We have been in our house for a week now. We are as settled as we can be without our stuff. The air shipment is supposed to arrive today (Monday). Joe will need to fly back to Zhuhai to sign for our stuff and then it can take 1-2 weeks for customs to allow it through before we get it. The sea shipment is supposed to arrive March 28th and then we have to wait another 1-2 weeks for that one to get through customs. Such a waiting game!!
Mason arrives in a few days! He leaves Houston tomorrow (Monday) and will be in China on Wednesday. If they finish paperwork before the end of the business day he will be with us Thursday (if not we have to wait till Friday)! We are SUPER excited for him to get here and have our family all together. We haven’t seen Mason since December 13th, when we left Houston. He has been staying at his Aunt Amanda’s and Uncle BJ’s house. Mason loves to be at their house, so that was the best place he could possibly be while we made our journey here. I know he is going to miss them!! Thank you again Amanda and BJ. We don’t know what we would have done without you guys. You are amazing, wonderful friends and we are so thankful that you are in our lives!! <3
This weekend we made our first trip to IKEA to get some household things. Our house is furnished with almost everything (couches, beds, dressers etc.) but no shelves or things to cook with etc. So, we’ve been told Ikea was a good place to go. I love going to Ikea in the US…its just darn expensive for the things I like… Well guess what…. China Ikea…SUPER CHEAP!!! We got tons of stuff and spent ~210 USD!! My darling husband told our driver that it was dangerous bring me to Ikea… and was he right. Once our stuff arrives and I am decorating the house….I will certainly be going back!! I will also plan to go back right before we leave China and will be sending things back with us to the states (Mandee, when you come to China I will take you there, you can write down what you want and I will ship it back with my stuff!!). This trip I got: an easel and table for Savannah, a craft table for me, wall clocks and lots of kitchen stuff!!
After Ikea, our driver took us to a “Farmers Market” type place. There were tons of places to buy lots of yummy fruits. We got tons of fruit for about 20USD and Savannah has been chowing down!! I will enjoy going back once it is warmer… it was cold and starting to hail yesterday so it was a quick trip. We tried dragonfruit..Savannah and I didn’t really for it. It wasn’t very sweet. The texture was like a kiwi.
I am starting to know where things are in the grocery store, which is helpful. But we still have a few things on our list that we can’t find. I hate going to the meat section of the store. The meat is all in open cases and people just go in with their hands and grab the “cut” of meat that they want… which means they can cough, sneeze, hack all over the meat you are about to get. Yes, I know that I am going to cook the meat..but it is still gross!! You don’t even put a rubber glove on….you just dive right in!! The germ freak in me can’t handle this process, especially after I watch people grab meat, put it in a bag and then start pushing the cart….WITHOUT washing or wiping their hands. I wanna walk up to them with some germ x…. then they will really think I am a crazy foreigner!!
Thankfully, they do have meat already wrapped and ready to go, like at home. It is more expensive (right now, I don’t care). I’m all for not touching meat if I don’t have to! Or at least until I am home and have antibacterial soap!! :o) Another down fall of the meat section, I have no idea what cut of meat I am buying. I have learned from my father-in-law that the cut of meat is important; unfortunately the meat section is in Chinese (no English on the tags like in 80% of the rest of the store). The beef that we have bought has been extremely tough. I am looking forward to my crock pot coming so I can toss a slab of beef in there, cook it for 8 hours and enjoy my dinner!! Oh and I am very sad that I can’t find ground beef… all I want is a homemade burger!!
So with all of my meat issues, I have experimenting with cooking this past week… it has been rather difficult. I am already sick of meat and rice or meat and noodles! Until our Ikea trip, I couldn’t even use the oven. At least now I can bake chicken in the oven!! I had no idea of the things I would or wouldn’t be able to get. I can’t remember what food we have in our sea shipment, so it will be like Christmas when that arrives…if it all gets through customs!! At least produce is cheap and very good here! Savannah and I have been enjoying our fruit and veggie snacks during the day (just wish we had ranch for our veggies lol).
And I won’t be doing much baking here.. a box of cake mix (like Betty Crocker yellow cake mix) is 63 RMB= 10 USD!!! Frosting 43 RMB = 6.75 USD!! Horrible! Call me cheap, but I just can’t spend 10$ on cake mix!! Even pancake mix was expensive!! So I will be trying to make as many homemade recipes as possible. Pancakes shouldn’t be a problem to make from scratch. I was thinking I couldn’t make Choc Chip Cookies because I can’t find chocolate chips. But my friend, Mandee suggested that I just break up a candy bar and use that. I’ll let you guys know how that goes… wait… can you make Choc chip cookies without vanilla??? Oh goodness…what a learning experience already and we’ve only been here for 21 days! Ha ha!
Several people have asked what they can send us in care packages. We have started to make a running list of things that we can’t get here. We are looking forward to getting our first package from Sharyce and Patrick! We are very thankful to those that have offered to send us packages; we appreciate getting “comfort” items!! Thank you all so much!!
Here are some of the items we can’t get here (and took for granted back home!). I’m sure we will think of more when we realize we want/need something!!
- -dryer sheets (most people don’t have a dryer, we do!...Thank you Rita, Amanda and Sharyce for putting some in the mail already!!)
- -canned soup (mushroom, chicken, tomato etc)
- -yogurt melts for Savannah (in the baby section-made by gerber-any kind)
- -boxed cake mix, cookie mix etc
- -kool-aid packets (I don’t even care what flavor!!)
- -beef/chicken bouillon cubes
- -Clorox wipes
- -grated parmesan cheese
- -Gravy Mix (in the envelope)
That’s all for now! Its lunch time here so time to find something to eat! Hope you all are well, and have a great week! Miss you all! xoxo
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