Well thankfully the heating came only one day late, the administrators of our apartment complex posted the house numbers of all flats that hadn't paid on a board in the entrance to the complex. It was a wise tactic as people were soon paying up.
Now we have the opposite problem, its like a sauna in our flat, it's seems that the powers that be don't know a whole lot about moderation. The radiators are red hot 24 hours a day and so we have started opening the windows to cool things down. It's so backwards it's funny, but it certainly a nicer problem to have than being to cold.
Jenna went to have a root canal done in what's left of one of her teeth today, she was dreading it but the dentist told her that she needed some more medicine on it before she could do the root canal and so she has to wait a further 10 days. She dreads the dentist.
The heatings on....and don't we know it
The Day The Heating Came On
I haven't posted for a month and now heres two in a day!
Today is the 15th of November, it's a big day here.
The majority of people in China (well in our city anyway) get their winter heating through the City heating system. The way this system works is that it gets turned on 15th November and then gets turned off on the 15th March, no matter how cold it may be outside of this window.
The change in the city has been incredible. It's like overnight a huge cloud of smog has landed. As you can see from this picture (which was taken at 1.30pm) you can't see very far, and when you go outside you can taste the coal dust on the air. I'm not usually too bothered about the smog and am not very opinionated about global warming etc but I have just found the speed with which the climate has changed to be amazing.
It has been on-and-off cold for about a month now and so we were really excited this morning for the radiators to be warm.
No such luck though, when we checked the radiators this morning they were still stone cold. It turned out that not enough people in our apartment block paid for the heating and so it won't come on until those people pay :-(
Quick Update
It's been quite a while since I have posted anything. It has been quite an up and down time. My Dad visited just after my last post, we had a really nice time although Tabitha didn't recognize him and cried a lot. We had been feeling much better about being here. And then 2 weeks ago quite a few things happened with illness, finding out that one of Jenna's relatives had passed away, loads of homework and a general lack of sleep. It all started to take it's toll on us last weekend and we were really missing home.
But thankfully our "Father" has been a great comfort and also the friends we have around us have been great too. We are feeling much better at the moment, Tabitha and Jenna have recovered from their illnesses and we have started to catch up on our sleep.
We are so glad to be here and the Chinese people are really welcoming and friendly. I just think that sometimes all of the different things can start to add up. We wouldn't change it for anything though :-)
