Looking Forward....

Thought I would share a short blog this evening before going to bed.  At the dinner table this evening I asked the family to name some things that they are looking forward to receiving when our air shipment arrives in the next few weeks.  It is also important to note that our ocean shipment follows the arrival of the air shipment so the question was not all inclusive of everything we packed.  Here was the responses:

Natalie - She was looking forward to receiving the memory foam mattress topper that we bought for our king bed that came furnished in our place here in Nanjing.  I immediately responded that her thought was a great one.  The mattresses here in China are pretty firm, certainly not like the pillow top we enjoyed back in the United States.  Luckily through with the help of our expat friends we were advised to purchase a mattress cover...

Cooper - He was looking forward to receiving some of his Christmas presents.  In particular he mentioned his science kit, majic tricks, and also his lego sets.  We are all becoming tired of the card games so it will be nice for some of their toys' to arrive.

Brady - He was looking forward to the arrival of his talking chipmunks; Alvin, Simon, and Theodore!  Also he was anxious to receive his programmable robot that Grandma bought for him.

Jim - I mentioned the arrival of the portable ice maker that we bought.  In restaurants and all around China you need to be careful of the water you drink.  In our place we have a filtration system and also have the big purified bottles of water delivered, however outside of the home it is rare to have ice served in your drinks.  This is something small that I miss.  In reality I am looking forward to everything on the air shipment because it will move us one step closer to a home environment and becoming completely settled.

We are all becoming comfortable here in Nanjing and feel fortunate that things have been going well up to this point.  The children start school tomorrow morning and so this is an exciting week.  Natalie is planning to blog about some of her more personal adventures in the days to come.  To conclude here are a few notable mentions about living in Nanjing so far (I am sure there is many more that will come to mind);

* There are no stop signs, not that anyone would follow them anyway...
* At the stop lights there is a big clock that counts down until the light is to change color...
* It is acceptable to muster the largest throat clearing sound followed by spitting outdoors...
* Split pant babies (Natalie will cover this one...)
* Constant eyes upon you and the children in public, they have great interest in westerners (all are very nice however and like to practice their english "Hi".  Funny story, our driver in the car looked at the kids yesterday and said "quiet, quiet" with a big smile on his face (oh boy what are we teaching this guy...).
* High fashion, all the young people dress very nicely
* Everyone hangs their clothing outdoors in the high-rise apartments to dry (counter intuitive given the dust in the city).
* All the western stores in the nice shopping malls (summerset equivalents) are triple the price than in the US, hard to understand who buys the merchandise...
* I have almost got hit by a scooter 5 times...
* Badminton is very popular, I am to try it this week with a Chinese friend I have met who is an employee here where we live...
* Plenty of street food, have not tried yet....

Enough for now, loving all the new experiences.....