Another "China" Day

We had another one of those "China" days this week.

After coming home from Baoding, Mark & I looked forward to a good night’s sleep. It’s always better sleeping in your ‘own’ bed no matter where ‘home’ is. For the last week or so, we have not had cool air conditioning in the apartment. I never figured out why. We had blowing air, but it wasn’t cold air. So we ran our fan, moved it around day and night, and opened the windows, even on bad air days. This week the temps were supposed to climb toward 99 degrees F.  Tuesday night we went to bed lightly clothed, throwing off sheets due to heat and humidity with the fan turned up. About 4:30am Mark & I both noticed at the same time that the air no longer ran, the fan stopped, and it was dead quiet. Uh-oh. No electricity. Bummer. And we had not loaded the electricity card the last time we used it. Ok, so we went back to sleep for about an hour. I got up to take a shower. No hot water. Apparently the hot water heater, although it is gas, still uses electricity. Cold water. So no shower that day, just a cold water face and hair wash in the hall bathroom. 

At that point, we knew we had to go to the Postal Savings Bank to load up the card, come back home, swipe the card, and then be on our way to class. We assumed the Bank opened at 8am so Mark headed out about 7:45am. He got to the bank and saw a notice that said beginning that day, May 21, the bank will now open at 9:00am. Ugh. So when he called to tell me that, I suggested he go to NorthStar to purchase a few groceries we needed. He went, got to the mall, and saw a notice posted that said the mall now opened at 9:30am. A woman came up to him, saw him waiting, and said the mall opened at 8:30 like usual. He pointed at the sign and she said something like “oh” and agreed. So he went back to the bank. By this time there was a line. Ugh! Now it’s later and we will be later for class. Well, he did get the card loaded quickly and came back, we swiped the card, flipped the switch, and voila, power restored. Then off to class.

Mark had a meeting last night after our full day so while he was away, I fiddled with the temperature controls. I don’t know what I did, but I got the cool air back. I kept punching buttons back & forth, together, separately, this one, that one until I noticed cool air blowing from the vents. Success. I still don’t know what made it work, but we are very thankful as today has been very hot. Today, our ‘day off’ (sort of), we went to MingFuJu for lunch and felt the hot, dry air as we walked. It reminded me of SC but much drier. Like a dry sauna.