Saturday, September 17, 2005

Stickshifts and Safety Belts

Today we had our first experience with our driver, Joseph. Jonny had him pick us up at the hotel and drive us over to David, Tanya, Natalie and Tea's house. David is another expat that works with and Tanya is his wife. Natalie and Tea go to school with Gemma. I asked Tanya if she would mind if I brought my laundry over and she invited Gemma over for a playdate with the girls while she showed me a Costco like shopping center. While I did the laundry and the girls played Jonny and David went to find a cell phone with the driver. It seems that Joseph has very little experience driving a stickshift and he kept grinding the gears and stalling the car. He was however able to get us from point A to point B. Luckily we can request a new driver if we aren't happy with him. We are going to give him another try and see how it works out. He has yet to drive Jonny to work, so we will see how that goes on Monday.

After the cell phone shopping and laundry we all headed to Joyce's BBQ Grill, a new western restaurant in Chengdu. We walked into the place and we ran into about 3 people that Jonny and David work with. Small world amongst 10 million people! We had a nice lunch where Gemma was able to have homemade Mac and Cheese, which I was very impressed with, Jonny had a Philly Cheesesteak and I had a hamburger and french fries. I felt very much at home, except for 4 adult meals + 3 kids meals set us back only $20!

Tanya took me to the Costco like shopping center called Metro. It had clothes, toys, appliances, food, etc. I bought a few snacks for the kids and a couple of bottles of wine for snacks for us! It was also very reasonable! I am really looking forward to getting our own place because I will be cooking up a storm! They have such great produce! They have fresh herbs at a miniscule price! They have a small western food section which included things like Campbell's soup, Miracle Whip, dry cereals and cake mixes.

I asked Jonny to come up with the Chengdu and don't for today...

The Chengdu of the day is eat at Joyce's BBQ.

The Chengdon't of the day is don't forget you passport when you are trying to buy a cell phone.

2 comments:

Meghan said...

Glad to hear that you are all settling in and finding great things about your new home. Your "do's and don'ts" are so cleaver!

Unknown said...

My Chengdu of the day is learn to drive stick shift if your profession is "driver"!!!