Monday morning, alarm clock rings. Feeling way too tired to get up, but after realizing where I am and what this day brings I can almost jump out of bed in a second. Coming into the kitchen after getting dressed and clean, I meet Nainai and Canjie, who are really sweet and caring, offering me all kinds of food for breakfast. I end up eating Mantou, some sort of steamed bread, and jogurt w/e fruit aka smoothie. The bread barely tasted like anything, but together with some apple it wasn't too bad. Smoothie was really delicious, cold and freshly made. Yum. I met with Becky at 10am, and we went through the schedule which she confirmed twice with my agency to make sure we follow all the rules. She showed me around the house, the washing mashine, my TV, etc. In a couple of days there will be a bike available for me to use, so I can get around this huge community better. Living in Lushan (that's the name of my community), it takes 2 bus rides and a 30min subway travel to get to downtown Chengdu. So in total about 1,5 hours. When you get lucky to catch the bus, which only comes every hour. My good planning and organization skills come in handy here :-)
The housekeeper of my family, Aoi from the Philippines, offered to take me to some place during the day, so I get an idea of how things especially public transportation works. Great! We got picked up around noon by the fu zhe, one of the many community owned golf caddies that give people rides around the place. Felt like in a holiday resort hotel. He dropped us at Luxe Town, the "main street" of our community. The bus came straight at 1pm, and trust me, people arriving one minute later have no chance to get on that bus. At 1pm straight he headed for Century City, the closest subway station around. On our ride there I was pretty blown away by the many constructions they had next to the street. Huge house next to huge house. One probably fits 500 families. It's crazy.
Arriving at the subway station, we went through security, which every subway station has, where you put you purse on a belt like at the airport to be screened and you walk through a scan, too. They really keep their public transportation safe and by putting a police officer in every train there is basically no chance for crime. Good to feel safe! We meet with some friends of Aoi in Tingzilin, a bigger town closer to Chengdu. They just finished their Mexican food. In China. Served and prepared by Chinese. You can imagine how that looked like :-) unfortunately we couldn't stay long, as I told you it takes quite some time to get around here. So we returned home just in time for me to officially start working, which meant play time with Amy. She just came back from school and swim class (4.45pm) but still had plenty of energy left. No idea how she does that. So we played in the humonhous playarea downstairs, drew, puzzled, played with her dolls until it was time for dinner together with Canjie, Aoi, and Nainai. Oh yes, I was really excited about dinner. From Aoi I knew that Canjie is a really good cook and she didn't exaggerate one bit. Like I imagined, there were about 7 different plates on the table, all filled with different kinds of dishes. As I promised myself before my arrival, I was willing to try everything they served me. So guess what, I grabbed my kuazi (chopsticks) and dug in. Hot peppers, potatoes, bamboo sprouts, undefined vegetables, eggs and fish, I had all of it. And I have to say, it was DELICIOUS! Everything had a great flavor, perfectly seasoned. And I couldn't even believe that I just ate fish and I liked it. Feels like a revolution. I am a little proud of myself. A tiny bit. I was stronger thab my mind. After 8 years of not eating seafood. Good girl, Ronja.
After dinner Rex returned home from school (it was about 6.30pm, he had both swim class and piano lesson), had to sort of rush with dinner which was served another full time for him and his mom - all new - to start his homework right after. He was also full of energy, even though I could tell he lost concentration during our 1 hour working time. No wonders, he was up since 6.30am, going from school to swim class to piano to homework til 8.30pm and he is only 7. Wow, different world here. But he did his best, and after finishing we high fived each other. You could tell he was more than ready for bed. After saying goodbye to all the family members, I too made my way downstair to my room, to get some rest. I was really tired, not really from working (which work might some of you think :> ) but from everything new and unfamiliar, from the time difference and the Chinese around me 24/7.
Well, first day of work: check. Tomorrow morning I'll start at 6.45am, helping the kids to get ready for school and eat breakfast. I'll let you know more :)