Week 1 - Zibo China

Week 1

Howdy there my lovelies!!!

I thought I would take a moment to drop a line to say a huge thanks for all your support as I made the move to China. Has been an interesting few day with heat, smells, monsoonal rains and toilet phobia!! All in all is going ok I am in a (we shall "kindly" call it 2 star) hotel and so I have a little sanctuary with air con, internet, instant coffee and my own toilet (if you put a towel on it you do not even notice the crack in the seat!!)

Everyone is very friendly and I have had a few "hellos" from the local, though I think maybe a few more mandarin phrases would have been a good idea but the phrase book assists and the lonely planet warns me or potential social faux pas, for example no form hand shaking as it is boorish.

My first meal was a pleasant surprise after a little bit of discussion into my likes and dislikes I was presented, with a flourish...... julienned carrot and mushroom stir fry and a bottle of Pepsi, which I was then forced to politely consume in front of the hosts and serving staff, yum yum (I took a photo to commemorate the event but can not seem to load it onto the pc) so in all things the only way is up, luckily dinner was better with an array of "meats" including pork kidney and some white chewy one. I felt bad that I did not eat much but was thrilled to see the teachers were taking the leftovers, they put all the dishes into one plastic bag to take with them, yes indeed rice, broccoli, dumplings, kidneys and "mystery meat" all in together, I politely declined taking a share of it with me.......

Today was my first day alone and so I awoke to the monsoonal rains and this seemed to put a nice shine on everything and so when it stopped I left for a wander of the neighbourhood and was very pleased to find a long street of shops and at the end a department store I have not moved into my apartment yet but when I do I will do some credit card damage there! They have a frog shaped rice cooker and a green magic bullet!!!!!!! I limited my purchase today to a green umbrella which I needed.

When I left there I wandered across the road and there was the yellow river and across the bridge was KFC, I resisted the urge but am glad to know that it is near by if I need a touch of the familiar! I have also decided that once a month I will be taking a long weekend to one of the big cities or a posh hotel in Zibo. I then found a lovely park beside the river which I imagine is the family hang out on weekends, even had swan paddle boats.

So really so far the only thing that has not gone smoothly was the posting of my clothes and shoes, turns out the school has 2 campuses and so I have sent it to the other one with the wrong postcode, I am hoping the labelling will see it arrive to me or at the worst case make its way back to Australia. Though it may mean I have to do some searching for deodorant. ;)

I was expecting more smoking, spitting and sniffing but seems to not be the norm here and I seem to not have caused much of a stir though have not seen a western face now for 3 days.......

Well my initial impressions of china are all ok I think the vegetarian lifestyle may be in order and when I am in my apartment and teaching I will really know how I feel but at the moment it all seems ok. Wish I had learnt some mandarin, wish I had realised it was still summer here but other than that no regrets..... yet maybe when I have taught 1200 kids a week for a month I will be hoping to be there.

Wow that is a longer message than I thought but being a communicator if this is how I can do it I will channel into text. I have been SKYPEing with my folks and Erica (who I have now added to this email) and so feel free to give me ahoy on there, Facebook is blocked so I can not access that but maybe it will be reopened soon.

Cheers
TJ

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