Pan fried noodles!

So today's big accomplishment was that I found and ate pan fried noodles, yet another culinary delicacy I've been looking forward to.  Hell-to-the-yeah!  (see photo in side column.)  Soooo delicious.  I had help though.

We had to go into school today to get some training on the computer lab technology and to sign some paperwork for our visas.  The guy in charge of technology, Phil, seems great and he will probably be my mentor since I'm interested in all that stuff.  He has an elaborate Moodle site set up and it seems like I'll have a lot of options for incorporating web use into my lessons.
Yay Phil!

Pictured from top to bottom are Phil, Carol, Angie, and Beth.

Anyway, we convinced Carol, our Admin and Cultural Liaison Extraordinaire to let us tag along with her to lunch.  She took us to a place that had a lot of noodle dishes on the menu, so I asked if any of them were pan fried noodles, also known as Hong Kong style noodles in the States.  She didn't know what I was talking about, but luckily Angie, my Malaysian housemate knew what I meant and saved the day (again) by explaining it to Carol in Cantonese.  She's come to my translating rescue multiple times now, and Beth knows some Mandarin from her time in Beijing, so she's got a head start on me as well, since there's some overlap with Cantonese.  But I'm starting with what I know - food.   I asked Carol what to call the noodles so I could order them again and she said "chow mein".  Even I know that!  But she pronounced it more like "mean", so I will too.

After lunch we came home and tried to set up our bank accounts but are having trouble because our work permits are not finished.  We have to go get fingerprinted in early September, so it is not yet clear whether we can get paid before then.  Good thing I have a line of credit at Wells Fargo!  :)  I also have money coming from Disney, so it will be fine, just a hassle.  My other big accomplishment was getting a phone.  After spending several hours jailbreaking my iphone and reading about various technical aspects of the process on multiple forums, I learned that it's not enough and that I also need to unlock my SIM card, which is really tricky with my model of phone.  I figured it was no longer worth the headache and potential problems caused by continuing to mess with it, so I just bought a cheapie Nokia for my local calling needs.  And by cheap I mean $100 U.S.  It's ok, though, because my daily food budget is 100 patacas, which is like $12 U.S. and that's being fairly decadent.

It's funny how much more time and effort it takes to accomplish simple tasks when you don't know where you're going or how to do anything.  I feel like the end of the day comes and what did I do?  Not all that much.  But I'll get there, my ambitious nature will overcome eventually.  :)  It always does.

And I'll try to get a video of my apartment up tomorrow - promise.