimberley first two nights but not last night. Kristine was too tired because she woke up at 6am on her own yesetrday monrning.

3 of us

Grace left for Manila this morning on business until Wednesday. I have Kristine and Kimberley all to myself. Grace dropped us at a shopping mall near our Wangjing apartment before heading for airport. Popped in to see the tenant, a graduating Qinghua University Korean student. The place seems clean and tidy and he said he was happy. Picked up a pair of leather shoes Grace left behind, figured out how to pay the annual heating fees (they dont make anything easy here. I suggested to the fee lady to allow owners pay the heating fees online). Then off we went to our favourite Italian restaurant for lunch. 1 Spag Carbonara, 1 lasagna, 1 baked stuffed crab, 6 escargot/garlic bread, 1 fried spud wedge for Y71. Another 20 minutes walk (6degC) to another shopping place (dirty but cheap stuff) for Kristine and Kimberley to buy their Hello Kitty bags, stationary, stickers, Dora umbrellas (Y15 each). Then a long bus ride home.

The Month for Scorpians

Grace made me meet her downtown for lunch, at her favourite foodcourt downstairs from her office, inside a pretigious office, shopping, residential complex in Wangfujing, not far from Tiananmen. We shared a Korean hot claypot rice, and a Shaanxi beef noodle. Took a walk after lunch, in 5degC temperature but sunny, around the corner to a touristy side street. Plenty of old-Beijing eateries there. Photo showing skewers of live scorpians, and dead seahorses waiting for customers. There were skewers of everything, mainly lamb meat, chicken offals, squid, but the scorpians look interesting. 1 lamb skewer costs Y1, 1 seahorse costs Y15. No we didnt try it!

fall

Hi,


yesterday was a beautiful day and I went rollerskating!!!!!!
It was fun.
I picked 30 autumn leaves.
Now I am making paper chains.

I made blue,purple and pick paper clothes for my teddy.


kristine***

photos: Kristine roller-blading in what used to be a lily pond with fish now emptied during winter; Kristine and Kimberley racing down a slope with Kimmies kinder in background, and office blocks farther back. Both places 100m from home

Nov 15

Home Heating officially starts today for millions of homes north of the Yangtze River. It is not surprising that I found myself sweating under my blanket last night due to the heat. Staying indoor, it is difficult to notice the outside temperature today is between 1-11degC.

Kimberley played ClubPenguine on my laptop this morning, after a long break of several weeks. I am amazed at how she typed "club penguine.com" in Windows Live Search and then click on clubpenguine.com website to launch her games. She has strong memory. Way before my last trip to Melb, I reminded Kristine to release her pet turtle into a lake at Chaoyang Park next time she visited. Grace took them there while I was back in Melbourne. Kimberley surprised everyone by murmuring 'turtle'. Only she remembered the link of releasing the turtle to Chaoyang Park.

Kimberley

Highlight of her week at the kinder is her refusal to participate in her class' photo session for some unknown reason to her teacher. We have also learned she now has a good mate at kinder. Her name is Yu Xia. The name is misleading because Yu Xia is a Russian girl. Somehow they click and like to play together. Second to Yu XDia is Da Sheng, a Chinese boy. This coming weekend, we will take Kimberley to another local hospital to get her Polio immunization candy. The two hospitals assigned to look after foreigners are too far away so we will try our luck at the local hospitals.

At the vegie market, we have been surprised with the price drop of mushrooms, by 50% since October. Fresh mushrooms are selling for Y6/kg. We have been cooking mushrooms almost everyday! Tomatoes are still Y3/kg, cucumber Y4/kg, but capsicums are Y8/kg, and chillis are now doubled at Y10/kg.

We may get our first sub-zero day the day after tomorrow at -1DegC in the morning and 9degC in the afternoon. Snow wont be far away. Indoor, the coldest section within our home never drops below 20degC. During the day, the living room, plus two other bedrooms getting the southern winter sun can get to 30degC. Home is heated by radiators as well as floor heating around some carefully assigned spots: toilets/bathroom, corridors, kitchen. Offically, central heating doesnt come on until Nov 15, but we have been getting heating for a week now. We have no control over the heating flow (heating is supplied by steam from a local heating plant for the entire neighbourhood), but no complaint here.

Photo shows autumn leaves next to Kimberley Kinder, 150m from our home.

This is Kristine and Kimberley

Kylie, Now I am watching 'the Blue Guys' on TV. They are fighting. Blue Guys are good guys and they fight very well. Two fight with hands, 1 fights with a stick and a kid fights with a broom. Kimberley says 'him have no hair' (bald), 'him have dots in him heads' (monks with bald heads and dots etched onto their scalp). Kristine says 'I watch it 1 thousand and 50 times'. Kimberley says 'meeee! (too)'.

Kristine: yesterday in my art class we made a crown. It is green. We have art classes twice a week. My teacher's name is Miss Zhao. I had my ear wax cleaned by daddy. two big pieces. Love Kristine

Kimberley: My teachers are Duan laoshi and liu laoshi. one wears glasses and one does not wear glasses. I miss you kylie (she really says this on her own).

