I arrived at the airport in Pudong On the 16th Of October (I think...It was a long time ago!!) and I started looking for a taxi as there was supposed to be one waiting there for me (I arrived at the airport around 1 a.m). After checking around the airport for 40 minutes and realising that the taxi man was missing(\I missed him) , I decided to have a quick sleep at the airport as I had plenty of time to kill before I was going to meet the work crowd.
I woke up around 7ish (after what I can describe as an ok sleep! (It took me a while to find a place to lie down as there seemed to be many people sleeping at the airport that night!)) I tried to ring the school and eventually at 9am (when they open -) ) they got back to me and I was on my way!
The taxi's over here look a bit like Toyota Corollas (They have an orange hue.) The taxi driver has a protective piece of plastic that shields him from his passengers. (not a bad idea.)
Anyway, I met up with the guys from the school and they set me up at a hote in Shanghai for the week. I was sharing with another guy (from the U.K) who was teaching on Korea for a while. Graham and I decided to head out on the town and have a quick look around the place.
Shanghai itself seems to be a nice place but there are certain streets that are very dodgy at any time of the day!! At one point ,we were walking back to the hotel when a woman cae over to me and said something in Chinese....I didn't know what she said so I shrugged my shoulders and she said 'sex'. I said 'nah , no thanks' and looked away thinking that she would talk to Graham....Then she...ahem grabbed my ...ahemm.....'attention' by grabbing something else... I think it was time to move on (Although in fairness to her she had my full attention then!)
We decided to walk from the hotel (near Jing An Temple all the way to the Bund).At one particular point, I sat down for a rest and a woan came over and asked me ,'what are you doing here? How long have you been here for? How long will you be staying for? I am leaving for ----- tomorrow. Do you want to go for a coffee?' . Little did I realize it at the tie but this happened QUITE A BIT when I walked down this road.(One day I walked down that road (around 4pm on a Monday evening) and 4 women told me the same story or a similar story!) Actually there was another time where a group of girls asked me to take a photo for them and then they asked the same questions before saying that they were moving on and would I go for a coffee with them.... In case you are wondering (and I am sure you are!) I went (with another guy) for a coffee with 3 girls once and they brought us to a hotell and ordered half the bar.(including a really expensive bottle of whiskey. At the end of that meal, the staff asked my friend and I to pay a HUGE price for the whiskey. I'll be honest. I hate the stuff so I never drank any and neither did my friend so I tod them that I wouldn't pay for the whiskey. The women got fairly upset but you could see that they had a deal going with the hotel to get people into the place and take as much money from them as possible!! To be honest, I found it quite funny (even if the fruit tray cost a bit much!!!))
Anyway, apart from being chatted up by chancers, I hung around Shnghai with Graham for the week. Hallow'een was a couple of weeks away and the festivities were in full swing .... i.e none!! There seemed to be Christmas lights up everywhere so that was nice. I tried some of the local street food (as always) and that was nice. The bars were a bit sleazy as there were girls at the door who made no secret of the fact that they would talk to you as long as you kept paying for their company.
I visited a school close to Jing An temple for a week and then I was whisked away to an apartment in a place called Nanhui (It's a town that's situated 2 hours from Shanghai city center.)
When I arrived , the school was getting ready to celebrate hallow'een so I had to don some false teeth (To be honest, I think they are an improvement on my real teeth.) After that It was down to the business of teaching and getting used to life in this part of the world.
I have seen some little reminders of Ireland over here (The errygold milk, The Irish coffee you can order in KFC [minus the Baileys of course!]) but aside from that , there isn't much here to remind me of Ireland (or Europe!)
When I arrived, the weather had started to get colder . This was fine for me as I was getting too used to the hot weather of the other countries! That feeling changed after a month or two when it got very cold!!! I bought myself a heater and it has been the best thing ever!
I have been here 3 months and I have yet to play a ping pong game here! I must sort that out as soon as possible!
As regards Christmas over here, that doesn't really exist. There are trees at the local tescos but I don't think they sell them in record numbers. New years is celebrated over here also but It's a smalll enough event. After New Years the tesco shop cleaned the shelves and put up loads of sweets (mostly peanut butter sweets) and went into overdrive! I guess the year of the snake is going to be a big year!
I have realised a couple of things since I came over here
(1. I don't recognise that Poinsettia tree. They had it over here for Christmas and asked me about it but I hadn't a clue about it sdespite the fact that it was in our house for every year for the last ....mmm....x years!
2. People over here tend to grunt when they agree with you. This is cool as I naturally do this!
3. The smog over here is pretty bad. I have had a sore throat (on and off) for pretty much all the time that I have been in China. This is a bit of a shame.
4. I try to go jogging twice a week when I am here. The people are actually quite nice and I get uite a few 'hello's ' when I am jogging. They always seem to be from men though. Also, they always say 'hello' but never 'Ni Hao?' or 'Ni Hao ma?' !
