Tania in China

Fri, Oct 13: What a Scare!

This morning my "room bobbing" problem started shortly after getting up. I am wondering if I am going to be spending my entire time in China "bouncing along"! The breakfast buffet at the hotel is very nice with a wide variety of food, but I think I am going to be very, very tired of it by the end of my 10 week stay. I still really like the fresh fruit, and have been eatting the Chinese cantelope every morning.

As I head to work I stop at the ATM in the lobby to pick up some more cash, since I am almost out of the cash I got when I exchanged my American money when I checked in. The ATM takes my card and pin just fine, but then the only options I am given are "inquire" or "deposit". This is not a good sign. I enter "inquire" for my checking account, and it tells me "Balance available for withdrawal: 0". Uh-oh! This is not good! I had just assumed I would be using my ATM card in China, so I don't have any extra cash with me, or a check book, or the PIN numbers for my credit cards. And you really, really can't survive in China without cash - most places do not take credit cards. So I sprint up to the office to check my account online, and first find out that I do indeed have plenty of money in my accounts - nobody has wiped me out. Next I check the ATM access for my Credit Union (something I really, really should have done before I arrived!), and although there are about 5 countries where they have turned off ATM access because of fraud, China is not one of them. According to the site my credit union is still part of the Cirrus network, so my card should work. My boss suggests I try the ATM at the bank across the street rather than the one in the hotel, so I decide to try that at lunch.

At lunch I first try the ATM that is right outside the office lobby, and Hurray! It gives me money! I am really, really, really relieved! I was getting upset with myself for not checking out the money situation better before I left, but I guess since I had travelled all over Europe just using ATMs, I just hadn't even thought that I would have problems with the ATMs here.

Nothing else new or exciting to report for the day. Work is work - we are plugging along, but keep running into roadblocks that need to be cleared, so we can't proceed nearly as fast as we would like.

After dinner we all head out for a quick drink to a bar that has a menu listing at least 80 different cocktails! Many, many of them I had never heard of before. I pick one that looks interesting, and the waitress has to take the menu up to the bar so the bartender can figure out how to make it! Very funny... After the drink I just head back to the room, eat some snacks (the barbeque pork Ruffles are really, really good!), and am asleep by 7:30. Maybe I can get caught up on my sleep this weekend and get more adjusted to the China timezone.

Coming up: Seeing the tourist sites in Nanjing this weekend, so lots of pictures on the way!

posted by Tania @ 9:20 AM