Weekend Again

True to her personality, Kristine opts to finish her homework immediately after school instead of leaving them to the weekends. She is the type who cannot goto sleep if she doesnt finish her homework, or figure out where she made a mistake in her work. Normally we will goto her Yamaha practice immediately after picking her from school bus, but today we leave the Yamaha practice to coincide with Kimberley's kinder pickup so they can goto KFC together after piano. The spicy chicken wings are Kristine's favourite, but Kimberley will claim the chips even after her scheduled dinner at the kinder.

I had an interesting walk today before Kristine arrived home. On way to Kristine's bus stop after my milk run to a local Japanese supermarket, 4 young women asked me for help. I stopped expecting questions on directions. Instead they asked for some money for food. They looked around 20 yrs old, decently dressed, claimed they came to look for jobs in Beijing but had not found any. They said they had not eaten anything the whole day. I scanned through their faces, and the dresses and shoes. Decent, probably genuine. So dipped into my pocket and pulled out an RMB20. Their faces brightened up and thanked me profusely. As I started to walk away, the eldest one asked me for another 20. 20 could get them 3 big bowls of Sichuan noodles at a restaurant nearby, or 33 baozi (steamed buns with fillings). I told them I helped them through today, they should get help from someone else for tomorrow. 2 men were watching us nearby in a busy roadside walk path. Parting with rmb20 was easy, but that raised more questions than answers of why and how they could venture into Beijing without much money to support themselves for more than a few days. Maybe they were genuinely desperate.

Also stopped at a local neighbourhood clinic to ask if Kimberley could receive her 4 yr old immunisation shots. Immunisation for 4 yr olds differs between Beijing and Melbourne. Three different injections in Melb but just a Polio lolly here. They could not administer the shots for Kimberley as she is a foreigner. We shall try another hospital over the weekend. Her injections are 2.5 months overdue, but we are 2.5 months away from Melb.

Kimberley

Yesterday after school, Kristine went downstairs to practise roller-blading. Kimberley decided later to join Kristine. I asked her if she could go downstairs by herself and she replied yes. So off she went after bundling up with jacket and boots, got into the lift, pressed the down button, and said byebye.

About 2 minutes later, I looked out the window but couldnt see her with Kristine. I went outside of our apartment and right on cue, I heard Kimberley crying downstairs. Called the lift up, and she was inside the lift, crying. She could reach the '1' button to go down, but she could not reach the lobby door button to let herself out of the building. So she went back into the lift, but she couldnt reach the '6' button, so she did the only thing she knew: cry!

Later, I took her down to meet Kristine and showed her how to walk up 6 floors. She tried that when Kristine brought her home. Now she knows.

Police Station

Sunday was a sunny but very windy day. Our prime objective of venturing out was to register our residency at our local police station, a requirement for all foreigners staying more than 1 week, but we need those reports to support switching of tourist visas for Kristine and Kimberley to permanent resident visas. We arrived at the police station at 1140am, believing the police officers would have their lunch break from 12noon. Not to be the case, their lunch break was from 1130am to 12 noon.... So we wandered through a vegie market, found a tailor to repair pockets of my winter pants (RMB12), and bought Kristine and Kimberley steamed red bean buns (RMB0.60 each) which they enjoyed.

On way there, we were stopped by a DVD vendor. 2 Spongebob and 1 Chinese movie were exchanged for our RMB15. Photos show Grace Kristine Kimberley next to DVD vendor, and Kimberley next to a donkey fruit cart.

Had lunch at a Shangxi restaurant. We told waitress not to add any MSG （不加味精), and to reduce salt by half. A kitchen helper came to ask a few minutes later if we wish to add '鸡精' (Chicken flaoured MSG --- there are also MSG with mushroom, abalone, beef flavours). Our answer was obvious but we were very happy they took our request seriously. MSG into food to enahnce 'taste'; melamine into milk to enhance protein count.

Talking about milk, Grace and I decided to switch from the more convenient tetrapacked UHT to fresh milk. Just one brand available nearby but it is the only brand untainted by the recent milk scandal.

Saturday

A very important task today is to change the return flight for Kristine, Kimberley and Grace to Melbourne. They were booked to fly out of Beijing on Jan 5, the very last day before Grace's 6-month ticket expires. However, due to Kristine school term, they have to change their flight to Jan 10. Three calls to AirChina got Grace nowhere. So a visit to their main office downtown, some 8 subway stops away. As Grace's ticket will hv expired by Jan 5, we were expecting some extra money to be paid. Not the case, the young guy changed their flight to the new date without any extra payment.
Attached photos on way to subway station from home. The fruit vendor using a horse cart is unique as our home is some distance away from farmland. The railway tracks separate the subway station from our home. The tracks are used by trains hauling coal to a power generating plant nearby. Train passes through that at most once a day.