Tag: our surreal life

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in germany just life

a surprise in a flour package

today, while unlocking our bikes, paulo noticed something was tucked on the back rack of his. it looked like trash that someone had put there, but upon closer inspection, we discovered what seemed to be an empty package of (bio!) flour, all rolled-up. strange…

when opening it, he found what looked like a shiny new bike dynamo inside – and then he noticed the dynamo on his own bike was dangling, broken. someone probably knocked it off, and then bought a new one, which they left there, in disguise.

so instead of being cross about it, today i’m actually quite proud of the neighbourhood! :)

Categories
in china in shanghai just life

suan nai… men kou.

this morning we were ejected out of bed by a phonecall.

to me, it sounded like the alarm was ringing and since it’s p.’s responsibility to turn it off, i muttered my plea for the extra snoozy time. he answered the phone, barely being able to speak, while a lady on the other side shoved chinese sentences on his ears. his “hello? do you speak english?” were met with more chinese, so he passed me the phone. confused and sleepy, i only got the words “suan nai” and “men kou” and it took me a while to shuffle my memory for those meanings.

errmm… wait… “yoghurt”… “doorway”? what?!

and then my brain must have jump-started. i jolted out of bed, dressed and ran to the door, where a smiling girl in a white lab coat was holding a box with 8 small yoghurt jars. our first yoghurt delivery had arrived and they sure came early!
we had breakfast as soon as i closed the door and the yoghurt (unsweetned, unflavored, plain and natural) was really yummy.

despite the rough wake call, what sticks out is all this spoiling convenience that characterizes our life in china. some days, it’s so surreal.