Back to Normal?

We got home July 1st and had 4th of July plans.  So I had to get packing and un-packing fast.  The boys helped by waking us up at 5 am the first night and 2 am the 2nd night!  

I had unloaded all 6 suitcases and put them into piles, mine, kids and presents.  Grabbed the presents needed for the weekend and made an appointment for the kids to get their pictures taken. 

Not fully acclimated to being home for less than 24 hours, the pictures were okay, not spectacular.  It wasn't hard to pick which picture we wanted as only 1 picture turned out with all 3 smiling.  

The kids stayed up late every night, going to bed past 11pm, until  4th of July fireworks.  Aidan fell asleep before fireworks and was curled in bed with a dog either trying to protect him or gain protection from the expected fireworks. 

I carried the sleeping boy outside in case he woke up to the loud noises I didn't want him to freak out and not know where he was.  He never woke up, until afterwards when our own front row seat fireworks exploded.  That is when the other two fell asleep.  

The kids where used to sleeping 3 in a bed and didn't mind the crowded bed at the hotel.  They loved the fruit loops and waffles at the continental breakfast every day.  

Jet lag over and I'm back to driving.  Finally home and having to deal with the aftermath of the busted pipe flooding into our pantry and my craft room.  I had to throw away all of my craft books and quite a bit of material.  I was not happy.  Couldn't believe when my husband said that's easy to replace, we just need more plastic totes!  

1 week and kids stuff put away, presents hidden(in suitcases), my clothes pile moved to my room.  Just over whelmed, especially with the paper clutter.  And the boys have gotten out every toy & game they've not seen in 5 months. 

It had been raining like crazy so the grass is over grown, the mosquitos are ferocious and I feel stuck inside with the mess.  We escape for Chinese food, dim sum buffet with the in-laws.  Felt like I hadn't left China, as hardly any English was heard.  

Had to get mung beans from the Asian market to make porridge for my boys.   Yeah, it was a success.  I also tried out my recipes of Beijing style spinach and peanut dish and Beijing style braised eggplant.  Both pretty good, I'll try another recipe to see which one will be the keeper.  

Glad to be home, where pizza tastes like pizza!  Wish I'd have known you could buy the Chinese pickling jar at the Asian market for $15.  I would not have wasted the space to bring these home.  

It's almost 2 weeks and I haven't boughten much, talked much to anyone other than family and retreated on technology.  After 5 months of not using my phone for anything other than a phone, I don't really use it here.  We upgraded to the hopper, and I'm not liking the way the new remote and system is set up.  So I'm pretty faithful to my ipad.  

Not really any culture shock to speak of unlike coming home after 9 months in Japan.  

The Return

We had scheduled a mini van to take us to the airport.  It was smaller than my mini van back home, I didn't think we'd fit, our 3 adults, 3 kids, 6 full size suit cases,   and 7 carry-ons.  We ended up more like a clown car.  

No seat belts of course.  Driver and one adult in front.  2 adults in middle row with the kids either on our laps or on the floor.  The back seat was upside down luggage, the "trunk" was luggage to the roof.  We were packed in like sardines.  

We needed 3 carts for all of our luggage.  I was very happy to check in.  To accommodate the long line they had representatives at the self check-in kiosks to check in for you.  Then you had to stand in another line to drop off your check-in luggage.  All of mine where over the 23kg, but all under 24kg.  Small miracle they didn't charge at all.

If we had gotten there earlier we could've checked out the kid play area.  The kids were thirsty and we put money into a vending machine by the boarding area.  It ate our money.  

My father-in-law called the help number and a half hour later someone came to give us the drinks.  Just in time for them to be taken away to board the plane!  What a rip off.  It was bought in the airport, un-opened why can't we take it on.  What a scam.

Double scam, because really how many for foreigners are going to call to get their money back?  I wouldn't have.

I asked to board early, due to all the extremely heavy carry-ons, chuck full of books that I ended up carrying.  So we got to board after business class.  We already went through one x-ray screening of the luggage and now they did a physical opening of all the carry-ons.  

