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Wednesday I had the wonderful opportunity of learning how to pay for my utilities. In china they give you a card for each of the utilities. The top one is for the gas; the middle one for electricity; the bottom one for water. I have to go to a bank and prepay for how ever much I want; that amount is put on the card. When I get home, I put the card in the appropriate meter which downloads the amount too. After that I am good to go until I use it all up and buy some more. It actually isn't a bad idea because people don't get behind on their payments, or they don't have gas, electricity or water. The only problem is that I had to go to different banks to get them activated. I was able to take care of the electricity and water in banks that are just a few blocks away. The bank for the gas ended up being about a mile and a half down the road. The irony of the whole thing is that when I looked across the street from the bank, there was a subway station. I could have been there in about 10 minutes. Oh well, I guess I needed to walk about seven miles yesterday. The good news is that once the cards are activated, I can go to any bank from now on.
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| Dinner after the Walk |
On the way home from my utilities excursion, I decided to stop at the bakery and buy some bread. It might not be a good idea to go into a bakery when you are tired and hungry. I ended up buying some treats for my dinner - not the best meal of my life. The pastry to the left is a red-bean donut, on the right is an almond pastry, and the one on the back of the plate is a chocolate-covered donut. If you can't tell, the milk is skim. This meal is very similar to drinking a diet coke with a piece of chocolate cake - or should I say three pieces of chocolate cake.
You will be happy to know that I didn't eat all of them. I did finish the red-bean donut, but I only ate about half of the other two. I think I didn't finish them because I know what a good donut and almond pastry taste like, and they just didn't compete. I had nothing to compare the red-bean donut to, so I ate the whole thing. I will try for more nutritional meals from now on.
It is interesting that food is very important to us when we go to another country. If we could get food that we are used to, it would make living there so much better!
ReplyDeleteMarne says you are getting the comments even though they seem to disappear.
Hang in there!