Mandarin Mondays: 交费

Last week, we were finally able to pay (jiāo fèi, 交费) the last of our utility bills, the cold water bill (shuǐ fèi, 水费). Some things like rent (zū, 租) they want to to pay in advance, but other things require long "processing time" or something here. You would think if you lived in an apartment for several months they would want to to pay up right away, but surprisingly when we thought we were late, we were actually early.

The bill system is quite confusing, thankfully it seems fairly forgiving as well. For each utility bill you have to pay you have to go to a separate place (dì fāng, 地方), after a certain day (tiān, 天), of a certain month (yuè, 月). Some bills are due after the 10th of the month and some after the 20th of the month. Some are due on odd months and some on even months. Some other types of bills are only collected once a year (nián, 年). It's annoying to have to pay it all up front, but at least it is easier to keep track of.

We are thankful that we took care of our phone (diàn huà, 电话) and internet (wǎng luò, 网络) for a whole year at a time. Not only did we get a better deal, but we don't have to worry about it getting shut off anytime soon, like happened our poor neighbors who got the months mixed up.

Everyone's electric bills on the door

Some bills like electric and gas they post on the outer door of your apartment building. No, they are not in envelopes. Yes, you can see everyone's bills. Yes, you can go around comparing your bill to everyone's bills if you wish.  Privacy isn't the same here.

But they don't post water bills for some reason. And to make matters more confusing, we have both a cold (or regular) water bill (shuǐ fèi, 水费) and a solar hot water (tài yáng rè shuǐ, 太阳热水) bill. These are due at different times, and you have to go to different places to pay them. This is because we have to pay water company the cold water bill (shuǐ fèi, 水费) and the apartment complex a management fee (wù guǎn fèi,物管费) for the solar hot water. They manage the solar heaters that are on the roof of the seventh floor of our buildings. The solar water heaters do a really good job heating most of the time, but if it rains for quite a while, you may want to wait for a sunny day to take a shower.

Electric office guard likes Andrew

If the system isn't completely clear, don't worry, it is still confusing to use too. Just be glad if you can simply mail your bills out each month. Thankfully, we have some friends who have lived here for a while, and they helped us sort all of this out. One of our friends spent a whole afternoon taking us around to all four places to try to pay our bills, so even though we couldn't get them all taken care of that day, we were able to keep going back to check. Now that we have paid each one once, it should be easier in the future.

Family Friday: Dinner, Grocery, and Bus Adventures

Yesterday, we had the opportunity to visit the extremely nice Chinese-American gentleman who hosted us the night we first arrived. Sam is back in town a for a few weeks and kindly invited us out to dinner with his wife and son. They took us to a very nice Chinese restaurant near their home. I have never seen a fancy restaurant with a playplace, but I think that it is an idea that Olive Garden and even higher end American restaurants should pursue, because it made the evening so enjoyable. The boys were able to play while we visited, and everyone was happy. After we talked for a while, gave them a small gift, and attempted unsuccessfully to pay the bill (Sam really is to nice to us), we agreed to keep in touch and bid them good night.

We thought since we were already right next to Metro (a German version of Walmart), we would try to stock up on a few bulk purchases before heading home. We got pasta, tomato paste, oatmeal, peanut butter, real Hellman's mayonnaise, and a huge tub of chocolate ice cream. The ice cream is the only item that is not fabulous, but the boys love it (Aaron has nick-named it, "a big ol' kind of ice cream"), and it is cheap to buy it this way. Thankfully, we were able to find everything we were looking for and ended up purchasing about 24 kilos (50 pounds) of western food staples for about $60 US, which is quite a good price for rare and imported items. Besides making everything yourself, buying in bulk is the only really affordable way to have western food here. It is nice that we are able to have some of these convenience foods on hand for some easy meals. Yes, these are convenience foods to us, and no I didn't always view these as convenience foods either. Hopefully, these items will last us about two months.

On a very crowded bus

Now for the inconvenient part of the story: the bus system. To get to this part of town, we needed to take two buses. We were late getting to Sam's house for dinner in the first place because we had to wait a long time to get the connecting bus, and boy was it packed. It was so packed in fact that for several stops, they couldn't accept any more passengers. This very rarely happens on a double decker bus. There were even people standing on the stairs.

A not so crowded bus

We were really hoping that it wouldn't be quite so crowded on the way home, as we had 4 bags of food, 2 small boys, and 1 awesome but still bulky double stroller to get on and off of two buses to go home. We were really blessed and got seats on both buses on the way home. We were very glad to be home. We had some big ol' kind of ice cream and went straight to bed.

Nate is very glad that he won't have to ride the buses so often for a while as he finished his first semester of classes and has a short break before classes resume in the fall.

Frozen Yogurt Recipes

We love ice cream, but around here most of the ice cream is less than stellar. Even the cheapest ice cream isn't that cheap and often has a strange taste. Chocolate lovers beware of Chinese chocolate; we've eaten tastier crayons. And I don't know about you, but we can't be spending $13.50 for a pint of Haagen Daz very often. So aside for buying an occasional giant tub of ice cream, I've come up with some great frozen yogurt recipes for everyday desserts. Although they are certainly good enough to serve for company, and most are healthy enough to eat for breakfast.