I do not remember this extra opening of bags going to Japan.  I was not happy as I had every square inch of bag space crammed with odds and ends.  So I had to scramble to re-close all the kids ride on luggage full of breakables.  

Ahhhh seated on the plane!  Time to relax.  I liked being closer to the bathroom, so I could watch the kids go there safely and didn't have to go with them every time.  

We were waiting over an hour for take-off.  I overheard one flight attendant say they add an extra hour in for flight time on flights coming out of Beijing, because it takes so long to get off the runway.  

So instead of being early, we arrived on time.  The boys all slept about 6 hours.   We had one spill early on, was lucky I had extra paper towels to sop it up.  No room in the carry-on for an extra set of clothes.  

The kids didn't eat a whole lot on the plane.  My favorite meal, is the midnight snack sandwich.  A repeat of no soreness, I totally believe due to drinking only water or ginger ale and going the bathroom a lot.  

We arrived in the cool rain, met with two mini vans.  One to carry the people the other to carry the luggage.  I forgot how to turn my airplane mode off on my phone and missed my window to call before going into the airport.  Couldn't make a call till we were heading away from the airport.  

All in all, it ended up a pleasant travel experience, even if the kids were so awake they didn't sleep until midnight.

Last Day

I was up to 2 am rearranging the suitcases and carry-ons to accommodate all the school books we now had to go home.  So instead of each kid carrying their own toys in their own backpack onto plane, they all got stuffed into 1 bag and I crammed the other 2 with  books.

This is going to be real interesting as they can't actually lift their own backpacks anymore.  I don't think it will be that hard in the airport where I can throw it all over the handles of my carry-on.  But getting on and off the plane should be fun.  

After waking up, the last load of laundry was started and I ate breakfast in between pulling suitcases out of the closets and wiping it down for them to re-arrange their own stuff.

I offered to sleep on the couch so my bed could be folded up.  We re-arranged some furniture. Outside of suitcases lining the wall, you won't know we where here.  

I had the boys busy sweeping floors and wiping down the furniture.  I asked how much we had left to do.  Just wiping down stuff.  Already had boys do it.  Ok, all done.  Do  you just plan to sit around after lunch?  Yes.  Can you sit and watch the boys play at the play land, so I can go buy another painted bottle?  Okay.  

After lunch, they tried to leave, saying have fun at play land.  Wait, you don't want to watch the kids now, so I can get the bottle.  No card.  Not about a card.  I repeated the whole conversation to my father-in-law.  You don't need a card.  It's not about a card.  Never  mind I will watch them for a whille then take them home and then I'll go out later.  

After we were there 2 hours, she showed up.  Yeah.  I tried Silk Market at Yonganli first as it's closer.  They only had 3 places to buy painted bottles.  I got one for same price, but it's not as cool as the broken one.  (Bigger selection at Pearl Market).

On the way back I stopped at Tesco, found a cute pair of shoes.  Oops!  Carry-on will be heavier.  Walked back and they had left the play land already.  Not at home.  Tried our park, park across the street and super market.  After running around for half an hour, they were home. Ships passing in the night.
       I was really proud of the kids giving up their remote control cars and other books and toys.   We gave them to the cleaning lady of our building.  She is this very smiley old lady.  I haven't noticied other people really talking to the workers.  But we always say hello to her.

We came with 3 suitcases.  We are leaving with 6 suitcases, not including the 2 Tao took home before.  Wow!

I definitely over packed!  Did not need so many clothes when you have access to washing machine.  Mostly because they don't do laundry here, like we do at home.  We wait till it piles up then wash.  They wash almost every other day as no dryer.  

Didn't  realize how much extra school stuff would be coming home, books, winter coats(as part of the uniform).  I couldn't even think to bring home the pillows and bedding.  Winter clothing and sweaters are so heavy!  So besides the stuff we had of our own, many more by the in-laws.  They should have to carry it back, I didn't think of that sooner!

I wish we could have been able to see Chinese Acrobats and go see some other mountains.  Next time, right?   Because of course we will visit someday, but not this length of time.  

