My fascinating adventure with an invection cooktop

Ah, Day 1. The first day went fine (Ikea in a foreign country: check!) until I tried to cook something. I couldn't wait to eat some vegetables that hadn't been drowned in oil and minced pork, but the Chinese buttons on the cooktop (aptly-named, left) were totally incomprehensible. You'd think low, medium, high and on/off would pretty much cover it, right? After pushing buttons in every sequence I could think of, I decided the dirty old thing was broken. It just beeped and beeped.

So, prioritizing my seemingly-urgent need to prepare my own hot food NOW over all logic and sense of economy, I went out and bought a new one. The outside of the box had all its text in English and Chinese, but when I opened it at home (home?), I was caught once again in the mysterious beeping problem. Finally, I made the timer function work. After it counted down to zero, the oiled pan on top of it went from stone cold to scorched and smoking within seconds. Could that be a feature? Can't return the thing now, since I ruined the pot it came with, but I think I'll go crawling back to the store where I purchased it and see if they can talk me through the meaning of the mysterious buttons. Can't imagine any sales clerk in the States bothering with this sort of thing, can you?

Anyways, all of this sent me on a desperate quest for vegetarian food. When my miso soup arrived with delicately rolled anchovies afloat, I called it a night. It seems the day is saved, though, since I just found out I can access someone's wireless from my bedroom! But then another turn of fortune, as I now see that my friend Puipui emailed me to say that I must have my visa to her by today. Sorry, PP, you'll have to wait until tomorrow!