There have been a few episodes in the last edition of “Amber’s Life in China”.  Allow me to give you the brief run-down.

Catch up with old friends and meet new ones:

You remember Tom and Amy, right?  It has only been about two and a half months since their baby was born.  I dropped by their apartment last week to pay them a visit. (When I say “dropped by” I really mean “planned it in advance”)  Lucia, their daughter (or in Chinese – 路加 pronounced “loo-jyah”) is growing quickly.  She has super chubby cheeks and sleeps well at night.  Both mom and dad are happy, content, and tired. 🙂  Lucia has some health issues.  If you’re looking for something to pray for–you got it!  While I was in Tom and Amy’s part of the city (about 1.5 hours from where I live) I wanted to visit the foreign import grocery store.  There are many things you can buy there which you can’t buy at other places.  (Unfortunately, still no peanut butter M&Ms)  I was going to there after visiting them but they wanted me to stay for dinner.  Tom insisted that I use his bike to go there and then just come back to their apartment for dinner before going home.  He led me out to the underground bike parking garage and got his bike.  Now, in Chinese to say “ride bicycle” you say “骑自行车”.  (chee-zuh-shing-chuh) approx…..  the verb is “chee”.  Tom used his very awesome Chinglish to make a joke using the verb “chee” that I thought was funny.  He told me that his tires were out of air (气 — also “chee”) because “Long Time No Chee”.  hehehehe…. We steal our phrase “Long time no see” directly from Chinese. 

Baby Lucia with me

I also met a new friend at B study this past week.  Her name is Amanda and she just came back to China from living in Canada for 9 years!  Her English is amazing.  She’s a graphic designer and knows photography.  She and I will get along very well! 🙂

The tale of the Zoomer

A couple weeks ago, a friend asked me to help him get his e-bike fixed.  He just needed help talking in Chinese. (I know…funny, right?–millions of English-speaking Chinese people and he asked me…)  I went with him to the bike place and got them to understand that he needed the breaks fixed, a new headlight and a new “stand” for the bike.  They fixed those problems but couldn’t fix the much-more-complicated chain problem.  A few days after that, this friend texted me and asked me to try to fix the chain at a different place. In exchange, he would let me ride the zoomer (we affectionately call it “zoom-zoom”) for a few days.  How could I not?

So, I picked up the bike from his house on a Saturday. (The bike still works…It’s just that if the battery would happen to die while driving it, I wouldn’t be able to pedal the bike and would have to push it.  Okay…no problem…I’ll just charge the battery each night and we’ll be good to go.  First of all, the battery is super heavy.  If you remember correctly, I live on the 5th floor.  I definitely got a workout on the days I was carrying that battery.  Of course, this makes up for all the exercise I wasn’t getting while scooting around on an electric bike.  I didn’t fix it on Sunday. (but rode it to church) 🙂  I didn’t fix it on Monday because I’m gone to a different part of the city on Mondays teaching.  Tuesday rolled around and I rode it to Chinese class and other places.  I took it to a different bike place to see if I could get my meaning across. They understood me just fine but said they didn’t have the part.  They said if I would come back next month, they could have the part.  Hmmm….well, okay.

Here’s how my days of riding the e-bike went.  Sunday – ride to Chinese church to meet a friend. Ride to our church along the path of the Beijing marathon.  (almost impossible to cross the road) Ride to school to pick up some things. Ride back to my home. (battery still working.)  Take battery upstairs to plug it in.  Monday – no riding.  Tuesday – ride to school, chinese class, to Hannah’s, to bike fixing place, to the boy’s apartment for B study.  Leave the bike there.  I had had enough.  Oh it was fun to drive. So fun I considered for about 10 minutes whether or not I should buy one.  But I decided it was not a fit for me.  First of all, I really do love riding my ‘manual’ bike.  Second of all, there is a little button (see below picture) that, when I push it, honks the little horn on the e-bike.  It’s the equivalent of the bell for the ‘manual’ bikes.  It says ‘excuse me, I’m coming up behind you and would like to go around you.’  Except–when Amber’s on the e-bike.  For some reason, when I’m on the e-bike, the little horn-honking-button becomes (only in my mind of course) sort of a force field.  I think that if I push it, cars will magically not hit me.  I definitely felt fearless while riding this bike.  This would not be good for me.  It goes much faster than I need to (although I really want to).  Long story short:  my days with the e-bike were short-lived, albeit exciting. 

Here is Zoom Zoom. Ted bought him last year but never really rode him. He sort of gets passed around among the men of the group but I was fortunate enough to try him out for a couple days. He's awesome!

See that little button on the bottom? That's the horn for the zoomer. It really is the control for this force field that I was talking about. It's very dangerous.

The time when Amber couldn’t get warm

It’s been getting quite a bit colder in the capital city.  It has dropped to a chilly 30-40 degrees at night and hovers right around 60 during the day.  Now, you’re probably thinking that it isn’t that cold.  But I disagree. When you spend the greater share of your day outside on a bike, 60 starts to feel cold.  The worst part about the cold is how it invades every corner of my apartment.  Now, being the good communist country that we are, the heat is regulated.  When I say regulated I mean that I don’t get to choose when to turn it on.  I probably would have turned it on last week.  It is frightfully chilly inside of my apartment, especially my bedroom.  (I’m sure the other rooms are equally chilly…I’m just in my bedroom the most because I’m NEVER home.)  I think the “heat-turn-on-day” is November 1.  Happy Birthday, Amber…have some heat!  I’ll let you know if that is in fact the day.  I really shouldn’t complain about not getting to control the heat.  Our southern counterparts don’t even get to have heat. Granted, they are technically in a warmer part of the country but I would rather have heat inside. 

While complaining about the cold with an American friend of mine I was reminiscing about my travels last year and how I experienced the “no heat inside” part of the country in January.  This journey back in time reminded me of how I stayed warm on that trip…every place I stayed at had an electric matress pad on each bed!  Last year for my birthday, my friend Junning gave me an electric matress pad.  I had forgotten I had said matress pad.  I have never used it because the heat came on before I had a chance.  (And then the heat didn’t go off until April.)  So, naturally, I went right home and put the matress pad under the sheet on my bed. 🙂  Warm Bliss!  So now I’m warm in my apartment. At least when I’m in/on my bed. 🙂

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Many other things have happened as well.  Just not as memorable to me.  I’ve been using my camera whenever I get the chance.  I’ll share a few of my better photos below.  Enjoy the weekend!

I was playing with my camera in my apartment. I had to lie on the floor for this one. Notice the clean floor. 🙂

This was a late night adventure on Peking University Campus. The red sky is due in part to the pollution.

My plan was to get a photo of messy traffic so that you could see what I was talking about in my previous post. I happened to be there on the day that the police were regulating the traffic. This is one of many shots that I got from inside the "subway". This line of the subway is mostly above ground.