Goal for the kids:  met.  They speak great Chinese.  My goals:  I kept a few, I did work out sporadically, I finished my embroidery, I am on track for reading the bible this year.  I failed to learn much Chinese(I bought a better book), I didn't learn crochet or knitting, I didn't do as much writing as I wanted.

     Looking forward to being home, sleeping in my own bed in my own room, having more than 1 bathroom, having round the clock A/C, raising my kids with my husband, real pizza, going to church regularly, clean air and water, swimming and space!  

Driving down the street

Wallpaper

Silk Market at Yonganli

The new bottle

My recommendations

I haven't been everywhere, but I've been to a lot of places in Beijing.  If you get the chance to come here, this is my recommendations:

For Toys:

#1 Bairong World Trade Center

#2 Toy City behind Pearl Market at Tiantan

#3 Haggler's Alley, I know there are lots of them all over the city, they don't appear on maps.  Ours is near Bawangfennan, not far from Shin Kong Place

Souveniors:

#1 Qianmen- biggest selection

#2 Bairong World Trade Center- best prices

#3 Pearl Market/Silk Market

Clothing:

#1 Bairong World Trade Center

#2 Qianmen

#3 Haggler's Alley

Day to Day/Household 

Supermarkets:  Tesco/CareFour/YH

Bairong World Trade Center

Haggler's Alley

Fakes:

Pearl Market

Silk Market

Bookstores:

#1 Wanfuxing Book Store

#2 Foreign Book Store on Wanfuxing

#3 Xidan Boodstore

Chinese Finger Painting:

#1 Forbidden City- back row of shops

#2 Silk Market-on the stairs

Combo of Sightseeing next to Shopping:

Tiantan to Pearl Market & Toy City

Qianmen to Forbidden City to Jingshan Park

Sightseeing:

#1 Beihai

#2 Great Wall

#3 Summer Palace

#4 Botanical Garden

#5 Forbidden City

#6 Grand View Garden

Something Different:

Panjiayuan Folk Culture Market (flea market)

Ancient Observatory

Happy Valley Amusement Park

How to count on one hand

How to count with your fingers (efficiently?)

Posted by mathfail on October 9, 2009Leave a comment (4)Go to comments

In this post I will teach you how to count using only your fingers! That’s right boys and girls!!

Disclaimer: I first have to apologize to those people who have lost their hands (or some fingers), but this will still apply to you (however, you won’t be able to count as high). Now if you have no hands but are good with putting your toes up and down then this will also work. If you have no hands and no feet… then ask a friend to help you. If your friend has no fingers and no toes, then ask one who DOES to help you. If you have no friends that have fingers or toes, then… monkey sticks >_>

Method 1 (Traditional Method):

Yup, you guessed it!

one finger = 1

two fingers = 2

three fingers = 3

…

nine fingers = 9

ten fingers = 10

Amazing!

But did you know you can count to 10 using only one hand? The chinese

are WAYYYY ahead of us (north americans) when it comes to counting.

This takes us to method 2.

Method 2 (Chinese Number Gestures):

If you are chinese you may already know this method. I have many chinese friend and they teach me counting. The idea is you can count from 0 to 10 using only ONE hand. The best way to describe it is in picture form. The numbers from 0 to 5 are easy and exactly what you would expect:

That

was easy, wasn’t it? What about the other numbers? Well not so easy,

but once you learn it you never forget it (well I actually forget it

but i’m not as smart as you). Let’s begin:

• Six: Thumb and pinky extended.
• Seven: Umm, I don’t know how to describe.. umm… it’s like you hand just ate something and has it’s mouth closed.
• Eight: It’s L-shape with thumb and index.
• Nine: It looks like a hook to me.
• Ten: This is like “please please please” (fingers crossed).

Now for pictures to see what the heck I am talking about:

The last one is an alternative for 10 using two hands. Neato! Now go

show all your friends.. go go go! Oh wait, there’s more, so hold on,

don’t go yet… read the rest of this post… Onto method 3.

