Lazy Sunday

Hey, this was really a lazy day. I did... hmmm... nearly nothing. Sleeping in, relaxing, talking to my boyfriend on skype, learning a little bit of Chinese, listening to music.

So today I want to tell you about my Beijing everyday life. My apartment in Beijing is in an international condominium with a small garden including a children's playground and an indoor swimming pool although the pool unfortunately has no nice meditterean atmosphere. My apartment has two rooms, bath room and kitchen, fully equipped - or more than fully equipeed as I can dispose of two Chinse DVD players, but because instruction and buttons on the DVD are in Chinese only, I was happy that I managed one of them and didn't try the second one yet.

Drinking water from the tub is not advisable in Beijing so I also own a water dispenser (German: Wasserspender) with hot and cold water. People here in Beijing drink a lot of hot water (no, not tea, but plain hot water), I first had to get used to it and now even like drinking "开水/kaishui".
At work there are also water dispensers all over the offices and my most common daily drink is really kaishui there as well.

Work hours are more reglemented than in Germany. Everybody has to be in office from 8:30 am to 5:15 pm in our joint venture. Many companies have company busses that collect employees before work and bring them home after work, but ours doesn't. For me it was a matter of getting used to starting work "so late" because in Germany I had nearly always started the workday at 7:30 am and it also was a matter of getting used to fixed, non-flexible working times. Of course employees and especially bosses work overtime, but if a normal employee has to work overtime, he will have to formally apply for overtime beforehand.

For lunch we often go to Chinese restaurants or some foodstand at the local market - some with more basic hygience, some with high hygience, but all serve yummie food of some kind. On the weekends for dinner I like to go to Vegetarian restaurants because I can eat everything there without bothering about the ingredients. "Pure Lotus" is a Vegetarian restaurant owned by monks with an excellent dining atmosphere, but for Beijing relatively high prices. Another favorite veggie restaurant is "Lily Vegetarian" which has a friendly family style atmosphere and also offers the most astonishing vegetable dishes and meat / fish imitations made from beancurd / doufu / tofu. China has many Vegetarian restaurants because one interpretation of buddhism doesn't allow monks to eat animals, garlic or onions.