Appliances

You know, I guess I always imagined that appliances were labeled in the universal language of efficiency; therefore, I never imagined having issues with the appliances here in Shanghai. Take the washer/dryer combo--all in Chinese. John has made it work, and that's great as long as you want to wash and dry everything on one setting: hot. So far we haven't had any catastrophes, but I'm planning to hand-wash anything remotely delicate.
Then the dishwasher--it's not like we would actually use it, since we only have a place setting for four and use pretty much everything at each meal--but that was in Chinese until recently. Sometime while we weren't looking--I really hope it was while we were gone and not while we were sleeping--the complex replaced the Chinese dishwasher with one in German. I guess they figured it was close enough to our crazy language.
Finally the cooking devices--the supernova microwave and the oven. We figured out the stovetop, but the oven has some device in there that looks like it makes Peking Duck or something. No clue--we haven't even tried to turn it on. We can get the microwave to do two things: cook something on full power for 1 minute at a time (super hot) or we push the "Noodle" button (yes, it really says Noodle in English) and it cooks on 1/2 power for 8 minutes.
So far we're making it through. Nothing has burned or charred or caught on fire yet, and that's a good thing.
If I tried to describe the shower, it would be a total mess. It would take a full demonstration.
I am totally amazed and in awe of John figuring out all of the appliances. I certainly would have spent my first week here in tears if I didn't even know how to get the shower to work.
No pics this time. I was supposed to update John's blog today but he didn't leave me his login name, so despite about 200 attempts, I have not succeeded in adding more to it.
I guess that's why I have my own. Probably a good thing if we end up spending more time abroad like this (and we will).