Organic food delivery & much, much more!

I was talking to some of the other WAB(Western Academy of Beijing) moms & dads at the bus stop about how they wash their vegetables considering the water situation and the sketchiness of the chemicals on Chinese produce when one of them told me a lot of people get their produce delivered from one of the organic farms outside Beijing, including her. Then they just use a veggie wash. I checked it out and it is AWESOME!  I registered with Beijing Organic Farm and they have started delivering homemade organic bread, eggs, veggies & fruits for an incredibly affordable price.  Delivery itself is free.  For example, this week I had a mixed veggie box full of all kinds of gorgeous vegetables (shoulda taken a pic), a box of eggs and 2 loaves of homemade bread for 160 RMB, which is about $26.  Unbelievable.  In the import stores the organic produce is still really affordable, but more expensive than that.  Granted, the box of veggies was so abundant that I'm going to need to make vegetable soup this week -crap, I don't have a stockpot.  Well, as soon as I buy a stockpot, I'll need to make a big pot of veggie soup.  YUM.

So, I took it one step further.  In some of the information WAB sent home with Oleg was stuff about an organic dairy farm that has home delivery.  I have really been struggling with the milk, as it is again quite sketchy in China, plus, in the states I always bought organic milk. I had bought some Australian organic milk that I found, but it was really expensive.  ANYWAY...I signed up for home delivery with the US owned and run organic dairy farm WonderMilk.  Twice a week starting tomorrow I get fresh, low fat milk, yogurts and pudding delivered.  Per week, the total is 107 RMB or roughly $14. I've seen WonderMilk products at a few import stores and fancy deli/bakeries, but it was more expensive.

What is not quite as cool as my new found grocery delivery is the fact that a Chinese ATM ate Steve's US bank card today while I was attempting to withdraw money.  I can't use my card for that account because Chinese banks don't recognize joint accounts.  Steve left the card with me as he has been out of town all week to some more rural areas of China, so he took the Chinese bank account card with him just to be sure he had access to money.  Unfortunately, Steve gave me the wrong pin number and I tried entering it one too many times.  I have cash on me to last until Steve gets home tomorrow, but I wanted to take out a large sum for a grand IKEA excursion tomorrow morning.  I tried calling the Chinese bank that took the card, but it was no use.  Steve will have to call our US bank from wherever he is and get it straightened out.  Ooops.

One last thing before I leave you with some pics.  My apartment building does work with one of the orphanages just south of Beijing near Tianjin.  Next Saturday, they are having a volunteer day of sorts where residents & employees take a chartered bus to the orphanage to deliver money and food as well as spend time with the kids. I know how important that one on one contact is for kids in orphanages and I want to provide that if I can.  I'm all over it and I'll tell you about my experience next week.

Ok, really, this is the last thing.  This weekend we are going to The Great Wall on Saturday. Plus our 1st shipment passed customs and is being delivered on Sunday!

Random pics

View from guest bedroom

Another view from guest bedroom

Oleg in his WAB PE outfit in the morning

On our way to the bus stop