Method 3: Finger Binary

This

method lets you count from 0 to 1023 with two hands. For those of us

who are mathematically inclined, you can probably guess how this method

works. If you don’t know monkey sticks about math then I am here to

HELP! Binary means 0 or 1.

In binary, the far right digit represents 2^0, the one to the left of it 2^1, then 2^2, and so on. For example,

100101 = 1 x 2^5 + 0 x 2^4 + 0 x 2^3 + 1 x 2^2 + 0 x 2^1 + 1 x 2^0 = 37

0 in binary is 0

1 in binary is 1

2 in binary is 10 (that is, we have one 2^1 and zero 2^0′s totaling 2)

3 in binary is 11 (that is, we have one 2^1 and one 2^0′s making 3)

4 in binary is 100

5 in binary is 101

6 in binary is 110

7 in binary is 111

and so on…

With our fingers representing 0′s and 1′s, we can represent a binary digit with 10 columns:

* * * * * * * * * *

The largest being

1111111111 (which in normal numbers is 1023).

Now the standard way to do this is by the following table:

.	|	Left Hand					|	Right Hand
…	|	Thumb	Index	Middle	Ring	Pinky	|	Pinky	Ring	Middle	Index	Thumb
Power	|	2^9	2^8	2^7	2^6	2^5	|	2^4	2^3	2^2	2^1	2^0
Value	|	512	256	128	64	32	|	16	8	4	2	1

The values of each raised finger are then added together to get the total number.

Okay, let’s do some picture examples!

and Can you guess what this is? The person is using their RIGHT hand and

has the pinky, ring and index fingers up. If you know binary you can

just compute the number easily, if not, use the above table to get:

16 + 8 + 2 = 26

WOW! AMAZING! Now go tell all your friends! And

the next time you have to count to 874 try to use the binary method

(it’ll really get you thinking and you’ll become an expert binarician). Let’s do one more example to make sure we understand:

Notice how he has his RIGHT hand up and only his middle finger. His left hand doesn’t have any fingers up. Thus, using the above table we get FOUR! Easy wasn’t it? So remember kids, the next time you want four of something, use “Binary Finger Notation” as shown by the gentleman above!

So I found this info on mathfail.com

Some differences that I didn't see anywhere.  They actually count one with their thumb up, two regular, three like the okay symbol, four and five normal.  Besides the two different ways to do ten shown above, they also do a fist as ten.  So the six should be really easy for surfers or Hawaiians. I've gotten use to ordering 6 egg custard tarts this way, because the box fits six, less than $2.  They normally eat them warm.  Yesterday we had them cold for breakfast, I guess their first time to eat cold.  This is the way I'm used to custard pie from Bill Knapps.

My last romp around Beijing

It was the boys last day of school and my last day to go out and about.  I was getting ready to head out the door when my in-laws try and stop me and state we should get cake to show our appreciation to the school for taking care of the boys.  You come with us?  No, you can take care of it, I have my own plans.

Really you couldn't arrange this last night or get it on the way to school, we say nothing all through breakfast, watch TV and decide it must be done when I'm about to go out.  Oh I forgot, that is the way they do it here.  No communication until, I want to do it right now.  Now that I'm thinking about it, isn't this how a child acts?

Last try for Chinese style finger painting.  I think I remember a booth on the stairs of the Silk Market at Yonangli station.  Yes, I was right.  His weren't as good as the ones at the Forbidden City.  But I did get a small one, since they don't have any books on this subject.  They always tell you, my family is the only one that does......  They are so full of it.  I just smile and nod.

Next stop Qianmen Street.  My last meat on a stick and haw on a stick, and haw popsicle.  I did happen to buy a few more scarves.  I think I can stuff them into the neck pillow covers!

I planned to go back to the small garden to the left of the Forbidden City, but I can never find it when I'm walking and ended up on a very long walk around the block (45 minutes later) and hopped on the bus by Beihai.  Supper smoggy gray day today.

Picking up the kids we took to carts to carry back all the stuff.  Their buckwheat pillows, blankets, 2 in binder per kid, the rest of series of their work books each in a box and their backpacks.  Now I don't know what to do, since I'm at weight.  My father-in-law thinks I should keep every page as a good memory for the kids when they get older.  No, I don't want them to be packrats like I am.  I'll keep a couple of the artwork and I'll have to see about the work books they haven't done yet.  

