The Local Village The area of Shanghai that I live in is called Pudong, which is East of the river Huangpu, and this university campus is in one of the far outer suburbs. It’s an hours bus or taxi ride into the city proper, so that will give some perspective on how big this place is. I live along JinHai Road, a six lane highway, which is full of factories, high rise apartments and amongst all this new development, a little of the old China remains. Right beside the university is a delightful mix of what was once old Pudong, marsh [View Full Entry]

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Cute and Adorable Children While I was at the market today I just had to take some photos of the lovely little children that seemed to be everywhere. With the one child only policy each child becomes the focus of not only 2 parents but 4 grandparents as well. It is common to see Granddads out walking the children, held in their arms or pushed in strollers. The children are so warmly rugged up in such cute little outfits but each little pair of pants has a split bottom so the kids do not need nappies. They just go anywhere it [View Full Entry]

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My Local Shopping Centre Where I live in Shanghai is the area west of the Huangpu river, which is called Pudong. This area is really in the outer suburbs of the city but is a delightful mix of the old and the new. It is very high-density living but still has some small traditional dwellings and market gardens amongst the high rise apartments. As well as two fairly big western style supermarkets there is also a more traditional type of open air market which sells almost everything. It was fairly quiet this afternoon when I went to visit but in the [View Full Entry]

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The Great Bike Saga The university campus is large with well set out lawns, fountains, walkways and roads and with 10,000 people living on campus, quite large. So it is quite necessary to have a bike to get around if you don’t want to spend all day walking. Often one teacher who is leaving sells their bike to the new teacher coming if there is a hand over time, but this did not happen for me so I needed to get a bike from somewhere else. In the basement of our building is what the others call the bike graveyard where [View Full Entry]

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Caught the very crowded bus and metro from the uni yesterday into the city centre to Nanjing Road and the Bund. The Bund is the must see Shanghai place. Its a walk way on one side of the Huangpu river with historic buildings and a very famous history. From the guide book it says it got its name from the Anglo-Indian name forom the embankments built up to discourage flooding. Post 1949 it almost went into disrepair when banks and commercial centres closed down nearby but today many have been reopened and revitalised. You walk along Nanjing Road to get to [View Full Entry]

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Coming to China i had expected little Western food but surprise surprise, there seems to be a non Asian food outlet on every corner in the middle of the commercial centre of Shanghai as well as in the area where the expats live. While i was on my big 40 minute one way bike ride to Carrefor, which is a French supermarket chain to get some basic supplies not available locally, i passed the usual KFC, Starbucks and Joe's Pizza. Last night i ventured out into the area near The Bund and Nanging road, again loads of commercial places found anywhere [View Full Entry]

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Changi airport in Singapore is a magnificent airport filled with soothing classical music, real plants and an ambience rarely found in what can be hangar like structure in many other countries. It’s an easy flight from Australia; enough to have a sleep, watch a couple of movies and eat two meals. Multilingual signs are everywhere for everything, I think I saw the most amount of public toilets and drinking fountains I have ever seen in one place. Drink fountains are automatic and so is the flushing mechanism on the toilet. Once you get up it flushes, it gave me a little [View Full Entry]

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Shanghai second polytechnic university is a large campus with 10,000 students. My room overlooks the running track and basketball court and each student is encouraged to exercise each day as part of their studies, so students are seem ambling around the tracks at various times of the day. The basketball courts are busy most of the day with groups of students hanging out and shooting baskets. There is also an indoor stadium with badminton, table tennis and an indoor swimming pool. The dining halls are a short bike ride from our dormitory; a lot of the other Aussie staff eat out [View Full Entry]

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A group of 7 of us went out for a meal to the local eating out area. Off we went on our bikes sharing the space with scooters, no lights on anything, no helmets, but we all got there OK. All along the rode in one spot were local fruit stalls with loud speakers set up hawking their wares. One of the teachers speaks fluent Mandarin so we tried a restaurant that no one had been to before, a little further away than they have gone to. We got a great upstairs area to ourselves away from the other diners who [View Full Entry]

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We had another great social function for the Mackay group of AFS Intercultural Programs. 15 out of the 17 exchange students in the Mackay district came along with their host families and support families for a great afternoon and evening together. It was held at the beautiful Habana property of Dave and Jahn with the kids in the pool, families having a few drinks and superb catering courtesy of the great Aussie pie and the Pie Van. Santa arrived with presents to cap off another successful year. Barry has stepped down from the chair which will be done in 2008 by [View Full Entry]

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