Random Notes & Observations

1. I may have ranted to many of you in the past about this....I am a big $1 coin guy. I hate the wad of dollar bills stuffed in my wallet - and for what? $1 doesn't get much anymore. My solution is to get rid of the $1, bring back the $2, and let Susan B. Anthony be famous again by putting her on a new $1 coin.

Well folks, this is my personal hell here in China.

Coin are very rare. You go into a shop to buy something that costs 6.80 yuan; you give them a 10 yuan bill - and you get 3.20 in change.

That's 3 1-yuan bills, and 2 0.1-yuan bills.

Now - if you take into account the exchange rate;

that's 3 bills worth 16 cents each, and
2 bills worth just under 2 cents each.

My wallet is thinker than the opening day in Vegas. And it's all full of small bills that total $1.47.

I've been giving the boys the 0.1-yuan bills (called "jiao") as payment for silly things like changing the channel on the TV.

2. There is no such thing as a bakery here that will bake cookies for a birthday. As a substitution, I am bringing in strwaberry and mango donuts for Warren's class in honor of his birthday (which was yesterday (but still today for some of you readers)).

3. Warren is having a party this Saturday....at the Ritz-Carlton. Every kid should have a birthday party at the Ritz, no?

4. Reason #46 why I will weigh 300 pounds after this assignment: We visited our new apartment this past Saturday. Hopefully, we can move in for good during this coming weekend. In the complex, there is a conveinience store that has many Western comfort foods, like cereal, tomato sauce, and American (and European) pop.

PS - I love the grapefruit Schweppes soda. I am not joking.

Anyway, the boys and I got ice cream there after the visit (when Janice was picking out drapery patterns for 90 minutes). I opened the ice cream freezer and saw....

oh my....Viennetta.

Viennetta has a special place in my heart (and Steve's heart, too). I'll have to share this story later, but it involved Beavis & Butthead, cards, suggestive advertising and many people at Finast thinking we were homosexuals.

But now that I know that our new place has Vienetta on a stick, I'll be gaining 20 pounds pronto.

5. Cultural references: A lot of reruns are shown here. For instance, I watched the 4th round of the AT&T National this weekend! You may not know this, but Justin Rose won! It only happened 6 weeks ago - and it was telecast on TV last weekend!

Well, apparently, China gets shows 5-10 years after they are popular in the US.

Janice had an off-site work conference for two days. She was wearing a name tag when someone in her department (but does not work for her) came up to her.

"Hi! How do you prononunce your name?"
Uh....Janice. Jan-is.

"Oh, like friends".

Janice first thought he said "French", so she asked what he meant.

"You know, Janice - like friends".

No, she said. What do you mean?

"You know, Friends. Chandler's girlfriend - Janice? The same name?"

So she is slightly mortified that people now associate her name with that character on Friends with the annoying laugh.