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Published: August 6th 2007
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Hello and big hugs to everyone. We have arrived safe and sound in China. It has been quite the adventure already.
We boarded the airplane full of excitement. We were seated beside a very sweet older chinese lady, whose English was barely better than our Mandarin. She immediately wanted to make conversation and try to help us learn her language. The plane was huge, and had all the bells and whistles. Our seats had been changed to those by the emergency exits so we had extra leg room. Everything was great. We pulled off to the runway and turned back. There was possibly a problem with the fuel pump. By the time they fixed that, they had to get another pilot and change half the flight crew and get them all entry visas. So we should have left at 2:30pm, but didn't take off until 6:00 pm. Craig and I were so excited to finally get going we tried to start a round of applause but found it difficult to get everyone else on board. The flight was very long, and uneventful. Our kindly chinese neighbour worked on our chopstick technique, and taught us a few words, such as coke
View from Dormatory
TEDA is a town still be constructed. Here is the view from our dorm. - kele, and milk - cou. The sun never set as we were constantly heading west. They had us close the windows, and lowered the lights so that we could sleep. Once every so often I would crack open the window to blinding light. It just started going down when we hit Beijing, at 8pm.
Getting through the health inspection station and customs, finding our luggage, all went very smoothly. We found our driver, and fortunately there was a returning teacher, who had landed earlier as well. We were fortunate because our driver was a little nuts. He was from Tanggu (near TEDA), and its a miracle he made it to the Beijing airport! He had no idea how to get out of Beijing and drove around in circles for two hours! He would periodically get out of the van and ask people for directions - but nobody who was likely to own a car. Mostly poor people, or people with bicycles. He also stopped at a brothel (for the record they gave pretty good directions). The scary part was the stopping, he would just stop wherever, in the middle of the freeway,... anywhere! Oh, and did I mention
they dont use seatbelts here! We made it to TEDA around 1am, and were taken to the dormitories. We found a room and crashed. The drive had been nuts. Neither of us spoke our mind that night, we just laid there thinking... WHAT HAVE WE DONE?
I got up the next morning and started meeting other new teachers. We soon heard the school had no intention of paying our driver, and although chinese driving is kind of crazy, its not supposed to be like that. Everyone was really nice and by 10:30am that morning we were off with a real estate agent looking for apartments. (The dormitories were fine, but not for long). Betty - our agent - is awesome. She is chinese but speaks very good english. We saw a big range of apartments. They ranged from 2500-4500 RMB (or 400-700 Canadian) per month...furnished. We went cheap as we are paying on the mortgage here. But frankly, our place is no worse than the duplex we rented before we bought the house. There were some amazing aparments to be had, but the location became less convenient. We are a fifteen minute walk to the school. And there are
Our new friend
This lady taught us proper handling of chopsticks among other things on our 16 hours on the plane. all kinds of shops all around. Our landlord is really sweet.
Craig and I ventured out for lunch the first day all on our own. Stupidly, we ventured off the main avenue and tried a place that looked clean. There was no english on the menu. They had a special menu with pictures, and we had to guess, hope and point. I ordered what looked like pieces of chicken on lettuce with a dipping sauce. Craig ordered what looked like a flatbread. Well, first they brought an appetizer which we didn't order (turns out to be a normal practice). It was a custardy egg white (cooked) with beef jelly on top. It was really the beef jelly that completely turned my stomach. Still we each downed a small bowl with wonton spoons. Four staff members came over to watch us eat it, I think we provided a lot of amusement.
Next - what we actually ordered arrived. It turns out I ordered a mountain of cooked pork with dipping sauce. It was actually quite good, but a ridiculous amount of food. Craig had ordered something like an omelet. It tasted good at first but was extremely rich. Doing little justice to the quantity of food we paid our bill and went back to the school. The bill - a whopping $8 canadian. We cabbed it back, learned that taxis driving on the wrong side of the street is common practice and went to our dorms to relax.
That evening, two returning teachers brought us to the expat pub - the White House. We met a lot of different people, and tried the local beer - Tsingtao??? It was quite good. We stayed awake until 9pm and went to bed.
It was so good to sleep through the night.
The next day we felt much better and ready for new adventures. Things seemed easier already. More teachers were arriving and asking us what to do, and how to do things, and we only had one day's worth of experience. We went to the shopping mall, which is easy because there is no bartering. Its like a Zellers. Only ridiculously cheap. It made us happy. The grocery store also put us at ease because you can get most of the same products as here, you recognize the bottle or logo, but the name is different. We managed to succesfully purchase a cell phone, get it charged and change the language to English (with a little help from our real estate agent).
That night, five of us went to a Thai restaurant and it was really good. It also had some english on the menu. Craig and I felt more at ease again, feeling everything would be possible.
Sunday we moved into our apartment. Mostly I scrubbed. Its older for this town (eight years) but nothing ages well here. Chinese construction looks good but doesn't last. And pollution is a major problem, so nothing looks good for too long. I'll have to do a lot more cleaning before I'm completely happy. Our landlord bought us a watermelon, and we all slurped away happily in the kitchen (you slurp to show your appreciation for food here).
Today was the first day of orientation. There are seventeen new teachers at the school. The school is amazing (sorry Donna!) this year they are adding a biology room with a veterenarian whose job is to acquire and prepare live animals for display in the room. There are two amazing theatres. And and LCD projector mounted in every classroom. We had one hour of Chinese Language instruction.
I will try to post pictures of TEDA soon. Its very interesting looking. Lots of funky buildings and sculptures. But like I said, things look run down very quickly. There are vendors set up all over the streets, and night markets in the alleys at night. Its not that big...and we feel pretty comfortable already.
Everyday we feel better about our decision to be here. We are learning exponentially, but the people here are so kind and patient that its easy. I can't wait to meet my students.
Cheers to all.
Beth
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Rick Flanagan
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Ah...The Newness of it All
Guys, it sounds like such a great adventure. The school looks great, much better than I expected. I hope you continue with the travel blog, as I know Sue and I will really look forward to reading it. Good luck to both of you and have a great day.