All of these recipes can be made using plain homemade yogurt, and you don't even need to own an ice cream maker. Just use the method described here to churn out your own frozen treats.

• 1-2-3 Ingredient "Vegan Ice Cream"
• Banana Frozen Yogurt
• Berry Frozen Yogurt 
• Caramelized Pear Frozen Yogurt
• Dreamsicle Frozen Yogurt 
• Grape Frozen Yogurt
• Kiwi frozen Yogurt
• Lemon Ice
• Mango Frozen Yogurt
• Milk Chocolate Frozen Yogurt
• Peach Frozen Yogurt
• Plum Frozen Yogurt
• Vanilla Frozen Yogurt

DIY Mango Frozen Yogurt

Three simple ingredients combine to make a light and refreshing summer treat. It is such a healthy recipe too, so it is like you are eating frozen breakfast for dessert. Or you could even serve it for breakfast and make everyone extra happy.

Simple Mango Frozen Yogurt

(makes about 1 quart or liter)

1 large mango mashed or pureed
3 cups of yogurt
½ of sugar

Peel mango, and remove pit. Puree in a blender, or mash well with a potato masher. Stir in yogurt and sugar.

Freeze in an ice cream freezer or in a regular freezer using the method described here.

DIY Lemon Ice

This is a simple and refreshing summer treat. The first time I made it, the boys licked their bowls clean.

Easy Lemon Ice

1 cup yogurt
1 cup lemonade concentrate
about ½ cup of sugar (more or less to taste)

Mix together yogurt and lemonade concentrate (store bought or homemade), and then sweeten to taste. I used about ½ cup of granulated sugar, as I was using completely unsweetened yogurt and lemonade concentrate.

Freeze in an ice cream freezer or regular freezer using the method described here.

DIY Powdered Sugar

Recently, I learned that you could make powdered sugar at home in your blender using plain old granulated sugar. I was really excited because powdered sugar is quite expensive here, so it is one of the first things I tried to make in my new blender. But even if it just saved you a trip to the store when you ran out, it would totally be worth it to make it yourself because it is so simple.

Powdered Sugar Recipe

Granulated sugar

Pour a small amount of granulated sugar into your blender, and blender until all the sugar is finely ground like powdered sugar. That's it, wasn't that simple?

I did notice that the amount of sugar pretty consistently increased by 25% when I ground it into powdered sugar. When I ground 1 cup of granulated sugar, I would end up with 1¼ cups of powdered sugar. Something to keep in mind, if you only want to make enough for a specific recipe.

One other thing that I noticed was that the powdered sugar I made wasn't quite as fine as American powdered sugar, but the granulated sugar and powdered sugar here are grittier in general. So the powdered sugar I can make here, is about the same as the powdered sugar I can buy here. Homemade powdered sugar seems to work well in everything I have tried it in so far, but if you are trying to make super sweet powdered sugar and shortening frosting, there might be a difference in the final texture.

DIY Fresh Lemonade an Easier Way

I came across this method for making fresh lemonade a little while ago and could wait to try it out. Thanks to my sweet honey, we now have a new blender. This method is simple and fast, and you can actually use less lemons than if you squeeze them by hand. Here is how I use this method.

Easy Blender Fresh Lemonade or Concentrate Recipe

(makes 2 quarts)
2 lemons
½ to 1 cup sugar
water

First wash the outside of the lemons thoroughly. Then lemons cut into fourths or eighths. Place lemons in the blender and cover lemons with water. Blend for a few seconds. There should still be chunks of lemon. Strain this mixture over a pitcher. I usually have about 2 cups of lemon liquid at the point. Now you can either add sugar and water to equal two quarts, or freeze as concentrate for later use.

DIY Fresh Squeezed Lemonade

Lemons are quite cheap around here, and lemonade is becoming one of our favorite summer treats.

Lemonade

(makes one quart)
4 lemons
¼ to ½ cup of sugar
Enough water to equal 1 quart of prepared lemonade

Roll lemons on the cutting board to loosen the juice and then cut them in half. Squeeze juice into pitcher, add sugar, and then add water. Stir and and serve.

DIY Berry Smoothie

This is a refreshing and light smoothie recipe. Other berries can be substituted for mulberries.

Mulberry Smothie

2 cups ice
2 bananas
1 cup yogurt
1 cup juice or lemonade
½ cup mulberries

Layer ingredients in your trusty blender, starting with the ice, and blend until smooth.

Happy Birthday Nate!

Yesterday, we got to spend a fun-filled day together enjoying and celebrating Nate. Daddy stayed home from school, and for the third day in a row, we all got to eat breakfast together, delicious mulberry smoothies. Aaron and Andrew had colored some Thomas pictures for him, and I gave him some birthday cake truffles.

Later that day, we had a simple brownie cake (I even used icing from a can), but I also made three kinds of homemade ice cream. The mango frozen yogurt was very refreshing. All of the boys' favorite was the moose tracks, and my favorite was definitely the caramel (it was amazing).

We went out in the late afternoon, to play at the park in our apartment complex. The boys also had fun "rock climbing." Then we cam back home for homemade manicotti and more dessert. It was such a nice relaxing day of family time. We are so blessed to have Nate in our lives and look forward to another new year of adventures together.