Electrical Woes!

I have been blogging now for over two years and at this point, there is very little that surprises me here in China. I am beyond the point of getting overly frustrated with certain things and now have the attitude that it's "a China thing"! There is one very strange process that I just can't seem to wrap my head around...the electricity. In the US we pay our electrical bill once a month and we don't have to worry about losing our electricity (unless of course there is a big storm, which we experienced many times in Bettendorf!)! Here, if I understand it correctly, you have an account. On that account you can put a maximum amount of money - it may last a month or it may last three months, it depends on usage. The problem is that it is very difficult to know how much electricity you have left. I have manyfriends who have had the power cut midday - there is no warning!! You must then go and put more money in your account! We are fortunate that our landlords take care of this for us, but for the time being they are in southern China, so our realtor has been in charge! He gave me this little blue card and said I could use it just in case he forgot to put money on our account and our electricity was cut!! It is actually quite clever. Once you put this blue card in some slot (no idea where this is located!) it will provide enough electricity for your house for about half a day. The idea is that this will give you enough time to go put money on your account before your refrigerated things spoil, or if it is the middle of the night you will have electricity until the morning!!