A while back I posted about the awful banks here in China and my terrible experience with the China Construction Bank and BCBS insurance reimbursement, so to sum up the story it took 4 months for me to get my reimbursement...
1. They first sent the money to MY China account in Brian's name so the bank wouldn't give me the money, took a month to get it sent back to BCBS.
2. They sent the money again after a few weeks and many calls and escalations to Lindsay Hudson and left out my middle name which i specifically mentioned they needed so my bank account name from my passport would match the wire. They FAILED again!
3. Once I took two Chinese people with me to communicate with the China bank and called to yell at BCBS multiple times the funds were sent back to BCBS and in the mean time i closed the China account.
4. I finally got the money into my USA account, where else could they send it now.....4 months later :(
Today I went back to China Construction Bank, here you have a debit card essentially that you load with money and the Utilities are pulled off it monthly, I was told we needed more funds so I went to add more money. In the past I have been able to use the ATM for a deposit directly on the card, I feed my card into the machine and proceeded to select the account deposit button, then put the pin number in and nothing.....hmmmm let's try again....nothing.....hit cancel....no card comes out......uhhhhhhh! Called my friend who was with me into the ATM (its a small booth with a button you must push to lock and unlock the door, there we stood in a hot little box trying to get my card out, pushing all the buttons with no luck. We found a "call" button ( we were only at an ATM not in a branch) and she spoke to someone in Chinese, he said "wait a moment". So there we stood in the box looking outside wondering what we are waiting for.....we call again and he tells us there is a number we have to call, notate the ATM number and bring the passport in to get a card from the bank. Ok, great.....at least we can get out of the box. We go to the car and ask the driver to call the number and they say you have to have your passport, since we are renting the utilities are in the landlords name, so now I have to call and tell him the machine ate my card and he has to go retrieve it so i can pay the bill....seriously this bank is terrible!!! Still waiting to get the card back....
In the meantime, I have set up my account with the Bank of China with ease, they are very helpful and often have an English speaking person in the branches to assist. I took my laptop in and they helped me setup my debit card to pay for things on Taobao.com and I can not easily make purchases. So moral of the story....stay AWAY from China Construction Bank!
In other news.....Blake had his first and second day of nursery/preschool and LOVED it! His first day he was blowing the teacher kisses as he left and ran to one the second morning for a big hug when we arrived. I think he feels at home in his room of 8 kids and 2 teachers. They do everything from reading, outside activities, play time, nap time, snack time and Blake's favorite lunch time! He is making new friends and i think he really enjoys being around kids his own age instead of mom all day long :) Here are some photos!
I received a text from the Ayi, along with two other people texting me in English that she lost her key to our home. I was out with Blake at the aquarium and lunch with some new friends and couldn't get home so I told her to leave and come back the next day. Upon arriving home, the doorman and cleaning staff all informed me the Ayi was locked out and lost her key....in Chinese and gestures of course...so I reassured them it was ok. I continued to receive additional texts apologizing for losing the key and offering to pay to re-key the apartment for security reasons. Its seems so difficult to communicate the littlest things when there is a communication barrier, I kept telling her it was OK we would get another one, just to come the next day and I would meet her at the apartment but I continued to receive apologetic text messages. Anyway, I asked the driver to take me after dropping Blake at school to have a new key made....he took me to one place that clearly had door locks and such you could see through the windows, he went inside and they told him they don't make keys...the place looked legit. So then he takes me to the next option, a little stall in the wet market by Xinbei to an old fashioned hand made key machine. I handed over the key and my driver communicates what i need, they tell me 10 minutes to come back. So I go and wander around picking up some delicious sweet corn, bell peppers, green beans, fresh apples and bananas for our weekly shopping and head back through the rows of people with meat cleavers chopping refrigerated meat, and noddle stands to find the little stall with the "lock smith". I sit and wait another 20 minutes while he finished my two keys but I have to say they work and they only cost me 25rmb each so that's about $4 not too bad. Here are some photos of this adventure below.
And last but not least....Brian had the brilliant idea we needed a BBQ. So we went off to Metro as a family last weekend, which mind you always costs us more when we all go....and we bought a BBQ. So where would we grill food in our apartment up on the 27th floor with no outdoor space, on the terrace of course! Its China! So Brian setup his grill, the instructions were in German and according to him not very good at telling your which nuts and bolts to put where....but he accomplished his mission. The BBQ stood pretty sturdy and he set it up to make some hamburgers for dinner....on the enclosed terrace. So he opened all the windows in the terrace and proceeded to build the charcoal up and make a fire, the house pretty much smelled like charcoal grill for the remainder of the night, he used magazines since we have no newspaper around, and no lighter fluid because it seems impossible to find in our city right now, so he got a new Zippo lighter recently with refill lighter fluid that was very potent! Some smoke came in but not too much, and we had hamburgers for dinner! I didn't get good photos but here are a few....when in China....
And that's been our week so far!
I had my 28 week check-up and baby and mommy are both doing well, I start to go every two weeks now so there should be a new ultrasound picture after our next appointment to share....until then!
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