So my new beautiful painted glass bottle(that I just got yesterday),  was broken by my youngest.  I doubt they'll let me go get another before we go!  I'd take the kids, but I fear they would break them all and I can't afford that.    

Finger paintings- Chinese Style

Qianmen

Meat on a stick

Tian'anmen Square

They don't write on dirty cars here, but dirty walls!

This tree is wiggling it's toes

Jingshan

This last week has been about those last things.  Eat all the fried dough you can get.  I've ate more from the street vendors in these past 2 weeks than I have the entire 5 months.  

I finally got to see them make the elephant ears.  And they don't actually sprinkle sugar on it and fry it.  They heat the red sugar and mix it into dough.  So it's regular dough and sugar dough on top, stretched out and fried.  

On the way to the bus stop I see 2 small sink holes  on the side of the road. Sink holes in the city is not too unheard of here.  Whole trees just dropping down into the ground.  

It's another hot day and I've only 2 days left for myself to go out and about.  I have my walking shoes and I'm off.  I pass the cutest umbrella for sale in the tunnels to the subway.  Many under street cross walks and tunnels going to subways have people selling anything from purses, umbrellas, fruit, underwear and mini veggie peeler to put cucumbers on your face.

First stop Pearl Market across from the Temple of Heaven.  I remarked to a couple how hot it is today.  They were from Miami and thought it was dry here.  Yikes.  That is why when I'm old, I will not be a snow bird to Florida.  I wanted to get a painted bottle.  Got it and left, snapping a picture of Tiatan while crossing the skywalk.

Back to the subway to get as close to Jingshan Park as I could.  I didn't see the bus I needed to get closer, so I kept walking.  I walked along the backside of the park and up the side paths, seeing parts I've never walked on there before.  Lots of people at the highest point.  I can hear a melting pot of languages here as I snap pictures out over the Forbidden City.

I would've loved to have entered the Forbidden City from the back to go to the garden only.  But they made it a one way in(from the side facing Tiananmen Square), exit to Jingshan Park.  There was no way I was going to walk through that again this trip.  Pity I wanted to buy something in their gift shops along the back wall that I have not seen anywhere else.  Oh well, next time when the kids are old enough to go.  

I was out of time and had to head back.  Way too many people queing for the bus I needed, so I thought it would be just as fast to walk all the way back to the subway.  On the Forbidden City's side of street there were tons of beggars.  Deformed migets, people w/o limbs, people on crutches.  And always singing.

I actually got a seat on the subway right off and then the girl standing next to me(I was on the end), started to clip her nails.  Gross.  I had to move.  

Finally met the foreign couple living in our apartment complex, newlyweds.  Figures I meet them now that I'm leaving.    The boys have been having fun everynight with a girl from their class and her little sister that is 2 and can run with the best of them.  I've never seen them with anyone but their Nainai.  They live in the building next to us.  So we've been taking the kids to the park across the street and we've got all 5 kids holding hands.  It's so cute.  

More on fashion:  Saw a little kid about 2 or 3 with the crotch to the knee pants. Hot weather must be a time for funky hair.  I've seen girls with their heads shaved less the circle of hair on the top of their head.  Which they put into a pony tail that goes all the way down her back.  And they do the same with boys with 1 big patch of hair left on the front, top or base of scalp.  One boy at their school has his head shaved with a patch on the top of his head that has an "X" going through it to make it 4 parts.  2 parts are triangles sticking up the other 2 hills, plus they dyed 2 sections.  He is  5.  Lots of jumpsuits here, think Charlie's Angels(the TV show.  Yes I wish I could wear a few of them.

chinese elephant ear

sink hole

going to the subway

Pearl market

Temple of Heaven

Jingshan

Beihai

Melting pot at the top.

TV tower

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

This is common to see people just sleep the time away

Cool street art.  This must've been repainted since I was last here a few months ago.