Market Trip

Well, yesterday my friend and I had a conversation about how we're not going to like boxed food when we come back to America! We ate some instant pasta alfredo, along with some chicken we cooked and threw in. It was good...but it didn't quite measure up.... We pretty much cook everything ourselves with fresh vegetables unless we go out to eat. A couple of days ago we made delicious pot pie again, with made-from-scratch pie crust. In America, we won't have the money to buy fresh vegetables and fruit, but then of course, there are drive-thrus. Amazing little things. Here, it is just as expensive to cook for yourself as it is to go out (depending on what you buy). The other day, we were travelling in from some visiting, and realized we needed to go to the market to buy groceries for making chicken pot-pie and hummingbird cake. We checked and had very little money, in fact, only about 17 kuai, which is about $2.50. So, we decided to be adventurous and find out how much we could get for it. Interesting and fun experiment. . . We ended up with: 1/2 lb potatoes, 3 carrots, 1 small celery bush, 1/4 lb. of corn off the cob, 1/4 lb peas already shelled, 6 eggs, 3 bananas, 2 small pinneaples (very small here), 2 snacks (half pinneaple on a stick, fried potatoes on a stick), 2 bus rides home, and one popsicle. Yep, true story. Go figure!

All Hail??

It seems that rainy season has come upon us early-two months early!! Last week I went back to long johns and heavy winter coat, with one addition: rain boots. It rained everyday all week, bike rides in the freezing rain are simply not the most pleasant. Easter was wonderful, but it's a good thing that we didn't go outside for the planned picnic. We were most certainly rained out. Actually, we were "poured" out. :) This week it went warm and sunny. I was very excited that the rainy week was just a fluke, and today I took my umbrella out of my purse. Bad call! It rained today when we went visiting outside of town. Odd thing was, it didn't just rain, it hailed! It wasn't even very cold, but the hail (for all of about 30 seconds) was the size of small marbles. Yikes! It's a good thing we had gone inside a store to visit with some grannies.
The embrella is coming everywhere from now on. Everyone here uses umbrellas for both sun parasols and rain protection. It is quite entertaining to put up my bright purple rain umbrella on a very sunny, hot day! I'll be doing it more often.
Oh, and I got myself a hat today (no, I'm not referring to my very-grade-school Easter hat, which I also have-and wore on Easter! They are all the rage here). I am referring to my N people hat, which is just the kind they wear. I'm so excited that I'm actually wearing it as I write this blog. I've been looking for where to buy one, but just today I finally found them. I'll have to post a picture for ya.