5. I have used the chinese sign language a couple of times .... [e.g: 8 Kwai is 'Ba Kwai (or Ba RMB [The unit of currency here is the Yuan but it's also known as Kwai or RMB])' but if you thumb and forefinger in the shape of a gun , they know that you mean 8 Kwai!]
6. People still tend to look at the hair on my arms. Over here, the locals don't really have hair on their arms so they find that fascinating!
7. I visited a local dentist a couple of weeks ago.Well, Cindy helped me visit the dentist! She heard that one of the students at the school has a father who is a dentist in the area and I had to go (due to erosion of one of my fillings (Coke tastes too good!!!!)) So we paid a visit to the place and it was pretty cool to be honest. I waited in the main room (This room happened to be the room located just in front of the main entrance.) I sat down with two elderly men who kept looking at me as if I had the keys to the magic kingdom (I don't . I sold them for a 2.5 liter bottle of Coke.) After a couple of minutes of them staring at me and vice versa (well, I did look at the stray cat also.) I hopped onto the dentist chair .....which was situated in the same room beside the chair that I was sitting on. The waiting room/dentists chair room was a good way to save space! The dentist went to work on my tooth and at one point, he intimated to me to move my ass. The chair wasn't electronic... This dentist was quite different to the one's that I have visited back home and in the U.K. He was a cool guy though and he didn't need to use any drugs on me which was cool....and He charged me nothing was was super cool!! I think I should buy him something (I was thinking a bottle of coke but I guess that was the problem in the first place!)
8. My football skills (i.e: The ability to run into somebody or accidentally trip them up are as sharp as ever. I played a 7 a side game a couple of months ago and (apart from nearly collapsing with exhaustion) got 3 free kicks (for the other team) It was a good runout though as I scored a jammy goal. I think that was the start AND the end of my football experient here in China!! The game was very serious and I don't want to take it too seriously ()well, that and I don't want to hurt someone after accidentally running into them!)
9.. I had forgotten how cool cards were. I tried to show Cindy and a couple of the others the rules of 25s and they were very enthusiastic. Maybe, I should start a 25 card drive in China!!
There is a bell tower in Nanhui and there is a card room close to the tower. This room seems to be full of old guys and gals and they play cards there. I think it's time to explain the rules to them!!!
10. I have to alter the way I pronounce both 'u' and 'th'.... i.e: Dublin and 33 and a third.... When I was traveling through the other countries in Asia , some guys would ask me where I was from. I wouls always say Dublin with the u sounding like the u fada in Irish sound... Some of te guys would slag me by just repeating my accent. Since I have come here, people have told me to say it correctly but saying Dublin in a non Dublin way sounds wrong!!!!!!
11.I am nearly used to seeing everybody snorting up some phlegm from their lungs. I can't sau much as I am one of the worst culprits as regards getting phlegm out of my body. I must be keeping the honey industry going in China. I eat quite a bit of honey as it can soothe the throat at times but the smog (which to be honest is not that visible but more palpable) isn't great.
12. I have seen many 'rag and bone' men since I have arrived here in Nanhui. I never saw these back home. In fact , the only time I saw these was when I was watching 'Steptoe and Son'! They are commonplace here. I have noticed that a lot of motorbike handlebars are covered by what looks like a sleeve....so, you can put your hand in the sleeve and drive your bike and your hands will stay warm. Class!
Collecting cardboard
Notice the handlebars on the motorcycle are covered.
This saves the drivers hands when it gets cold...
A REALLY cool thing!
12. I have to throw up some food photos. Them's the rules!!
This is what a spoon looks like in China.
You are always given some broth with your meal.
Normally (In my opinion), It's my favourite part of the meal!
That odd looking black egg shaped thing is an egg.
It has a weird colour but it tastes fine!
Buying the food raw and getting a barbeque in the restaurant is quite popular here.
That bacon still looks tempting now!
The dark brown sauce is peanut butter sauce.That is quite popular over here.
Vegetables to one side, meat and fish to the other and.....cook!
This bowl is very popular.
You can go into a restaurant and choose what meat / fish/ noodles you want and they will cook it for you.They will add some water and then present it in this bowl.
Steaming a sticky substance (which tastes like soft bread but it has meat inside it.)
mince meat...num num...
This tastes a bit like porridge with a bit of corn thrown in .
A bit of everything thrown into a bowl
The hot pot...You have a spicy side and a non spicy side here. Be careful, when they say spicy,THEY MEAN SPICYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Cindy with some dragon fruit
This pic has nothing to do with food. There was some snow here but it lasted about 5 seconds
More hot pot! I like the idea of chucking everything in a bowl and letting it simmer and then drinking all the broth...I eat the food too (sometimes!)
You can't beat a good fry!
Fast food Chinese style
This is Chicken curry.
One of the students in the school gave me this.
One of the teachers told me to hang on to it for a few minutes , eat it and tell he would tell me what it was.
I ate it and thought it was fine.
It was a duck's kidney
Looks similar to the ones back home
The gateway to China (The flag can be seen in the background)
Picture of the Bund
Another photo of the Bund
The rumours are true and here is the car!
More photos can be seen on http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.464200916972469.107010.100001476944065&type=3
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