Mid way through Week 2: no toilets!

8:30 a.m. Wednesday, 18 July 2007

Well, I made it through the night and I still have my thumb. :) I am very grateful for that especially since, as Erin Bilot gently reminded me, neither Chris or I should really be self-diagnosing since we aren't really doctors. At one point I thought maybe we should call our friend, Brian Reeder, who is an actual doctor, but then I realized that maybe I was over-reacting just a bit. In all honesty, a really tight bandaid seemed to work after I had ice on it for awhile (surprising how both Chris and my dad were right - never seems to fail). I do have to say though that I must have woken up about 5 times last night because I was convinced my thumb was still bleeding. Enough about my obsession for now...

We have had quite a few adventures in the past few days but let me just share with you a letter that I found in our mailbox on Monday morning. It is dated 14 July 2007 and is from the management office.

"As informed by the Water Supplies Department, an alteration work of public
water mains is scheduled to be carried out at Robinson Road from 10:00 p.m. on 17 July 2007 (Tuesday) to 06:00 a.m. on 18 July 2007
(Wednesday). In order to facilitate the work, the flush water
supply for Robinson Place will be suspended temporarily in the mentioned
period..."

Yes, you are reading this correctly, we cannot flush our toilets during this time period. Gross, on many different levels. Please note "cannot" in present tense, not past, which I would have used to indicate that something was over and done with. It is 8:30 a.m. as I'm writing this and we still can't flush our toilets. After talking with 4 different guards downstairs (so hard when you can't speak Cantonese), it's supposed to be turned back on shortly. We'll see.

While we're trying not to have the mentality of "this isn't how we do it at home" because that makes assimilation so much more difficult, it is really hard not to think that in this case. Chris and I haven't lived in a lot of different cities, but we have lived in a lot of different apartments / buildings / houses and neither one of us can remember something like this ever occurring. The thing is, we knew that it would never be just until 6:00 a.m. That would be way too easy and I'm pretty sure that's not how things work here. In so many ways, Hong Kong is so much more advanced than the U.S. (public transport, technology, etc.) and then in so many other ways, it is in the dark ages. It's really quite amazing. You just sort of roll with it, I guess.

One thing that isn't very different is how confusing it can be to pick a cell phone company & plan. Yesterday I went shopping for plans at three different stores because being without a mobile here (nobody has heard of a "cell" phone) is sort of like walking around without a map. You just feel lost, even if you're not. There are plenty of options to choose from so I will have to get out my spreadsheet to figure out which is the best value for me. I know, sort of ridiculous, but I just can't get past my ACFIN routes (the MBA program I did at UW) and give up my spreadsheets. The good news is, even the most expensive plan here is half of what you pay in the U.S.

I have to say that yesterday was a bit of a day. As I was getting ready in the morning (I had a 10:00 meeting), I realized that our bathroom sink was leaking. I had the same problem last week and was able to fix it by adjusting the faucet handle. No such luck yesterday. There was water all over the floor. At that point, I had just about had it with our apartment so I called Chris to ask him to please deal with it and let our relocation person, Fannie, know what was going on. I put two big towels down on the ground t osoak up the water and left for the morning. I got back around 2:00 and the towels were soaking wet. Water was all over the floor again and the sink was still dripping. For some reason I thought it would magically just stop. I called Chris and he told me a plumber was coming tomorrow (Wednesday at 11:00 a.m.). I mean, that's great and all but what the heck am I supposed to do until then?! I managed to squeeze a ziploc bowl behind the sink to catch the water. Crisis slightly averted for now.

I had about an hour before I needed to leave again so I thought I'd take the garbage out. It really just goes across the hall outside of our door so nothing too difficult. Right, except for that our door automatically locks which tends to be a problem when you don't bring your keys with you! So here I am, standing outside of our apartment, realizing that I have no way to get back in. I don't have a phone to call anyone (see 2 paragraphs up) and I have no money to go anywhere. Ugh! This is where the whole "we need to keep our sense of humor" motto should come in to play. That's really hard to do when I then go talk to the guards/management office and realize, or better yet, remember, that Chris and I are the only ones with keys to our apartment. It's not like being in a high-rise apartment building in the U.S. where the management office is in charge of all of the units. Here, all of the units are independently owned and the management office just takes care of the common areas. They say that they could call a locksmith but that seems like it would cost a lot of money and take a lot of time. So I call Chris at work from the phone at the security desk and he has to come all the way home (40 minutes in a cab) to let me in. Thankfully I remembered his work number because I still don't know our home phone by heart. This is the kind of thing that can happen anywhere, I know that, but it feels much more difficult to get through when the only other person you can call to help you is 40 minutes away.

...I interrupt this blog at 9:30 a.m. to tell you that we can now flush our toilets again! Woo hoo! It's the little things. And now back to my regular programming...

In all actuality, the day really wouldn't have been that big of a disaster if it had ended on a better note. I made it to my 4:30 meeting only a few minutes late even after having locked myself out and went to one of the Western grocery stores on the way home. I knew Chris was having a long day with having to come home in the middle of it so I wanted to make him an actual dinner. I had fun cruising around the grocery store and marveling at the cost of things (i.e. U.S. $8 for one chicken breast from America). I had called my dad when I got home. I was starting to feel like I was getting a head cold from all of the aircon blowing on my head and I knew he would have a suggestion as to how to stave off the cold. Zinc tablets! Great idea and I even had some with us. He was also able to talk me through shutting off the water on our dripping faucet - things were looking up. This is why even at 29 I'm not sure what I would do without my parents. And then, 5 minutes later, I just about cut the tip of my thumb off. There is instantly blood all over. My dad is trying to figure out what happened on the other end of the phone. I'm trying to stop the bleeding with my hand high above my head and, at that very moment, Chris walks through the door and looks at me in total panic as he's trying to figure out what happened. I was just done with the day and poor Chris had to make dinner.

I'm hoping that today will be a bit better than yesterday. Fannie is coming with the plumber in an hour. She is also supposed to be bringing the manuals for our dishwasher and wash machine as well. I'm very excited about that but undoubtedly there will be good stories as a result.