Day 3 – Morning thunder & lightening

Well that put a damper on my plans for the day; waking up to a pretty good thunder and lightening storm dampened (ha!) my plans for exploring a new part of Suzhou this morning. The weather appears to be getting nicer after lunchtime, but not sure if I’ll be headed out or not just yet. Maybe at dinner time!

I ran into my first “well it works fine in the USA but not here in China” issue: My electric clippers. You see, I was going to give myself a haircut today as I’m getting a little shaggy on the sides. I plugged my clippers into the 115v outlet (using an adapter, not a converter) and turned them on. WHOAH did they make way too loud of a sound, almost chainsaw level. Guess that extra 5v isn’t good for my tried, true, and trusty clippers that I’ve owned since 1999. The $30 I paid for them in a Walgreens back in the day is more than paid off. It looks like I’ll have to find a place to buy a 115v-to-110v converter or find a new pair of clippers made to work here specifically in China.

Since a lot of my days right now revolve around foraging for food at nearby restaurants (that may or maynot have menus with pictures on them … ), I started finding websites that help you navigate restaurants with common words and phrases. One such site helped me learn today’s word of the day: 面条 (miàn tiáo) meaning “noodles”. Yes, there’s tons of different types of noodles and I’ll eventually have to learn those, but for now I’m happy with 面条! Progress, one noodle at a time!