Since the water in our apartment has been shut off for the past few days to fix a leak on our block, we have been eating out for dinner. Mainly we’ve been doing this because we don’t want to make dirty dishes we can’t clean.

Last night we packed the girls in their double stroller and walked down to a hotel restaurant a few blocks from where we live. On the way, Anna pointed out a dead rat she noticed on the side of the road. Thanks, Anna, I might have missed that had you not pointed it out.

Undeterred by this little appetizer, we ordered our food. We were pretty adventurous and ordered cooked brocolli, steamed rice, and sweet and sour chicken. It was delicious. As I was scarfing this meal down, I thought about how different it was eating here from when we came to this exact restaurant our first day in Xining. Our friends introduced us to it.

On that day I had been feeling very ill. I had spent most of the morning in the lavatory of the airplane (from Kunming to Xian) puking my guts out. (I know it’s graphic.) The night before we had flown to Xining we had spent in Kunming at a hotel. For some reason, I wasn’t able to sleep the entire night. The bed at the hotel was one of the hardest beds I had ever tried to sleep on. I think my nerves were a bit frazzled, too, from all the culture shock / anticipation stuff. Needless to say when we arrived in Xining and went out for lunch…I was not too hungry. Today felt very different. So much had happened. We have come so far and are (relatively speaking) much more settled and ready to learn what it means to be Chinese (or at least foreigners who are able to adapt to a Chinese culture.) It was one of those times when you’re able to look back on an experience and be glad that you’ve come through it. I was frankly just glad that I wasn’t nauseous anymore!

Curious about how long it had been since the notorious day we had first visited this restaurant, I looked at my watch. The date read September 22nd—exactly one month since we arrived here.

I thought that was kind of scratch-your-head interesting. We thought maybe we should make this a monthly tradition. After all it only cost us around $4.00 to feed our entire family. (The pictures below were taken outside the restaurant except for the one of Sarah. That was taken outside our apartment complex.)